Double-Edged Disappointment

Pirates' debut on TV and in theaters is less swash than buckle

In 1879, to forestall an unauthorized American production of their latest operetta, The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan arranged for virtually simultaneous opening nights in England and America. Now, 104 years later, Producer Joseph Papp's $12 million movie version of Pirates, based on his updated Broadway production, has received another dual premiere: on television and in theaters. On Feb. 18, Universal Pictures simultaneously showed the movie on 17 pay-per-view subscription and cable systems and opened it at 91 moviehouses around the country. It was the first time that a premiering film had also been released on television. The result was akin to the reaction of Frederic, the apprentice pirate in the operetta, upon discovering that his spinsterish nursemaid is not the ideal of female pulchritude: disappointment.

Of a potential audience of 1.2 million, only about 130,000, or 11%, opted to pay $10 to watch the show, which stars Linda Ronstadt, Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, George Rose and the rocker Rex Smith. Moreover, in its first weekend, the movie earned a meager theater box office of $255,000, as well as the enmity of exhibitors, who resented Universal's undermining of their customary exclusive on movie premieres. Says Mitchell Neuhauser, associate executive director of the Independent Theater Owners Association: "Exhibitors don't want to be treated like second-class citizens."

Pirates was essentially a guinea pig for what some film executives see as a lucrative marketing technique of the future. By 1984 there may be as many as 3 million homes equipped for pay-per-view. That growing audience theoretically offers Hollywood the possibility of recouping the entire cost of a film in a single evening, conceivably without cutting into theatrical box-office receipts.

Says Gerard H. Hartman, vice president and marketing director of Universal Pay Television: "The times are changing, and we had to give this a try." Producer Papp points out that "the audience we tried to attract through pay-per-view is people who don't go to the movies." Such one-shot pay-per-view events have been staged before with mixed results. The most successful was 1982's World Boxing Council heavyweight title bout between Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney, which drew 30% of its potential pay-per-view audience. Last year's showing of the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies drew a less than spectacular 10%.

There were drawbacks to watching Pirates at home. Portions of the wide-screen Panavision picture were lost on the small screen. But home viewers did get something theater viewers did not: a half-hour documentary on the history of Pirates and a brochure including a libretto. Moreover, television viewers got the chance to become living-room buccaneers by videotaping the film. Says Neuhauser: "What can Universal do if more than 100,000 prints should be passing from home to home all over the U.S.?"

Although there are no plans to show Pirates again on pay television, the dual-release technique will undoubtedly be tried again. Just as Gilbert and Sullivan's pirates eventually become assimilated into polite society, this approach may become a custom in years to come. Les Brown, editor in chief of Channels magazine, even predicts that pay TV's customers will increasingly include the theaters themselves: "I expect to see antennas springing up on moviehouses, which will thus become videohouses as well." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.