An old saying goes that in order to find a solution to a problem, look to the future. But in the matter of helping cinemas wherever possible, where long-awaited releases don’t seem to be helping in the way that had been hoped, I don’t think the situation for cinema chains has changed that much. Despite how it looks, I do believe that cinemas have one card left to play, I’m talking of course about reissuing older films.
When I say reissuing films, I don’t mean bringing them out for a few days or a weekend for a holiday like Halloween, Christmas or even a special anniversary. What I’m thinking of is when an older film is out in cinemas again without rhyme or reason but because it can be and is. This is something that specialist cinemas like the GFT in Glasgow or Prince Charles in London both do, but I think that struggling cinema chains could do more with older films than they currently do.
I can think of a few reasons why such an idea could work. Of course the first and most obvious question would be, why would anyone want to see something that they can see on a TV, DVD, or even stream? The first real matter to consider is that many films are highly beloved by many people all over the world, and I’m willing to bet that many of them would jump at the chance to see a film they have seen and admired for years on the big screen, the way the people made it wanted it to be seen. I know this is a statement that has no doubt been repeated a lot but that doesn’t take anything from it being true. Besides there are plenty of films that I do kick myself for not seeing in the cinema and I’m sure other film fans feel the same about other films.
Consider this if you will. Back in the latter half of 2020 when the restrictions eased a little and cinemas were allowed to reopen, Showcase Cinemas had a small selection of older films playing. I can think of two reasons why this approach was chosen, the first since very little was coming out so a void had to be filled. Or if I was to be slightly cynical about it, it was a way to maybe convince reluctant cinemagoers to come back. But looking at what was on offer, just about all of them were classics that were well known. In this period alone I saw the first Jurassic Park, two Harry Potter films and Big. It may have been nothing short of a tactic to get money back into the place, but for me and anyone else who went in during that time, it proved very effective.
Something that has been learned into a lot over the past few years is the idea of nostalgia. Reissuing older films will likely bring back audiences who were there when a film was out for the first time and considered brand new, which could work, but of course nostalgia becomes even more beneficial if some of the audience seeing an older film now were just children when it first came out. Now you have a healthy mix of old fans as well as new ones. I feel it works along the same lines that allowed sequels like Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Top Gun: Maverick to be made. However those were made now and nostalgia was just a factor; my ideas are very much focussed on seeing a classic film on screen and maybe just maybe experiencing a feeling of being young again.
When a new film is out that you want to see it is perfectly reasonable to want to be there on time and not miss a single second, tickets have been booked and you know that there are normally twenty minutes of adverts and trailers before the actual film starts. Even with that there is still potentially bad traffic to worry about, along with long queues in the lobby and how fast the people at the desk can serve you. If all of these turn out to be slow then you will likely be late and miss the opening minutes. In the case of seeing an older film such worries may only be minimal, seeing it all would ideal but the key difference is, you know what you are missing. During the period of relaxed restrictions I was late to just about every film I went to, probably because I failed to account for the trailers being shorter due to a lack of films coming to cinemas at that point. I remember coming into a screening of Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban and to my surprise it was already in the middle of the ‘Knight Bus’ sequence. This meant I had missed more than I would have liked to but I had seen it before so there wasn’t much of a need to worry about what I had missed.
It happened to me again not too long ago when I was seeing another Harry Potter film. I was at a 20th anniversary showing of Chamber Of Secrets and knew very well that it’s a long one, in fact the longest film in that franchise. Before I even went to see it I knew that it was going to be long and that if there was a part of it I really didn’t mind missing, it was the Quidditch scene. Some people I’m sure adore those but I think they can be a bit boring and in a film that is nearly three hours long, it’s maybe a bit much. So when it came on I took a break and took a brief walk outside the screening room. I knew what I was missing and was letting myself do so, and it didn’t bother me at all. I did stay close the screening room door so I could still hear it and went back in when the scene was wrapping up.
Notice the difference in approach between dealing with a new film and an older one – with newer ones everything seems to be about rushing to get there on time but with older ones there is more of a relaxed nature to them. You could miss the start but as you have already seen it, the question becomes have you actually missed anything important? I don’t think I have experienced such a feeling yet, but I think for some cinemagoers it could be comforting to be going to something familiar and hopefully not putting an infuriating amount of emphasis on not missing any of it.
It has been said before that people may appreciate something more the first time and films are no exception. But occasionally a time comes where it’s possible to appreciate something more than you did the first time. Such a thing happened to me last year when I went to a see a screening of Shrek 2. I’d seen it before and liked it well enough, but something happened seeing it that day, it didn’t drag, the animation was worth admiring and above all else I think I found it entertaining in a way that I hadn’t before. I left the cinema that day feeling very surprised. I didn’t go to the cinema too much last year but not only did I not expect to be going to a screening of Shrek 2, I also didn’t also expect to like it as much as I did.
If such an idea as this was to take off I don’t know really where you would begin or how you’d decide what deserves to be reissued. I would say firstly that they should be films that are popular and have critical acclaim behind them. Make it a good mix of films that would look amazing on the big screen. They should be varied but they should also be crowd-pleasers. I missed Martin Scorsese’s Hugo when It came out in 2011. I eventually saw it and felt like kicking myself for missing it.
Going back to that idea of nostalgia, I’m currently in my twenties and if it hasn’t started already, then very soon people of my generation or slightly older may get nostalgic for the films that seemed to dominate their childhoods. I’m not sure what reissued films a trend of 2000s nostalgia might bring back – perhaps The Simpsons Movie, The Dark Knight, some of the early Potter films, maybe even the Bourne trilogy could make a comeback to cinemas. There could maybe be multiple line-ups for all the different genres. I know Disney and Pixar made some well-respected films in the past twenty years so I would expect some of their films would come out again. Nostalgia could once again be the driving force.
Like anyone else I do have my own ideas about what I would like to see in a cinema if the chance came along. I would go to a screening of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory which was the first film I saw in the cinema and it’s turning twenty in two years’ time. I would also go and see a classic like Psycho if I could. I doubt Charlie would get an anniversary as it’s not on the level of something of Jurassic Park, Die Hard, or any of the films that do come back to cinema screens, but I do like the idea of it. If I had to be realistic, I think a twentieth anniversary screening of Casino Royale as well as a thirtieth one for Toy Story feel like they could actually happen, and yes, I would probably go and see both of them. I would also like to see the first Home Alone – yes, I know it comes back every Christmas but I always seem to miss out on it.
Right now cinemas are being held together by films from cinematic universes like DC and Marvel or longstanding franchises like The Fast and The Furious. People may have liked them once but to a majority I wonder if such films are feeling stale? I have also heard people complain that the films of today are not as good in terms of quality when compared to what came in the previous decades. Regular reissuing of older films would offer an alternative to what can be seen in a cinema, especially to people who feel like most of what cinemas are showing at the moment lacks a sense of variety. I remember looking at a picture of a Showcase Cinema taken in what must have been 2002. Just looking at some of what was showing, they had Road To Perdition, Spider-Man and Stuart Little 2. Only one of those may be able to hold the title of ‘high calibre film’ but I still felt that with just those films alone to choose from I would have felt a little spoiled for choice. I don’t think that’s a feeling that comes to people easily now, although at least Mission Impossible looks like it still has something fresh to offer.
Right know this is just an idea inside my head but what cinemas do already with the seasonal and anniversary showings prove that reissuing films can work. It would just have to be made a fixture of them. Not to mention that if done correctly it would bring audiences back and in turn the cinemas would make money. Of course there is the fact the average filmgoer will in most cases only pay to see something in cinemas once, while true film fans would happily go back. It’s hypothetical at best, but if this worked it might just turn a few heads and show that fans both average and devoted could turn up as long as the films were carefully chosen. I don’t know what most people would say about this, probably that such an idea is crazy, some chains like Vue seem to do it a lot and if they can do it, what’s to stop others from joining in? But taking it further: to my mind regular reissued films feel like an attraction worth going to.