FOUR LIONS beat out TOY STORY 3, EASY A, THE OTHER GUYS, and GET HIM TO THE GREEK to take the top spot. Watch the acceptance speech here:

“We’re ecstatic to partner with Fandango, the industry leader in online ticketing.  Theatrical releases & our specialty programming can sell out days, even weeks in advance and sometimes after minutes of being available for purchase, so online and mobile ticketing is a huge part of our business.  As we prepare to expand to Los Angeles, New York and other markets across the country, this Fandango partnership will be integral to reaching new moviegoers with easy access to advance ticketing,” said Tim League, Alamo Drafthouse CEO & Founder. 

“Alamo Drafthouse Cinema deserves its acclaim as one of the most innovative exhibitors in the country,” says Rick Butler, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of Fandango. “We’re thrilled to work with Tim League and his Alamo team, as they’re constantly looking for new ways to redefine the cinema experience. They are all about providing showmanship for their customers, and we’re excited to help them make their screenings and events even more convenient, fun and memorable.”

In an effort to provide unique editorial & promote the Alamo Drafthouse experience to their users, Fandango will begin a weekly “Guide to the Alamo Drafthouse” highlighting special events and screenings so people will never miss out an opportunity to see “Robosaurus” before a TRANSFORMERS screening or paddle down a river in a canoe for an outdoor screening of DELIVERANCE.

Alamo Drafthouses will soon dot the landscape of the Austin map, from north to south.

If you’ve driven by South Mopac and West Slaughter Lane in the past week, you may have seen some earth being moved. That would be the work of Stratus Properties, who is making initial steps in preparation for the groundbreaking on the Parkside Village retail and medical office center in southwest Austin.

The retail space will include a 33,650-square-foot Alamo Drafthouse, the largest to date, that will have eight digital projection screens and seat 1000 people. It will be the first built from the ground up and will serve as a model for the company that has 10 existing locations in Texas and Virginia and plans to continue its growth across the country.

“We can’t wait to offer the Alamo Drafthouse experience to Circle C residents,” says Tim League, CEO/Founder of Alamo Drafthouse. “We’re pulling out all the stops to make the Parkside Alamo the most technically impressive Alamo yet and will ensure that it continues our unique programming philosophy.”

by Karen Valby

Forget the Coke-stained multiplex, the shameless cesspools of texters and talkers. You no longer have to endure those chirpy offers to supersize the syrupy soda and leaden popcorn. No way babies at the late show, not tonight! In this week’s issue, we sing the praises of eight movie theaters who deserve your loyalty. But there’s been perhaps no one more visionary in redefining the theater experience than Alamo Drafthouse Founder Tim League, who opened his first theater in Austin, Texas back in 1997. (Today there are nine other locations across Texas, plus one in Virginia.)

“Tim makes s— awesome,” says Aaron Hillis, the program director of Brooklyn’s similarly awesome reRun Theater.  ”He understands value and showmanship. He gives people a real excuse to want to be in the dark with the collective mass instead of watching a DVD at home.” Fans flock not just for the good eats and rounds of Shiner the servers bring to you throughout the movie. It’s the crazy beautiful encyclopedic love of film that runs reel-like through the blood of Drafthouse enthusiasts. Herewith League presents his top five favorite signature events from the Alamo Drafthouse’s storied history. Robosaurus in the house? Bring it. A celebration of underwater Nazi zombie movies? Take it away, dude.

November 14, 1998
Russ Meyer live in person
I called RM Films to book Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.  To my surprise, Russ Meyer himself answered the phone, so I asked him to accompany the film to Austin. These screenings were a mix of happiness and sadness though. Russ was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease at the time and really shouldn’t have been traveling. We had three screenings booked and he only wanted to do one Q&A.  The evening was a game of diversions, stalling, bribery and begging, and in the end we got all three screenings done.  Those were some of the wildest, funniest and most absurd Q&As in Alamo Drafthouse history. Russ Meyer is a legend, and I am very happy to have gotten the chance to meet him.

February 21, 2001
First Weird Wednesday: Shock Waves
We just celebrated the 10th Anniversary of Weird Wednesday this month and it all began with Shock Waves, the very best in underwater Nazi zombie movies. Every Wednesday at midnight, Alamo Drafthouse programmer Lars Nilsen curates a different 35mm screening of an exploitation classic. He introduces the film, runs vintage trailers beforehand and there is always a lively discussion afterwards in the lobby. I am particularly proud of this series, because I think we have cultivated a unique brand of exploitation film enthusiasts in Austin.  Anywhere else in the world where you watch these films, the audience is rowdy, unruly, and disrespectful. At Weird Wednesday, the audience enjoys the films just as much, but we celebrate instead of mock.

June 11, 2005
Ultimate earthquake Experience
We screened the disaster classic Earthquake with an augmented sound system — 70,000 watts of subwoofer power that was set up directly above the dormant Balcones Fault. We advertised the event as having the potential to reawaken the long-dormant fault. When we kicked in the earthquake system, it was so loud that air from the speakers was actually rippling people’s clothing. A flood of noise complaints came in from a three-mile radius surrounding the screening. It was so wide a range that it took the police an hour to figure out where we were.

July 2, 2007
Robosaurus and Transformers
This was a boyhood dream come true. Hiring Robosaurus, a 60 ft. metal monstrosity, to come to your party to breath fire and eat cars. For the opening of Transformers in 2007, this just seemed like something that had to be done.

June 6-8, 2008
Rolling Roadshow Tour in Spain
We brought our series of “famous movies in famous places” to Almería, Spain in the summer of 2008 for a screening of the Sergio Leone “Dollars” trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly).  This was the first and only time we have taken the Rolling Roadshow outside the United States.  These three movies all rank in my top 20 films of all time, and many of the locations were still in pristine condition. Leone fans from all over the world flew in for the event; it became something of a geek movie pilgrimage.
Photo Credit: Annie Ray

From the corporate world to franchise ownership — how business owners make the transition.

By Jason Daley   |   Entrepreneur Magazine – March 2011

Express yourself if you can

Tim League’s venture into franchising was a little different. In 1997, he founded the Alamo Drafthouse–a movie-theater chain that serves food and drinks and hosts film festivals and various other events. The Austin, Texas-area business grew rapidly, and a new COO who was preparing to franchise the concept wanted League to stay on as CEO of the franchise organization.

But League felt that he wasn’t ready. After opening the first franchise, he decided to step back and maintain his own store, and in 2004, he let another team franchise the company outside of Austin. For about six years, the two groups grew independently, until they merged last year, with League as CEO of the 10-store chain.

“We’ve benefited from the stronger training and accounting infrastructure the franchising group developed while we were apart,” he says. “I maintained a much larger entertainment, marketing, advertising staff. I think I had a hang-up initially just with the idea and term ‘franchise.’ One of the reasons I stepped away was I wasn’t sure that the growth model would work for us because we had such unique, non-cookie-cutter aspects.

“In that time, I realized you could use the franchise model to expand, and each store could be the same in quality of offering, but we would give them a certain level of freedom. Offering that level of freedom is an inherent part of the company.”

League estimates that about 80 percent of the Alamo Drafthouse experience comes from the corporate brand book, but the remaining 20 percent of the ideas and initiatives in his stores are created by franchisees, who use local ingredients in their menus and cater their movies to local tastes. That, he contends, is what gives his company its strength.

But it took that time away from the corporate structure for League to find the soul of his company and appreciate the value franchisees can bring to a brand when given the freedom. “Strangely enough, I think it’s worked out perfectly,” he says. “It’s a really odd path. It’s that unique element that has come forth from running my stores as a mom-and-pop operation.”

Rebecca Fondren

By Michelle Kung

Today, the Alamo Drafthouse will host their annual Valentine’s-themed film and feast series at various theaters in its Texas-based franchise. Patrons can buy tickets to one of several romantically-themed films — including “Chocolat” with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, “The Princess Bride” with Cary Elwes and Robin Wright, and the musical “West Side Story” with Natalie Wood — and enjoy a multi-course themed meal with their movie.

Dishes such dungeness crab dumplings — which are served as part of an “Eat Drink Man Woman” pairing — are created by Alamo Drafthouse executive chef John Bullington.

According to Bullington, he and the Alamo Drafthouse team start talking about what films they want to design menus for and show for Valentine’s Day around Christmas of the year before. This year, the film and menu that sold out the fastest was for “The Princess Bride”, for which Bullington created his version of a screeching eel – namely, an eel prepared with a blood orange glaze and paired with some greens.

While most of the movie-goers who come to the Alamo Drafthouse’s various Valentine’s events are couples, Bullington says singletons buy tickets as well to enjoy such dishes as his roast game hen with chocolate sauce, which is served as a part of the menu for “Chocolat”. The Lasse Hallstrom film, which stars Binoche as a chocolatier, is Bullington’s favorite to prepare for guests because in addition to the regular meals, employees drop off bags of chocolate every time Binoche’s character gives away a chocolate.

“They definitely end up eating a lot of chocolate,” he says. “When you factor in the sauces, it’s probably the equivalent of eating three-fourths of a pound to a full pound of chocolate during the movie. Luckily, chocolate is the ultimate aphrodisiac”

See Bullington’s recipe for the Roast Game Hen with Chocolate Sauce from “Chocolat.”

Ingredients:

For the game hen:

One Cornish Game Hen

To taste Salt and pepper

Cut the game hen in half, season with salt and pepper and either grill or roast in a preheated 350F oven to an internal temperature of 165 F

For the sauce:

2 cups Chicken Stock

¼ cup shallot, minced

Tsp butter

¼ lb 73% chocolate

TBS roasted garlic

TBS honey

To taste kosher salt

Directions:

1. Heat the butter in a sauce pot.

2. Add the shallots and sauté until translucent.

3. Add the chicken stock and roast garlic and bring to a boil.

4. Reduce to a simmer and cook the chicken stock until it is half a cup

5. Puree and strain the stock.

6. Add the honey, chocolate and kosher salt and stir until the chocolate is melted.

8. Keep warm, until you serve

Ever wonder who all those people are flying out of Van Nuys Airport on private aircraft? Per Geoff Boucher‘s rip-roaring LA Times article, one recent such take-off was winging Jon Favreau and his Cowboys & Aliens producer Ron Howard down to Austin, Texas for a critical rough footage preview of the Universal Pictures summer release at an Alamo Drafthouse event organized by Harry Knowles.

The beauty of the piece is the way it contrasts Favreau’s deft management of the new rules of “early fan engagement” with Howard’s clear admission that dealing with Twitter, Facebook and blog buzz is still a relatively new and scary process. Explains Howard:

“There’s a conversation now with fans and it starts a long time before the movie is even finished. The frightening thing for me is if somehow the wrong story gets out there and your film is misunderstood in some way… you need to shape the message, really. But Jon is the expert at this stuff.”

He sure is. Favreau works the Butt-Numb-a-Thon crowd like a pro and elicits the best piece of feedback he could possibly have hoped for, a screamed out, “You made Harrison Ford kick ass again!” On the return flight to Van Nuys, Boucher notes that the first order of business for Favreau upon landing is checking into Twitter and reports on websites such as HitFix.com.

And to think that once upon an Old West media time, it was what Hollywood trade movie reviewers said that mattered most to a big studio film like Cowboys & Aliens.

Indie venues get creative touting their fringe fare

By Aaron Hillis

American arthouses screening the latest studio-backed indies (“Black Swan,” “The King’s Speech”) can piggyback their marketing efforts on distributors’ deep-pocketed campaigns, but with limited ad budgets — if any at all — these same theaters must be doubly crafty in attracting audiences to their more unusual programming.
The common catch-all solution beyond direct e-mail blasts has been social media, certainly the most ubiquitous and economical outreach tool available. Though L.A.-based American Cinematheque volunteers regularly poll ticketbuyers to learn how they heard about each show, without a precise gauge to track the success of an active Twitter or Facebook account announcing special events and giveaways, focused strategies become crucial.

“As social networks multiply, so does our workload,” laments Bryn Mawr Film Institute president and CEO Juliet Goodfriend, who also finds it increasingly hard to nab print coverage in her local Pennsylvania publications. To leverage awareness, the Institute writes and posts press releases for every single one of their programs.

Hadrian Belove, who heads up L.A.’s Cinefamily, co-presents events with like-minded organizations (such as the nonprofit web radio collective Dublab) to spread the word: “I work hard to encourage other subcultures and people already gathered to join up with us, then I tap into their social network. I would rather have the chief of a little tribe with a really good personal email list than an article in a local paper.”

Thinking outside the cinema increases potential for larger, diverse crowds. “I’m interested in people who aren’t necessarily the same moviegoers,” Belove says. “Like those who go to museums, music and comedy shows.”

To cast that wider net, key programmers cite specialized fare like opera, ballet and environmental film series, particularly region-exclusive curation. Not far from Harvard and MIT, the Coolidge Corner Theater (Brookline, Mass.) taps into their academic community with a monthly “Science on Screen” series, pairing live presentations by scientists and other experts with feature films.

“We had someone who wrote a book on demonic apes and male violence introducing a screening of ‘Fight Club,’ and an animal behavioral expert introduced ‘Best in Show,’?” explains Beth Gilligan, the Coolidge Corner’s associate director of development, marketing and outreach. “Although there was a science angle, it still has a populist feel.”

In the end, the simplest approach might be in clear sight. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema CEO Tim League, whose blend of showmanship with in-theater food and drink service has helped make his Austin-based brand a world-renowned institution, says: “Our customer base is in the building. We effectively promote to the people already at the theater for shows happening maybe three to five weeks down the road, getting them excited to come back.”

What do you eat when you watch the extended versions of all three Lord of the Rings movies? The Alamo Drafthouse served up an eight-course meal during its LOTR marathon, including First Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies and Coney Stew. Check out exclusive photos below.

The gourmet servings of hobbit food were part of the Alamo’s regular Film/Feast event, which always has one special event that focuses on Tolkien’s masterwork every year. The attention to detail is astounding. The three movies, back to back, added up to twelve hours, with Hobbit-inspired food being served at each Hobbit mealtime. The menu tells the awesome story — plus there’s also a video about the event.

Want to learn how to make Coney Stew? The Alamo Drafthouse’s Executive Chef, John Bullington, came up with a recipe, which we’ve posted here.

Photo Credit: Cory Ryan