Studios are cutting back on pre-screening movies

You can call me crazy if you want, but I was looking forward to seeing "Crank: High Voltage."

Especially since I enjoyed its 2006 predecessor, "Crank," which was a mindless, silly action-fantasy — albeit a very R-rated one that was not for the easily offended.

The early word of mouth is that this sequel is even crazier, more amped-up and sillier — as well as even more R-rated. And I can't wait to see it.

But getting back to my point: Lionsgate didn't pre-screen the movie for critics. Not anywhere. Not just in Utah.

That's becoming commonplace these days. Like many businesses around the world, movie studios are trying to cut costs, and one of the ways to do that is to cut back on screenings.

And even when studios do pre-screen movies, sometimes it's only in the supposed top-25 film markets.

Unfortunately, depending on whom you listen to, Utah is either the 31st or 33rd market for films. (The exception is for family films. Utah is in the top 10 there.)

So there have been a number of recent films that haven't been pre-screened in Utah. Among this lot are "12 Rounds," "Dragonball Evolution," "Fast & Furious," "The Haunting in Connecticut" and "Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience."

But it's worth noting that both "12 Rounds" and "Dragonball Evolution" also bombed at the box office.

Since there was so little press and publicity for the movie, both probably lost even more money than they might have if they had been screened.

TO SCREEN OR NOT SCREEN …

Being a solutions-oriented person, I have suggestion for the studio chiefs: You could cut costs further by canceling promotional screenings altogether.

"Striking prints" of films, shipping them out, renting out theaters and security all make screenings a costly proposition. It would be cheaper — much cheaper — if they'd just offer DVD screeners of their films to critics.

Smaller studios already do that, and the system works fairly well.

There are some really dumb reasons why studios won't do that, though. For one thing, they like critics to see most of the bigger movies with a supposed "recruited audience."