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June 28, 1999

Grand Prize Winner

Courtney Bateman
CBateman on the Fool Boards

Honey, chicky, baby - here it is:

Think Sundance and a side of fries. Cannes with Hamms. AFI (American Film Institute) with TGIF's. In other words, a cinema/drafthouse with a decent menu.

Planet Hollywood lacks an identity. It looks and sounds just like Hard Rock/All-Star/Fashion/Harley-Davidson Cafes. It's got to be (please forgive me) edgy.

Lose the doggy restaurants in unhot, unhip places. Threaten lessors with bankruptcy (or go through with it) to shed the stupid lease agreements cheaply. End up with maybe 20 restaurants.

Install high quality, huge screens (wall-size) in the remaining stores, and reconfigure the floor plans for viewing while eating. Weekends, its a screening room. Publish the schedule in newspapers, mainstream and underground. Weekend afternoons, aim for the Chuck E. Cheese crowd - cartoons, Disney fare, etc. Weekend evenings, go highbrow, lowbrow, or midbrow, but go over the top. If it's highbrow (Bergman, Godard, Welles), moderate a pre- or post-screening cat fight among flamboyant area film critics (I'm thinking of that guy on The Daily Show with John Stewart) - with an open mike session at the end. Encourage audience participation (England's Prime Minister's Q&A session with the House of Commons comes to mind). If it's lowbrow (Animal House, say), critics debate the artistic merit of using mashed potatoes (at least I think it was mashed potatoes) as a metaphor for...well, for something.

Every once in a while, invite a celebrity to pick his/her favorite movie, and have the celeb show up at the restaurant to explain the pick. Simulcast it to all restaurants, and allow 15 minutes of celeb Q&A. You'd more likely get the Leo DiCaprio's of the world if they knew they were there to discuss their craft, rather than to hock overpriced T-shirts. (obviously, they wouldn't all have to pick stuffy, highfalutin fare). Again, think Sundance. Publicize the heck out of these events. There is a huge and hungry PR beast out there - feed it regularly.

Do seasonal tie-ins (Halloween week -scary movies; Memorial Day - war movies). Do midnight shows. Do a series of related films over a couple of weeks. Work in movies with a local flair. Invite special effect experts or makeup artists to explain how the cool stuff is done.

Now, for the weekdays: use the screen to show great 3-5 minute clips, but not continuously. Every 40-60 minutes, flicker the lights, and show the clip (Nicholson's diner bit in Five Easy Pieces for example). Some clips are funny, some are serious, some are campy - but they all emphasize the Hollywood angle. The merchandise will sell itself.

Hot-sync my Palm if you wanna take a meeting.

Kiss-kiss

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