News came this morning that the Landmark chain of theaters, which recently opened an amazing new venue called Atlantic Plumbing, is suing Regal Cinemas because, they claim, Regal has a monopoly in showing first runs of major motion pictures in Washington, D.C.'s "core." Matt D. Cohen has the details here.
I am ... skeptical about the case on the merits, in part because you can see first-run motion pictures just 2.4 miles away at the AMC in Georgetown. And there's another AMC in city limits, that one at Mazza Gallerie, that also show first-run movies. So it seems to me that Regal doesn't exactly have an iron grip on moviegoing in D.C.* But it does seem as though Regal has engaged in rather active restraint of competition:
In the few instances in which Landmark's Atlantic Plumbing has been licensed a commercial film by a distributor, Regal has made good on its threat to deprive the distributor of its film's grossing potential in the District Core by refusing to play the film at the Gallery Place in retaliation for not licensing the film exclusively to the Gallery Place. This occurred in the case of Steve Jobs (Universal), Love the Coopers, (Lionsgate), and Miss You Already (Roadside Attractions).
So who knows. Maybe they have a case, maybe they don't. I am excited for the courts to weigh in, though, because one of the key claims in Landmark's suit is that the Regal Gallery Place theater is, to put it bluntly, a garbage theater filled with garbage patrons. Cohen highlighted the following:
The suit details poor consumer experiences at Gallery Place as "typical," highlighting "long ticket and concession lines, large, loud, and unpleasant crowds (including teens and children) that can destroy the movie-going experience, a virtually constant police presence, sold-out shows, exorbitantly priced concessions, ticket price surcharges/fees, bag searches, dirty bathrooms, and standard (non-plush/oversized seatings." The lawsuit goes on to list specific examples of consumers' reports: "When seeing comedies, there tends to be a disproportionately huge number of annoyingly whooping, talking, and texting teens;" "Two out of three times, someone will be in there w[ith] their crying baby, loud kids shouting… or on the phone during the movie."
I can assure you that all of these things are one hundred percent true, and all contributed to me avoiding the theater on Fridays and Saturdays even though I literally lived around the corner for two years. The audiences at every PG-13—and, frankly, most R—rated films were, simply put, unacceptably rude: constantly on their phones, constantly yelling at the screen, constantly talking to each other. Just one small example of the thoughtlessness of Gallery Place's patrons: I sat through a screening of Skyfall next to a woman who had given her four-year-old a gaming system of some sort to play with while the movie was on.
So yeah. I'm basically down with Landmark and I hope they win their suit. The District Core's plenty big enough for two theaters: one for awful people and a smaller, nicer one for courteous people.
*Landmark's case relies on a relatively random distinction between the city writ large and the "District Core"; I'm not qualified to judge how that might play out in court, but I will say that the Mazza Gallerie theater is accessible via metro rail and the Georgetown theater is a short bus ride from Gallery Place. The Regal is certainly the most convenient theater for residents of the "District Core," but as someone who lived in that area for a long time, I can assure you that Gallery Place was not the only theater residents in this area attend.