The Doug Wright show where Utah news breaks on KSL
news radio 102.7 FM and 1160 AM.
Ok, now we need some different music
here.
Yeah, we gotta' do something different,
get rid of that. Ok, here we go.
Ok, over the weekend,
how many of you went out to see Rogue
One, a Star Wars story? It's not one of
the regular episodes this is kind of one
of those, you know, it was it was
described during our remote last week
by Cal Gunderson of the Megaplex
theatres. He books all of the screenings
for Megaplex. He described it as episode
3.5. Now the true geeks here in the
station have said, "no it's more like 3.9"
because it's right before episode four,
where the very first Star Wars movie started.
And there's a little goody at the end
that really shows you where this
comes to the doorstep, let's put it that
way. So I would be interested to hear
from you, for those who did see, A Star
Wars story, Rogue One over the weekend I'd
be interested in your reviews with no
spoilers.
We'll just kind of keep it at how many
stars would you give it out of four and
also just kind of what was your
favorite thing or did you have a concern.
But again keep it real, real, general. I
don't want in any way shape or form
anything that we might say on the
program to be a spoiler on this. We're
very, very, careful and what's interesting
last week when we actually
did the reviews. Now I'll tell you this
movie overall did very, very, well. Now
compared to the last Star Wars movie, you
know the Star Wars, The Force Awakens, I
mean holy smoke.
I mean it was just killing it with the
domestic numbers of 248 million. This
movie opened with about 100
million dollars less but wow. When you
look at a 155 million
dollar opening in North America and you
look at 290.5 million globally,
making it the top movie around the world.
This was nothing to sneeze at. It
exceeded Disney's expectations by quite
a bit. They thought, "well, we're going to
be between 120,
maybe on the outside of 150. No, it was
a 155 million and
that ain't bad. And we have joining us
right now when we did our remote
broadcast from Jordan Commons last week,
I mentioned that we would be making a phone
call to Blake Anderson and he is the head
of the Megaplex Theatres to kind of see
how our local numbers were. And boy Blake,
on the, on the national and internet, well
on the North America and the
international number chart, this thing
killed it over the weekend.
Yes, it's just been off the charts and
I'm happy to report that Megaplex
Theatres at Jordan Commons led the
nation. We are number one in the nation,
busiest seat in the nation and we're so
grateful to our fans our Star Wars fans
and the fun that we had this weekend. It
was a lot of fun. You know, you mentioned
the fun this weekend, you know our company, we
had three screens over at the Megaplex
Gateway Theaters and I saw it for a
second time on Saturday afternoon at
two o'clock and it was so much fun.
And I have to tell you to Blake you know
when I watched the first one I have to
admit that a lot of the locations, a lot
of the names and all these new
characters and everything, almost
overwhelm me. Seeing it a second time, I
actually enjoyed it, I think more and it
clarified a bunch of stuff and then to
see it with my friends and colleagues
from KSL and we brought along some
family members, as well and it was really,
we just had a great time. It is fun,
you know I've been able to talk to a
lot of our fans and I visited theaters
and heard them discussing the movie.
I think everyone is really pleasantly
surprised that this movie is as good as
it is. It is really, really good and we
found that over the weekend like
yourself, many were coming back second and third
times. Now I know you had all kinds of
fun things going on, little cameo
appearances by R2-D2 and others were
just kind of frequenting when we had the
movie on Saturday afternoon. We had Santa
Claus there. We had Darth Vader there. We
had stormtroopers there I mean, we
had this thing nailed. That's just it. You
know, everywhere I went and I tried to hit as
many of our theaters as I could here on
the Wasatch Front over the weekend and
just visiting and having fun with
fans but Darth Vader's would show up
and stormtroopers. You know, unsolicited
and in really, really good costumes and
you know, we have our security checks and
all that. So we were all good there but I
was amazed at Jordan Commons on Saturday
night, a group called us and they wanted
to do a Star Wars flashmob, just kind
of a battle here in the lobby and we
got to go ahead and improve all of
their, you know, costumes and scenery and
what-have you. And it was so much fun. It
looked like a scene right out of the
movie. You know, I'm sure you're still
counting the numbers and you're still
you know, sitting there trying to figure
everything out but how did the other
theaters do, as well? You know normally
the district kills it and everything
else. District was number
four in the nation. We had four of the
Megaplexes this place in the top 20. So we
felt really good. I mean our fans were
turning up everywhere and this is
by far you know second biggest opening
in December ever. Just behind the last
year Star Wars and as you said earlier
in your broadcast, that people including
the studios were not expecting this one
to do what it's doing and people are
pleasantly surprised that how good it is.
Boy, 155 million and then the
international numbers to be as high. 290
almost 291 and by the way I understand
that that didn't even include China, the
second-largest movie market in the world.
Yeah and you know what it will do over
there. So yeah, this is a home run for
Disney and I think it's a sigh of relief
for real Star Wars fans because people
are a little bit nervous going off, you
know the set Star Wars, storyline.
And to do some of these offshoots but
they did such a good job with it and
just such an incredible job filling in
holes and giving us some background
details that even the super fans seem to
really enjoy it.
You know, I know during our broadcast
last Thursday, out of Jordan Commons, a
lot of us were wondering, you know
will this movie have legs and that's
what makes all the difference. I mean
it's wonderful to have a great
opening weekend. A lot of times that can
be a curiosity and anticipation thing
but will you go back and see it again?
And I'm here to attest that I enjoyed
seeing it for the second time, as much
or perhaps even more because things
really began to clarify.I began to
really kind of relate to who was who and
what was one in that movie.
Yeah, right. I think that, I think you're
right Doug. The second time you relax a
little bit and you just, you're just
able to take it in and start filling in
the pieces that first time. It is just
so much stimuli in your face all the
time that you're just caught up in it.
The second time you're able to kind of
process it a little better. Blake, do you have
any idea at kind of its peak, how
many screens, how many screens
do you guys have now?
Well we're up to 186 screens and
from our calculations on opening night,
it most likely played and you know we
ran way into the night. We were showing 1 AM to 2 AM
and you know 6 in the morning
shows and all that but we
figured it probably hit somewhere around
140 screens at some point, playing
everywhere way late into the night. So,
it's pretty impressive. That is amazing
and again you know, to play that many
theaters back in the old days would have
been almost impossible. You would have
film running up and down
every hall backwards and forwards and
just praying that nobody, as you mentioned you
actually slam the door on that once, didn't you?
Yeah, I did. You know when we used to run
the film through the different places, I walked
out of the room and shut the door and
then shut everything down.
It wasn't very pretty. But in the digital world
the possibilities are just endless.
Blake, we had such a great time there
last Thursday. I'm glad that this movie
is killing it because you know, we all love Star Wars.
I think I do. I think secretly,
we just, we were so nervous. We don't want
anyone to mess this great franchise up
and I'm so pleased that Disney has done
what they're doing with it and we
can look forward to the next one and
keep, you know keep our eyes set down the
road because there's still a great story
to tell. It was so much fun seeing Darth
Vader again wasn't it? Only in his
glory on the screen, it was great. And then that final
scene where you,
really get the handoff, wow.
Now the the next episode 8, if I'm right
doing all the math right,
when does that come out? They're looking at
the year from now, so we'll see. Now we
have heard from Disney that at
some point they may start releasing
Summer again but we don't have
confirmation when that will happen but
right now, December's been a good hit for
them. So we're planning on a year from
now, unless Disney does something and
then rolls it out in May but right now its
for December. Interesting, Blake I so
appreciate the great relationship we
have with the Megaplex theatres because
we really, truly do in this area, thanks
to you guys. You have the greatest theaters
in the known universe and the
relationship we have on the movie show
especially. We appreciate it. I wish you well
and thank you so much.
Merry Christmas to you and to all of our
fans and thanks everyone for supporting
Megaplex theatres. A merry Christmas to
you as well. Blake Anderson, with the
Megaplex theatres here at KSL Newsradio.
Where it is,
11:17. Let's go ahead and take a break.
We'll come right back and by the way, in
our next segment, we caught something
that was kind of interesting today and
it was the things you need to be aware
of if you want to,
let's see exactly how it's worded here,
let me grab it. Six things the doctors
want you to know about staying out of
the ER this holiday season. So we got a
big ho-ho-ho and who do we turn to?
Of course, we turn to Senator and Dr.
Brian Shiozawa, who will be joining us
and we'll talk with the good senator/doctor
about avoiding the holiday
injuries. And that's coming up next right
here on the Doug Wright show at KSL
Newsradio and then the tail end of the
program,
what do you put other than
presents under the Christmas tree?
Doug's breaking news no one else has
access to. More updates that affect you
and Doug's take. Coming up on KSL Newsradio.