Shelly Maxwell understands those who think people won’t want to spend their hard-earned cash watching ballet or opera at their local cineplex.

“Will people schlep to a movie theater to see the Metropolitan Opera? That was a question we had internally six years ago,” says Maxwell, , executive vice president for NCM Fathom Events. Maxwell long ago stopped asking those questions.

Fathom’s entertainment lineup, including the Bolshoi Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, draws a sizable audience when beamed into theaters nationwide.

“People dress up … it’s a date night for them,” Maxwell says of how patrons treat the company’s programming lineup.

Fathom doesn’t just offer the finer arts. The Colo-based company beams rock concerts, classic movies and sporting events into more than 600 theaters nationwide. The cultural slate dispels the notion that consumers only care about the Kardashian, movie sequels and Lady Gaga.

The folks at Fathom are proving there’s an appetite for more than just popular culture.

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Not to go an analogy too far, but Sarah Palin seems to be taking a page from the Hollywood playbook of George Lucas.  She has just completed her own introductory trilogy, and it was an astonishing success.  

First, she was a fantastically successful conservative governor lurking beneath the mainstream media’s radar.  Next, she was a vice-presidential candidate who, even though she lost, still did more to electrify the base than the headliner.  Third, she has now drawn the curtain on her post-election career as a sitting governor, a period that saw her deftly turn the tables on mainstream haters like David Letterman.   Like “Star Wars,” she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but her fans are rabid and chomping at the bit for the next installments.  And as to these future installments, the question is whether the next step is going to be “The Phantom Menace” or something that doesn’t suck. (more…)