Word: cineplexes
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...this is not the Stork Club or the Waldorf in a scene from some posh old Hollywood romance. It is a movie house in Toronto or New York City or Los Angeles. It is surely a clue to the way Garth Drabinsky -- the dynamic, disputatious boss of the Cineplex Odeon theater chain -- wants you to see movies...
...then out of the north rode one who could. "Garth Drabinsky is both a showman and a visionary," Kagan says. "There were theater magnates before him, but none who radiated his charisma or generated such controversy." In 1979 the Toronto native co-founded Cineplex with 18 theaters. Today it is the largest chain in North America, with 1,643 "screens" (nobody calls them theaters any more) and 14,500 employees. Revenue has quintupled in five years; profits have doubled in a year. Drabinsky did it with street fighting and upscale smarts. In his first Los Angeles venture, for example...
With all these profits, and all those restaurants, the man is still hungry. Last year Cineplex Odeon expanded into distributing such films as Prince's Sign o' the Times and Paul Newman's The Glass Menagerie. A TV production arm will make 41 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The company's Northfork division will finance five films produced by Robert Redford. In partnership with MCA Inc., which owns 49% of Cineplex Odeon, Drabinsky will help run Universal's proposed Florida theme park. Hollywood, star struck by the 39- year-old whiz kid, is whispering that Drabinsky may succeed Sidney Sheinberg...
Drabinsky's Cineplex is a one-man marching band. No one can speak for the company but the boss. He logs half a million miles a year, inspiring the troops and scouting new acquisitions. The guy never rests, and when he does, he pays for it. Three weeks ago, while on a rare vacation with his wife and two children in Antigua, Drabinsky broke his arm, "totally, right through." A quick bone grafting and plate insertion, and he was back in business. "It hurts, sure," he says, "but I like...
...fare hikes have been confined to the Big Apple. Cineplex Odeon, the Canadian-based chain that first raised the tariff, claims it has no plans to boost prices at its 1,614 other screens in North America. In Hollywood, as well as in Washington, Boston and Chicago, $6 is still tops, while $5.50 gets you through the door in Houston, and $5 is the limit in Atlanta and Cleveland. But Gordon Crawford, a California entertainment analyst, predicts that by the end of 1988 fans in Los Angeles will be paying $7. Some Angelenos seem sanguine at the prospect. "Movies...