Former college movie theater operator here, Because of copyright law in the USA, to project a movie in public you need the permission of the copyright holder, usually given as a 'public performance license' available through a couple avenues. https://www.criterionpicusa.com/about-us It costs per day through the way we did it, so we could do a couple performances and had to report ticket revenue as they also got a % sometimes. Big commercial theaters have complicated deals with the studios involving a huge percent of ticket sales, sometimes 100% for weeks, and they're even trying to strongarm some of concession sales, along with bundling like if you want say big sci fi movie, you have to carry our other product too, and limiting prints per market so theaters have to bid per region and bigger chains get more. It's a crazy crazy business with logs of legal history where studios used to have vertical monopoly owning theaters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic.... If only a few people show up you'll lose money. They usually do these in the chains near me a few times a month though. Classics.