Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 37

ALBO Arts Entertainment Sunday, July 16, 1978 Page 1, Section theaters." (This caused some problems at the height of the film's popularity: "Las Vegas gas stations two blocks from a theater were complaining about people standing in line using their The film will run for seven weeks after going into general release on July 21, then will be retired indefinitely, surely to return one day a la "Gone With the Wind" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." To retain the picture's integrity and profitability it has never been shown on TV, either network or closed circuit or on an airliner or a military installation. As the all-time box office grosser, the picture's receipts now top $219 million in the United States and Canada (it passed "Jaws" last Thanksgiving). Film rentals top $138 million domestically and $38 million abroad. What will "Star Wars" do during this final seven-week push? "I won't try to estimate," Boone says, "but this picture has been the phenomenon of all-time and my gut feeling is that it will go through the roof." NAL The heroes of "Star Wars." On the left, Artoo-Detoo, left, and See Threepio, the intelligent robots. On the right, Mark Hamill as Luke Sky-walker, left, and Harrison Ford as Han Solo protect Carrie Fisher as Princess-Leia who cuddles the friendly Chewbacca, a wookie.

IP8 wmmmmMmmmm The Force Comes On Strong With 'Star Wars9 Blitz By MARTIN ROSSMAN Los Angeles Times Washington Post Service LOS ANGELES "The Force" will be with you this summer with a vengeance. For three and a half days in mid-July, Twentieth Century-Fox will bombard you with an unprecedented media blitz for "Star Wars," a galactic explosion signaling one final push before the all-time box office leader is retired. The strategy, planned with the precision and secrecy of a commando raid, has involved identifying the as-yet untapped audience, designing and producing enough new commercials to amount to a snort movie in themselves, and buying up the necessary television time before competitors or the networks knew what was afoot. The goal: to fill a string of 1,500 theaters and drive-ins in the United States and Canada starting July 21, D-day for the campaign. theater, a film is booked into second, third and fourth-run houses in the area.

But with "Star Wars," Fox simply has let the contracts drop. As a result, the number of theaters showing the film has been allowed to dwindle from its peak last summer, when there were more than 1,100 prints in circulation. The decision was made to open in neighborhood theaters from coast to coast on the same day which was chosen carefully. Boone won't divulge how this package was put together, but it is obvious that he is proud of the coup. "We feel 97.1 percent of all homes with TV will see at least one commercial," he says.

It is expected to reach over 55 million homes, with the average viewer seeing seven different spots. So much for TV. Additionally, Fox is mounting an intense radio campaign consisting of both spot and network buys to run July 19-22 and July 26-28 in every market. There will be at least one commercial an hour from 6 a.m. until midnight.

"Each one is a 30-sec-ond episode," Boone says. Boone won't discuss the budget for the campaign except to say that it runs to millions for broadcast expenditures'; "It is the largest, most concentrated ad campaign ever done by this studio." A 'new poster has been designed for the final push on "Star Wars." "It's highly stylized," says Boone. "It's a Saturday matinee, popcorn-eating, fun kind of thing reminiscent of the Errol Flynn days." At least three other major posters were done before this one. "Normally, when you have a successful advertisement the last thing you do is change it," he says. "Why didn't we stay with it?" he asks.

"Because the kids love something new." From the start, the marketing strategy for the film has been designed to "maximize film rentals," according to Boone. "We get 90 percent after overhead. By reducing tne number of runs we concentrated more people into fewer 'Forum' Star Prefers film companies are prepared to go in order to milk the maximum possible profit from what every movie mogul dreams of a genuine blockbuster. By now, most Americans who ever go to the movies have seen "Star Wars," and many have seen it several itimes since its release last summer." Yet Fox executives believe they have found a strategy to herd millions of new and repeat viewers into theaters this summer for one last box office orgy, until mid-September when the picture is to be taken out of circulation entirely, in preparation for 1980's planned "Star Wars II" sequel. "We wanted to wait until summer playtime, when lots of people are on vacation or have free time," Boone says.

By then, he adds, competition won't be so intense, with most important new pictures already in release. "Star Wars," incidentally, will have been in the market 60 weeks by that time. Traditionally, when patronage slack-esn and contracts run out at a first-run Stage here. He lives in New York and had come to Santa Fe to pursue a private business venture. It didn't pan out, but before he left he had read in the paper about the casting for "Forum." "I said man, what an opportunity to get back on the boards, so to speak said the 47-year-old Rowman.

When the play here concludes he will return to New York to audition for a revival of "Okay" and a new musical version of "I Remember Mama." The story of "Forum" is about a Roman slave, Pseudolus, who connives his way to achieving freedom. His master, Hero, promises Pseudolus his freedom if he can obtain for him the beautiful girl Philia. A battalion of family, friends and unsavory characters and strangers, much like those on the Santa Fe Plaza, wander about the stage. This is Egan's first musical comedy directing. He is assisted by musical director Christopher Berg.

Others in the cast are more familiar to local audiences. They include Gloria Wallace who played Marian the librarian in the College of Santa Fe production of "The Music Laura Klein, who has appeared in numerous college productions including the successful "Magda-Iena Charles Edwards, who most recently appeared in the Theatre Arts Corp. production of and Ann Parks, who is a veteran of operas and played Carrie in the college production of "Carousel." "In essence, we're bringing 'Star Wars' to the people," Ashley Boone, Fox's vice president for domestic marketing and distribution, says magnanimously. "Up to now, kids have had to be driven to the theater; we plan to move it to the neighborhoods." In. the Los Angeles area alone, the movie will open in 60 separate theaters on July 21.

By contrast, it is showing now in only 61 first-run houses on the entire continent of North America. To set the stage for this assault, Fox departed from normal practice in the distribution of major movies. At the heart of the assault will be a television advertising schedule in which at least one "Star Wars" commercial will be seen on every prime time show on all three networks the nights of July 19, 20 and 21, and on every network children's program Saturday morning, July 22. The multi-million-dollar campaign is unusually audacious, even for the flamboyant movie industry. But it demonstrates the lengths to which In that, Hootkins played Red Six, or Porkins, pilot of a spaceship fighter in a battle near the movie's conclusion.

"Without a moment's hesitation," Hootkins said he turned down a larger interesting part after having read the script. "It (the script) was a pile of (a four-letter word)." He said no thank you and went off to do a movie called "Twilight's Last Gleaming" and had a marvelous time. But on his return to London he was given a shot at a smaller role in "Star Wars" which he accepted because he had a free week. The condition under which the segment was filmed with him as Red Six was uninviting. "It was the hottest day in London in 400 years," he recalled.

The studio where it was filmed was not airconditioned. He was under lights. Inside a spacesuit in a make believe spaceship. "The only concession to the discomfort was a change of the visor of our helmets from clear to yellow so the camera" would pick up the rivers of sweat on the faces of the pilots," he said. Hootkins prefers stage acting.

In television or in the movies "you have no control. the way it is shot. This andthat. Icanlooklikeeitherthe world's biggest fool or a wonderful performance." Hootkins isn't the only professional in the cast. Bob Rowman, a veteran of 17 years acting on Broadway and in summer stock, plays the part of Senex, the father of hero, the young lover.

Rowman was invited to audition wr ml By DAVE STEINBERG Of the Journal's Santa Fe Bureau SANTA FE At the tender age of 30, William Hootkins, who is unknown to most Americans, is playing the lead in the Greer Garson Theatre Company production of "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to The Forum." The musical comedy is directed by Richard Egan. It is reasonable to assume that by the end of the play, you will remember William Hootkins, guest artist. Hootkins plays the part of Pseudo-lus, made famous on stage by the late Zero Mostel. Hootkins is sort of a mini-Mostel, a cross between a snowman and a pear. The play opens Thursday, July 20 for a 3-week run at the theatre on the campus of the College of Santa Fe.

Offstage, Hootkins is something funny unto himself. He is a sharp, witty man who has struggled to get in front of audiences. It has been a strug- because Hootkins is an American iving in London and the British government "makes it impossible, not just difficult" for Americans to work there. Hehasbeen in London for seven years and he has overcome that bureaucratic bar. He has acted on stage, on British television and in the movies.

He is busy and talented. By name, Hootkins, a native of Dallas, is not known to American playgoers though his face might be to people who saw the movie "Valentino" in which he played the part of Fatty Arbuckle and the not-so obscure film called "Star Wars." Journil Photo by Buddy May. Bob Tzudiker, left, Bob Rowman and Bill Hootkins Harmonize In a Musical Number from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the -J-.