Maybe because they are big, corporate duopolies that do unto consumers rather than serve them? I’m not talking about the small, local theaters but the two big ones - AMC and Regal - that are functional monopolies. Have you been to one, recently? The prices are obscene, both for tickets and concessions. The service is nonexistent, and the way that they jam as many people into as many theaters as possible and shove them out as soon as they can for the next showing reminds me of the worst part of the airline industry. Then, on top of it, running 30+ minutes of advertising at their captive audience before showing the damn movie…
Contrast that with the local theaters like Alamo Drafthouse and you can really see the difference, and why there is pent up dislike for the big theaters.
It’s an interesting idea that studios might leverage this into a buyout of theater chains. I could see how that would be good business for Universal, since they have all the inventory and could start generating revenue with limited runs of their back-catalog. But as you say, theaters are in marginal shape right now. The studios might prefer all that suffocating overhead to stay on someone else’s books.
In the short run, AMC knows that they can turn a revenue stream off like a lightbulb.
I do get this, though there is this very strong vibe of “why would I ever go to a theater, I have a TV at home” that seems antagonistic to the very notion of movie theaters. Not everyone, but enough.
I don’t totally see the obscene prices thing. I live in a top 20 U.S. metro market, and adjusted for inflation ticket prices aren’t crazy higher than 20-30 years ago. Maybe $3 or $4, which isn’t nothing, but not obscene. Matinees, second-runs, and in general non 3-D isn’t so bad at all. If anything, the clamor for the “whole experience” thing many commenting want would seem to justify that uptick.
I’m a fairly tried-and-true indie kind of person, but I don’t just have this antipathy for the movie theater, as much as I don’t really like the chains. But I don’t spend $50 on snacks, either.
Ads are annoying and I really don’t like them. My local theater (a giant Showplace Icon, but maybe they’re different?) only shows them before trailers, though, so coming in ten minutes late usually solves that problem. Maybe others are worse?
Honestly, the only reason to go to theaters these days is because it’s easier than having a friend come over to watch at my place. I don’t have to vacuum or run to the store for beer.
Going to a movie is no longer an event that you go out to. You can do it at home just as effectively. These days you will spend more for a nice couch to sit on than a theater-like HDTV.
There are exceptions. We have a few historic theaters around me, which are really worth the trip.
Judging by the two nearby movie theaters-- a regal and a cinemark, they already serve alcohol-- and arcade machines are plentiful.
(I occasionally attend screenings when the theatres are nearly vacant, so the regals assigned seating seems superfluous, and the wine sells for prices far too high to tempt me . But I think they are responding to those demands. It’s up to people like you to occasionally remeasure them against your standards.)
I do. Last time I went to a chain theater, the matinee was almost $20 per person. That’s double what it cost 10 years ago. My income hasn’t doubled in that timeframe; has yours?
For crowded showings, that’s often not a viable alternative, especially if you’re with a group, as you’re going to get crappy seats or even not be able to sit together if you’re late to the show time, even if you’re “early” for the actual movie.
I timed it the last time: the movie I paid to see started 36 minutes after the stated show time. That includes trailers, but what are trailers except ads? Any trailer I’m interested in seeing I can watch online. Forcing me to watch it is wasting my time and attention.
Like in: who ever decided this has given it not much thought.
Or was that a knee-jerk reaction?
Like in: whoever decided this is effing themselves in the knee?
Yeah, that’s the ticket. The price has kept me away. I like the big screen. I like the first run movies. But it’s almost cheaper to buy the disc in three months time. The prospect of paying twenty bucks to see e.g, Emma on prime video as a rental on my tiny 39 inch screen did not excite me-- possibly because I’m not quarantining with another movie lover.
In the Classical Hollywood period studios had direct ownership of movie theaters. If you wanted to see an RKO picture you went to and RKO theater, MGM the MGM theater across town. Independents and competitors were locked out on first runs, and so mostly showed independent movies, roadshow/4 wall pictures, and repertory material and 2nd run material acquired by buying prints being offloaded by distributors after a major run.
This was also the period where major Studios saw their highest profits and deepest control of the industry. Talent locked down entirely into multi-picture contracts, and Judy Garland force fed amphetamines to keep her trim and marketable.
They want that back, and they’ve wanted that back since anti-trust law broke that system up.
It’s also important to note how the theaters got in marginal shape. From the 80’s on there was mass consolidation in the theater business. Larger companies buying up local theaters and shuttering them or rolling them in. At the same time studios began pressuring independents and smaller operations by buying up distributors, and removing access to 2nd run and repertory projection prints. Both to foster home release (where they could get paid instead of 3rd parties) and to press out the indies for the sake of their new friends the big theater chains.
Come the 90’s just a handful of companies controlled theaters in most major Western markets. What followed was a couple decades of close collusion between those theater companies and the studios. Including the parent companies of said studios buying major stakes in those theater chains. Sony Entertainment can’t own Regal (think was Regal), but the Sony corporation can own an influential stake in Regal and also own Sony Entertainment and a Sony division that makes cinema projectors. Projectors which Regal just happens to use.
Following that the studios began using serious pressure tactics. Bundling movies (you have to take these 3 stinkers and run them for x amount of time if you want the Star Wars prequels), and over projection requirements (you need upgraded projection if you want the Star Wars Prequels) to dictate terms to the theaters. Initially the theaters were well on board. There was a coordinated (successful) effort to break the projectionists union, well paid union projectionists got replaced by outside contractors and/or studio employees who were the only people in the know about them new projectors. And at the time the big theater chains could afford those upgrades, and had enough screens to deal with the packages. While the smaller operations couldn’t. So studio pressure was pressing out their competition for them.
Later the studios would force the theaters to undergo repeated, un-affordable upgrades for gimmicks like 3d, 60fps etc. At around the same time theater attendance bottomed out and “hollywood accounting” peaked. Killing off more small theaters, and forcing the chains to replace all their equipment before they’d even paid off the previous upgrade. This allowed the studios to pressure the major theater chains, extracting ever more profit. Up to an including repeatedly going after concession sales.
Theaters are in bad shape by design and the big chains we have left were not only directly involved, they were the drivers in a lot of ways. Right there with the studios, coordinating behind the scenes until just now.
On the other end of it you have a new breed of independents and regional chains, Alamo Drafthouse being the one everyone points to, that are doing more than fine. They’re not only nice and profitable, but pretty fucking stable and see much higher attendance than most other theaters, and they’re independent. Without direct ties, or special reliance on the studios or major distributors. Alamo has done so well that they can not only push back on studios, inserting intermissions over studio protests, controlling their own show schedule, making the call on how many screens a movie shows on, and providing their own projectionists. But Studios have found they need to play ball with these people. Alamo has become a significant venue for marketing with premieres, marathons, road shows becoming part of the press cycle for major Hollywood movies. That’s allowed Alamo to access repertory showings that were barely a thing anymore, press studios into limited run re-releases and all the other shit they’re famous for. Stuff the studios did not want, and 20 years ago tried to stop the original Alamo Drafthouse from doing.
So theaters don’t have to look like AMC. And it’s not theaters in general that are suffering.
I had WCOM because I worked at a company it bought and my stock (and options) converted. I sold a large amount of it (to be fair my financial advisor told me I was insane to not sell at least half of it every time I visited him…), but I still also lost a lot of it (…and I more or less listened to my advisor on the dollar amount to sell, but did so like 6 to 12 months after, and as the price kept going up, and I kept vesting more shares I really didn’t sell anywhere near as much as advised). It was a very expensive session in diversification. Not at all his fault.
Remember giant video game arcades? I do cause I’m old.
How many of them do you see nowadays?
The ones I do see are largely geared towards a captive audience (amusement part customers that are already there, kids at chuck e Ratters, etc…).
Also, the games that exist in public are often in a format that can’t be easily replicated at home (big proprietary gun devices, mechanical aspects like a big spinning wheel, or a big pig mouth that opens and closes etc…). Solo video game cabinets that operate off a standard joystick/button combo largely do not exist anymore.
But, if you go into many households nowadays, there’s a PS4, an Xbone, or a Nintendo switch…
Hmm… wonder why the simple arcade video game went away?
With stuff like this I’m not even sure it’s neccisarily merch.
Like there’s a reason there are so many Gnome movies, including a sequel to Gnomio and Juliet. And it isn’t because Shakespeare Gnomes are this seasons hottest toy. Apparently the idea with those is that it’s cheap. And because it’s animated you can dub in a new vocal track for practically any country where you can release it.
After a perfunctory theatrical release, pretty much anyone will buy it just cause it’s cheap kids material. Parents will throw practically anything on, and kids themselves aren’t too discerning. So HBO will grab it to fill some air during daytime hours on the weekends, on-demand will push it just cause it’s there, followed by TBS, followed by local affiliates. And Netflix will license it and keep in on the platform forever just for bulk.
Doing that at global scale you rack up enough views and three for one discount DVD sales to make a pretty big chunk of change.
And then you just repeat, endlessly.
It seems like with trollies, Universal did that on grand scale. A recognizable but indistinct license, and $100m budget and recognizable talent. Instead of $20 mill and some how getting Patrick Stewart to phone it in. It certainly doesn’t seem to have captured the zeitgeist, most of the parents I know weren’t even aware it had come out until it ended up on repeat in their houses. I certainly didn’t realize it had come out, none the less that it was getting a sequel.
I also suspect this is the idea with all those board game adaptations that are in the works. Mid budget, family friendly grind.
Yeah, $20 matinee is solidly above inflation. Top 20 city, we pay $15-$16 tops for Saturday night, way less for matinee. Not crazy over inflation.
I love trailers, and I don’t feel most people see trailers as ads. Actual ads are lame, though.
If you have a big group you’re going with, is the 10 minutes you have to talk with them during the ads really a killer? Seems like straws are being grasped here.
