Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Valenti touts film industry in his final ShoWest speech

In his 37th and last speech as president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) at ShoWest in Las Vegas, Jack Valenti told an audience of movie theater owners Tuesday that the industry is standing strong against an array of other media forms fighting for the attention of consumers.

ShoWest is the largest annual convention of the motion picture industry. The MPAA is the political advocate of the motion picture, home video and television industries.

"The onslaught of competition for the eye and ear of the consumer is a lacerating catalogue of rivalries and marketplace antagonisms," Valenti said, referring to other forms of media such as television, VCRs, DVDs, computers, the Internet and video games.

Valenti, 82, said he plans to step down as soon as a search committee finds a replacement.

The search process has been under way for some time, MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor said. Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Republican from Louisiana, said in January that he had turned down an offer to take the job that Valenti has held since 1966.

"I can sum up for you in two words my greatest accomplishment in that long tenure," Valenti said Tuesday. "Those two words are: 'I survived."'

Valenti was an aide to President Lyndon Johnson before becoming chief of the MPAA and helping to establish the movie ratings system in 1968.

The usually reserved Valenti choked up when greeted by a prolonged standing ovation by members of his audience.

"I didn't realize how emotional this time would be," Valenti said.

He will be honored by ShoWest on Thursday night when actor Warren Beatty presents him with a lifetime achievement award.

"I look at this with mixed emotions," Valenti said Tuesday. "When you have done something for so long, it's difficult to tear yourself away from it."

National Association of Theatre Owners President Jonn Fithian called the end of Valenti's era "a sad day."

"Jack has been the consummate leader for 38 years, and we're not quite sure what we're going to do without him."

The warm reception for Valenti comes after one of the most problematic years of his tenure. He was the architect of the disastrous awards season screener ban (limiting access to films) that enraged the independent film community and was eventually declared illegal by the courts.

While Valenti maintains that his motivation for the ban had been a quest to stem the illegal pirating of the screeners, many in the industry had said privately that it was a sad note on which to end his career.

But he has appeared to have rallied in recent months on the public relations front, even appearing in a skit at the Independent Spirit Awards on the eve of the Oscars. In it, he took the stage and put awards show host John Waters in handcuffs after Waters jokingly confessed to piracy.

Valenti acknowledged this week that he mishandled the screener issue and said he would have sought more input before implementing the ill-fated ban.

"I probably would have shaped it differently," he said.

There will not be a ban this year as each studio will set its own policy.

As for the state of the industry, Valenti said that although 2003 box office sales went down one third of 1 percent and admissions went down 4 percent compared to 2002, the industry is doing well. Out of 473 films released in 2003, box office sales were $9.5 billion while admissions were 1.57 billion.

"Remember, in order to find any range of admissions that compared to 2003, you have to go back 48 years, to 1955, before television and cable," Valenti said.

Fithian said that in order to remain strong, the industry must embrace new technologies such as digital technology.

"Digital cinema is almost upon us," Fithian said.

He said movie theater owners and studios need to continue to work together to come up with viable ways to smooth the transition from celluloid to digital cinema through a joint effort by NATO and MPAA called Digital Cinema Initiatives.

Fithian said there are three goals facing the motion picture industry, when it comes to transitioning to digital. Those goals include making digital technology better than current film, devising uniform technological standards and devising a business model.

"The bottom line is, I believe we are making tremendous progress on digital cinema," Fithian said.

Dick Westerling, spokesman for Regal Entertainment, which has nine movie theaters in the Las Vegas Valley, said theater owners and studios are working together to oversee the future transition to digital.

"NATO has committees to address issues and standards regarding a transition to digital and this group works closely with a similar organization that's established through the MPAA," Westerling said.

Fithian also said the industry is continuing its work on designing digital cinema security measures to prevent piracy. He said the group works with MPAA's efforts to support federal and state legislation to prevent movie piracy.

Westerling said the industry is doing well and will probably continue to do so, in spite of the fact that sales have slipped slightly. He said the summer film season promises to do well.

"We're very optimistic about the box office performance for 2004. The product looks extremely well and what we've been seeing and hearing from our distributor partners have been very favorable about the upcoming summer film product," Westerling said.

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