Alex DelVecchio
Member Profile
How has NATO membership been impactful to you and/or your business?Running a movie theater, at times, can feel like you are on an island by yourself. There aren’t many people who have had these jobs, and friends/family are normally there for support, but not necessarily help. When I first attended CinemaCon, I got to meet so many people who not only were facing the same struggles and successes as me, but also could relate to the day to day operations of an industry that is singular in it’s execution. Being part of NATO and meeting so many fellow theater operators was such a relief for me, and motivated me greatly to help out when I can!
I applied to Loews New Brunswick 18 back in 2004, I was the only minor on staff being hired at 17, so needless to say I wasn’t any supervisor’s favorite! There was a concession sales competition that summer, I won it for my building and then won the regional one to place into the top 9 nationally. That was really my breakout in terms of getting noticed by the higher ups there. I was on my way after that!
A busy night, selling out every show—you can feel the buzz in the building. It’s still an adrenaline rush I wouldn’t trade for anything. The first time I really felt it was for Spider-Man 2 back in 2004, and the most recent was for Wicked just a few weeks ago. There is always one or two of those weekends every year!
The final Harry Potter movie’s midnight show. Because it did so well that was the final time a 12:01am debut was going to happen, but what a night! We had 18 screens, and I used 4 prints to interlock all of them. By the time the film ran down to the final theater it was almost 3 full minutes behind the first one. This made it very fun to go theater to theater and see all of the big applause moments over and over again with a dynamite crowd.
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When I was 6, there was a movie I wasn’t allowed to see, no matter what. I was too young to realize that this was all a plan by my parents to hype me up, but at 9:30 pm my dad woke me up and said, “Hey, your mom is sleeping, I’m taking you to the movie!” We see a 10:05pm show, and there I am, out later than I’d ever been out, thinking I was breaking the rules with my dad, and the movie that plays on the big screen is Jurassic Park. Needless to say, I caught the movie theater bug that night!
It’s been a long road from 2020, but finally getting past the shutdowns and dual strikes, it really looks like we are about to get a consistent stream of new releases, week after week, for an entire calendar year. Once that finally happens again, the sky is the limit! What excites me is that between Barbie, or Wicked, or even smaller hits like Longlegs, you can still see movies break through the zeitgeist and become near omnipresent sensations. That is something you can only get from a wide theatrical release, and it isn’t going anywhere.
There can be a lot of pessimism at times in this industry. If you can stay optimistic, you will stick out pretty naturally. I see a lot of people try to judge the industry on a Friday to Friday basis, trying to make big grandiose statements based off the results of the most recent movie. In reality, this business is the novel that never ends, there is always a new movie coming out next week, always a big hit coming out next month, always a big summer ahead after a slow January. Stick to the optimistic side and you’ll last longer!
