Movie Per-plex: Multiplex Problems

Even the studios (which should be happy with the skewed percentage cut) are concerned about the shortened runs. According to Sherak, megaplexes are so eager to stack their theaters with the newest blockbuster that movies are being yanked more quickly to make room for new releases when there's still some more cash to make. ''You get no gross when you come off the screen,'' he adds. ''Movies like [1998's long-running] There's Something About Mary — which continues to play because more of the population goes, and it's a living thing — are few and far between.''

Movie theaters, on the other hand, are not so few and far between — and exhibitors' problems won't end until they are. Theater chains still own too many old-school, flat-floored cinemas in strip malls and shopping centers, which their very own neighboring megaplexes are threatening to put out of business. Unbreakable extended leases and oddly shaped lots make these hard to sublet, so owners have no easy way to dim the old lights. ''We're talking about having to remove probably 15,000 screens before the industry turns,'' says PaineWebber entertainment analyst Christopher Dixon.

The major exhibitors are finally cutting back on their expansion until older theaters can be shuttered, but new megaplexes are still going up because of contracts signed before reality set in: Regal is adding 22 theaters this year (down from 54 in 1999) from deals made back in 1998 and earlier. Not that they have much choice in scaling back: Few investors want to help them expand, considering how saddled with debt they are. ''Three to five years ago, motion picture exhibition was considered a darling of Wall Street,'' says National Assocation of Theatre Owners (NATO) president John Fithian. ''In the last year and a half, it turned sour.'' However, Fithian blames this bearish outlook on ''short-term return mentality'' and says that a new construction phase will prove necessary within a couple of years. ''If exhibition doesn't continue to offer state-of-the-art theaters ... we won't be able to protect the primacy of theatrical release.''

Meanwhile, the chains are trying new tactics to stabilize their business. General Cinemas turned one older Seattle theater into a ''Cinema Grill,'' with tables and waiter service in the screening room, and converted the Castleton, an Indianapolis threeplex in the shadow of a megaplex, into an art house with a lounge and a library of film books.

Then there are the more straightforward financial lifesavers. Chains are increasingly running paid commercials before movies, a trend that has finally beaten moviegoers into submission. ''[Hissing] was a phenomenon we had when the program was first introduced,'' says AMC's King. ''It passed pretty quickly. I think our audiences are accepting that now.''

And, of course, there's the ultimate lifeline: raising ticket prices. This year's 39-cent increase was the largest in a decade, and some attribute the drop in admissions to this hike. But even though a recent MTV/EW Youth Intelligence poll of 14- to 30-year-olds found 55 percent saying a bump of $2 a ticket would reduce their moviegoing, virtually everyone in the industry maintains pricing is fair and could afford to go even higher. ''The free market works,'' says NATO's Fithian. ''If patrons don't believe that it's a true economic value, I'm sure we'll hear about it.'' Says Jack Valenti, president of the MPAA, ''I think ticket prices are low ... You compare a movie ticket with a rock concert, basketball game, football game, it's the cheapest price in town.'' But given all those stadium seats, for how much longer?