French Promotional Booklet Beautifully Highlights Wing Commander (July 16, 2018)

And only one cinema in the entirety of Paris showing it when it was released, IIRC.
Wow, really? I do recall having difficulties in my city back in Poland - I went to the cinema, and was told that I can't buy a ticket, because they won't be showing it unless another ten people or so show up. But that was a city of about 200K people, not exactly comparable to Paris. We didn't even have a multiplex at the time...
 
Wow, I feel like they sometimes must even show the film here if the theater is empty. Pretty sure some of my showings had less than 10 people (and it's not uncommon to have multiple large multiplexes in any city approaching 100K, so there's perhaps some oversaturation of screens).
 

(Left page)

Chris Roberts has designed, developed and produced some of the most sophisticated and inspiring games of their kind. He had three 1987 #1 bestselling games in England: "Match Day" "Wiz Adore" and "Striker's Run".

Roberts was 'senior systems vice president' of Origin for eight years. During this period he produced numerous international bestsellers, including "Times of Lore" "Strike Commander" and "Wing Commander" - which remains a fan favourite title. During this period, he was also producer at Origin's subsidiary, Electronic Arts, where he participates in the development of interactive films and flight simulations.

Wing Commander was the first interactive game to 'compete' with the cinema. Since that pioneering title, Roberts has continued to revolutionize the gaming industry from animation to shooting with real film. In 1994, he produced Wing Commander 3: Heart Of The Tiger which combined both the latest computing (graphical) innovations and several hours of "live" videos. This interactive, record-breaking, feature-length film featured a Hollywood cast: Mark Hammil, Malcolm McDowell, Tom Wilson, and John Rhys Davies.

Chris Roberts: "Wing Commander gets a new title, it's based on the game, and the action takes place in a similar universe, but the movie is not just for fans of the series. I hope to attract new audiences with a solid cast and high level crew, bringing together young talents and established actors. "

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(Right page)

Todd Moyer, 33 years old, together with producer Jean Martial Lefranc manage the agency and production company 'No Prisoners' specializing in the production of high-tech films. Former president of Steven Seagal's production company, Moyer and his partner Lefranc are also associated with Artmedia.

A graduate of the Dartmouth College and a graduate of the American Film Institute, Moyer started as a literary agent at the Schechter Company where he represented Jon Turtelaube, Peter Jackson and Chuck Pfarrer and the Dark Horse Comics.

Appointed executive vice president of Dark Horse Entertainment (DHE), he created an extremely dynamic production company, specializing in comic books and other cultural consumer products. He oversaw the production of the first three DHE films: The Mask, Timecop and Barb Wire. He also co-produced Virus for Universal and Lance in addition to several joint ventures for DHE including Dark Horse Interactive, Dark Horse France and Dark Horse Japan.
 
^ I don't know if it's my bad translation, but the above article seems to call Electronic Arts a 'subsidary' of Origin. :D

Maybe somebody with better French than me can confirm that I'm just a terrible translator...

@PopsiclePete ? ;)
 
Wow, I feel like they sometimes must even show the film here if the theater is empty. Pretty sure some of my showings had less than 10 people (and it's not uncommon to have multiple large multiplexes in any city approaching 100K, so there's perhaps some oversaturation of screens).
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it's standard procedure for any multiplex to screen films even if the theatre is empty; the logic is that even if they lose a bit of money screening a film for no audience, they'll make up for it with other screenings running at the same time. Smaller cinemas with one or two screens can be a bit more picky, but even then, I don't think it's at all typical for a cinema to cancel a screening when someone is interested, as they understand this makes for highly dissatisfied customers. The cinema that didn't want to show me Wing Commander went out of business a couple of years later - go figure :).

And yeah, these days we also have two or three multiplexes in cities of the 100-200K range, but they definitely weren't common in 1999. After all, that was just nine years after the end of the communist era. It wasn't just multiplexes that were a rarity at the time; shopping malls were virtually unknown as well, and large supermarkets were only just beginning to spread.
 
Wow, really? I do recall having difficulties in my city back in Poland - I went to the cinema, and was told that I can't buy a ticket, because they won't be showing it unless another ten people or so show up. But that was a city of about 200K people, not exactly comparable to Paris. We didn't even have a multiplex at the time...
Yep. I had to look pretty long in the Paris’ Officiel des Spectacles, the weekly booklet listing all the cultural events in town, to find that one showing in a small cinema.
 
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