The setup : The long awaited movie ' Lord of the
Rings' was due to open on Boxing day in Australia
(a week or two after New Zealand). An eager
fan wanted to see it as soon as possible but no
movie theatres (in all of NSW!) were offering the
now-common 'One past Midnight' screening on
opening day, so he took the incentive and
organized a private session with one of the local
cinemas. The only catch was that he needed to
muster up at least some 150-200 people before the
theatre owner would consider it. In the end, a
group of around 350 people were mustered up (of
which I was going to be one).
That's when I got this email :
Just got this very disappointing news from Kirk. Some bureaucrat has
ruinned everything. I am really sorry to everyone who (like me) now has
to contact all their friends and cancel.
The Nortel contingent was to be 83(!) which would have taken Kirks
numbers to about 350.
What else can I say .. I'm really sorry.
AJB
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Lord of the Rings Illawarra Premier is OFF
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 14:42:36 +1000
From: xxxxxx@xxx.com.au
Hello,
I have some really bad news. I'm really sorry to announce that the private
screening has had to be cancelled.
The numbers I have are 270 people definitely registered so we had enough
people. I am confident that we would have sold over 300 tickets.
The Gala was all lined up and staff were organised.
I had contacted Wollongong Hospital Kids ward to line up a donation of our
proceeds to them.
Harry at the Gala received a call this morning from Roadshow Australia (the
film's distributor in Australia) telling him that he was not allowed to
screen LOTR before his normally scheduled morning sessions and that if he
continued with our plan to run it they would withhold the reels from him
and drive them down to him on Boxing day morning. From what I can tell one
of the Greater Union theatres in Wollongong complained/enquired to their
head office who in turn contacted Roadshow.
I (plus some friends) have spent the better part of today trying to locate
another cinema that was doing what we were as if we could show someone else
was doing we may have had a chance . It turns out there are NO cinemas in
Sydney or Melbourne running this session.
I contacted Roadshow Australia and spoke to the head of Marketing and
Distribution for NSW, Paul McKenzie about the event (mentioning we were
donating to charity as well). He indicated that Roadshow decided (for NO
reason he could give me other than 'thats just the policy') that they would
not allow it to be shown earlier than the 'regularly scheduled morning
session' anywhere in Australia. He informed me that there was NO WAY this
policy would be changed. I asked to speak with the National Marketing
Manager but was informed that he and the rest of the Marketing department
are in New Zealand. Yes you guessed it at the premier of
LOTR!!!.
I have emailed a couple of LOTR mailing lists and fan sites in the hope
that they may have contacts in New Line or elsewhere that would be
sympathetic. I even emailed our plight to the Official LOTR Web site. I
have no other avenues to follow at the moment.
I am really sorry about this. I wanted to see this at 12.01am as much as
the rest of you and have put a LOT of time and effort into it in the last
week. Please pass on my apologies (and Harry at the Gala). If the situation
changes in the next day I will let you know.
Regards,
Kirk.
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