Theater owners presumably have run the math on every possible combination of which films run on which screens. I assume that they either (a) know this won't work or (b) think they know that this won't work and aren't likely to be persuaded by the likes of Michael Moore who I suspect most of the bigwigs probably don't like all that much.

If foreign films were making money, they'd be in the big theaters. Same with non fiction. There's a possible chicken/egg problem here, but I don't think that wider distribution is going to dramatically increase the demand for foreign/non fiction films.

I had a feeling you would pipe up with a "the market knows best" post, RumorsDaily. But I'm not a market-optimist like you are -- I think sometimes there are paths not taken due to fear of deviating from the known norm. The tricky thing is that a test of this might not work on in a single theater -- only if every suburban theater in the country did this could it work (because then these nonfiction and foreign films could afford nation-wide marketing).

The biggest theater near me is playing the following schedule (it's already showing two, though I doubt U2 is what you/Michael Moore had in mind for non-fiction):

27 Dresses
Charlie Bartlett
Definitely, Maybe
Fool's Gold
George Romero's Diary of the Dead
*** In Bruges (FOREIGN) ***
Jumper
The Signal
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Ste Up 2: The Street
*** U2 2D (NON-FICTION) ***
Vantage Point
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins

Do you think that more advertising would have a serious enough impact on viewership to warrant national chains showing foreign films? Do you really think national chains are not showing foreign films now out of fear? I think it would make sense for a smaller theater with only one or two screens to play it safe, but a megaplex with 20 screens? They've got nothing but space to gamble with. I suspect they've tried their hand at foreign films enough to know how they'll play. At the very least, I have no reason to think that this is not the case.

But why not turn things around and tell the foreign film producers to create a national market through national advertising first, and then allow the theater chains to follow? If foreign films were able to drum up enough support through advertising that there was actually a market for them, then the theater chains would happily show foreign films. Life is Beautiful, I'm sure, had a pretty wide release. Why place the onus on the chains to create a demand for foreign or non-fiction films when the films creators themselves have been unable to do so? What's to be gained?

Also, a move like this might undercut and destroy your local art cinemas...

What local art cinemas? Moore is proposing this precisely because large swaths of America don't have art cinemas.

Actually, the theater here in downtown Reno is like what Moore proposes -- they show big box office stuff, but a few of their screens are used for smaller, art films. I think Moore is proposing that this be tried in non-urban areas, for movies like, say, "No End in Sight."

I don't think it would even necessarily have to be fear that stops theater owners from changing how they show movies -- just habit and conventional wisdom. I think free-market theory assumes people ut more intelligence and analysis into things than they sometimes actually do.

Is there any reason to think that these movies would do well in the large swaths of the country that don't seem to want them?

The question is how well would they do compared to the 5th screen in one theater showing the same Harry Potter movie. I don't know the answer to that, but maybe the problem is that the long tail that Netflix is able to take advantage of can't work on the theatrical level.

What we need is some sort of auction based theater where people get to nominate/bid on what film will play in the theater the next week. A little impractical, but it would help us to avoid this mutual guessing game.

That's an exaggeration, right? Have you actually been to a movie theater that had the same movie on five screens?

Yes, I'm pretty sure I have. I think it was a Harry Potter movie.