Will ‘spotlight’ Hit Gallup’s Big Screen?

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Gallup Independent
December 15, 2015

http://gallupindependent.com/

GALLUP – It’s one of the ironies of living in the rural Four Corners. While Gallup is listed at the end of the critically acclaimed movie “Spotlight,” most residents in northwestern New Mexico or northern Arizona will have to travel long distances — or wait — to see the film.

“Spotlight” tells the story of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative news team’s dogged research that exposed the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston in 2002. The news team published hundreds of articles and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Widely praised by film critics across the country, “Spotlight” received three Golden Globe nominations and is currently viewed as an Oscar frontrunner. It is being compared to “All the President’s Men,” the classic 1976 film about Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who uncovered the Watergate scandal.

In the wake of the Globe’s investigation in Boston, thousands of similar stories of sexual abuse and cover-ups have been reported in dioceses around the world, including Gallup. The names of those dioceses are listed at the end of the film.

Although “Spotlight” is set in Boston, many of the same practices uncovered there have played out on a smaller scale in the Gallup Diocese. Vulnerable children were sexually abused, law enforcement officials turned a blind eye, cases were settled confidentially, and abusers were quietly sent to treatment facilities and new parishes. But in spite of those similar issues, Gallup moviegoers most likely won’t get the chance to view the film until early 2016. Currently, only two communities within the Diocese of Gallup have theaters showing “Spotlight.” In New Mexico, moviegoers can see the film at the Animas 10 in Farmington. In Arizona, the film is being shown at the Village 8 in Pinetop-Lakeside.

Besides these two theaters, which are separated by more than 250 miles, the closest cities to see “Spotlight” are Albuquerque and Santa Fe to the east and Flagstaff to the west.

Allen Theatres owns the Animas 10 in Farmington, as well as theaters in Gallup. Charles Green, who works at the theater headquarters in Las Cruces, said “Spotlight” was a limited release movie so his company only sent the film to its larger New Mexico markets in Las Cruces, Roswell and Farmington, as well as its theater in Durango, Colorado. When limited release movies do well, he said, they are sent to smaller cities like Gallup. Afterward, the movies are made available to small, independent theaters and cable television before moving to DVD.

Asa Allen, the vice president of studio relations and programming for Allen Theatres, said attendance for “Spotlight” has been best at the theater in Durango. Theaters are currently filled with holiday releases, he said, and nine more movies, including the new “Star Wars” film, are scheduled for release soon. After the new year, Allen said, he should be able to get a print of “Spotlight” to one of the Gallup theaters.

Although Arizona’s Pinetop-Lakeside has a population less than 5,000, “Spotlight” has been doing well at the Village 8, theater manager Lanny Croney said.

“It did relatively well. It was our third busiest movie,” Croney said of the film. “Spotlight” will continue to run in Pinetop-Lakeside for at least another week, she said.

The Village 8, along with the nearby Show Low 5, is independently owned by White Mountain Entertainment. Croney said the company selects its own films and tries to choose a wide variety of films to attract a broader audience.

Croney said movies based on true events tend to do well in the WME Theaters. “Spotlight” was chosen, she said, because it falls in that category and because it has garnered many favorable reviews.