It’s the 36 minutes that’s killer. The ads were interspersed among the trailers, so you’re still being forced to watch them. And in that 36 minutes, one of our party fell asleep and we had to wake her up for the actual movie.
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Ads within the trailers?! Them’s fightin’ words, you’ve got me in your posse now brutha
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Every time I start thinking that kids’ movies suck these days I have to remind myself that my generation flocked to see crap like The Smurfs and the Magic Flute and The Care Bears Movie, both of which set box office records for non-Disney animated films in the United States.
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I like being out on the town, being near people and soaking up their emotions, going out to a cafe for coffee and cake to talk about the movie. I like the way going out to a movie rules it off into its own space, without the distractions of being at home.
Hmm. And now I’ve talked myself into wanting to go out and see a movie tonight. Damn.
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Microsoft has a lovely patent on a bit of technology that uses your webcam/xbox/whatever…to detect how many people are in the room and charge you accordingly for watching a streamed movie.
https://www.itproportal.com/2012/11/08/microsoft-patents-tvs-can-spy-us/
I think you are forgetting that movie theaters are very popular (well not right now, obviously) in cities. Maybe people living in suburban McMansions have room for 65" screens, but not people living in apartments in cities (I watch movies in my apartment on my computer). And for the past couple of decades city life has been increasing in popularity as compared to suburban life (although we’ll see if the paranoia of being near other people changes that back to the 1970s-style “urban flight”)
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Um, with Rick Deckard’s “enhance” button?
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Seems like they are taking an NRA-style all or nothing stance, that they must not give an inch or they will lose completely if studios discard exclusive theatrical release windows for parallel release windows.
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Sure, “you and a lot of other folks” aren’t going to “share an experience.” No problem, that’s your call.
But a lot of folks, including me and the person you’re responding to, have a different perspective. I still enjoy the experience of looking for my seat, watching the trailers, feeling the buzz, lights dim, studio intro, movie begins… mood in the cinema changes
Going to the movies was a great way to unwind, go on a date, take the kid out for a shared experience.
And again, if you don’t enjoy that and are fine with sitting on your sofa at home, no problem with me. But there are those of us who still value that old shared experience thing.
Eh, I don’t think movie theaters will die in general.People like to go out and see flicks on the big screen. But the old style ones are shit out of luck. Here in Austin we have the Alamo theaters which are very inventive. Showing a Transformers movie? Have a real transformer in the parking lot. Showing The Tingler? Wire up more seats for shock than William Castle ever did. And they serve food that’s created by actual chefs (sure, a bit expensive, but still). And then there’s the Violet Crown. Also serving top notch food, but the theaters are tiny on purpose. They look like some really rich guy’s private screening room. No bad seats and if you sit on the first row, there’s a ottoman for your feet! I can’t remember the last time I went to a ‘normal’ movie theater. And then there’s the IMAX, the biggest one in Texas. Saw Interstellar there and it is the ONLY way to watch that sucker. There are other equally interesting choices here, so I don’t think the movie theater experience will die. Just transform.
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You missed the point. Whether or not I want to go to theaters isn’t the issue. The fact is, they are dying out whether we like it or not. Prices for tickets continue to increase and the number of people going continues to decrease. Less than half of all Americans go to even one movie in a given year now.
I loved taking my kids to films as well, it was awesome. My wife and I have had many dates at the theater in the last ten years. There are a lot of fun memories there. But what we’'re talking about there is a word for: nostalgia. Nostalgia is great, and is not remotely an objective understanding of what reality is. I’m nostalgic for typewriters, but I still use my computer for word processing. Typewriter sales are, today, a tiny niche market. The same with vinyl records.
Life changes and we move on. Drive ins faded away, but some have held on. Arcades mostly died out, but there are a few here and there. Markets come and go, consumer values shift. Movie theaters are not doing well, total number of people going are down 28% in the last twenty years, a very steady and clear trend. Multiplexes have gotten bigger, with nicer seats, reserved seating, but the trend has continued.
And yes, those Alamo Drafthouses seem to be the “next thing” in theaters. If you’ll note, I originally said “multiplexes” would die out, leaving behind art houses. Alamo Drafthouse, though not an art house, will also be in place for a while. But now you’re clearly stating that the theater is dying, and only hybrid shops that can do multiple things will survive. Dinner AND a movie… not just the movie. And Alamo Drafthouses have how many screens each? There are going to be vastly fewer places to show off films.
The trends are clear. I say ten years, maybe it’ll be closer to twenty, but the multiplex experience is dying, and within the next twenty years the majority of films, small and large, will be streamed directly to consumers at the same time they appear on the far smaller number of screens left in the wake of the collapse of the industry.
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Cost? Technology caught up to what you could do at home vs. in an arcade. With your premium games running $.50 to $1 it was easy to blow through $20 in an hour or less. Not to mention game formats and designs expanded based on the idea of having unlimited time to play in a home environment. Myst would have been a low profit arcade game compared to Mortal Kombat.
I don’t think arcades compare well to theaters. There is no difference in content, just experience. I explicitly went to the theater to see Fury Road in IMAX 3D sitting down front. Screen so large it takes up most of my field of vision. Sound I can feel. Sure I could set that up at home for $5-10k, but I watch maybe 1 or two movies a year in the theater. The cost is not worth it compared to $20 for a ticket.
I remember Independence Day in THX. When the White House exploded you couldn’t hear yourself think. That was glorious. That is the movie experience I am willing to pay for. People in this thread talking about 65" TVs and soundbars are like my wife. She needs to sit mid to upper and doesn’t really care about the sound quality. All of the technology that goes into that immersive experience is wasted.
While I mostly agree with this, the sheer size of a movie screen really does make a difference. When I saw Ghostbusters and Raiders of the Lost Ark and the original Star Wars trilogy in theaters after seeing them on video for decades, I saw so many little details I’d never noticed before, and it was almost like seeing the movie afresh for the first time. There’s no way to replicate that at home. And usually the movies I go to don’t have jerks making noise or playing on their phones during the movies, so that’s a rare concern. I know it’s been said before, but places like Alamo Drafthouse are the way to go. Showing classic movies in addition to new ones, having comfortable seats and food options, and actually kicking people out of the theater if they’re being disruptive assholes. I can enjoy a movie in a normal theater, but it’s stuff like Alamo that makes it a really special experience and keeps me caring whether theaters survive.
It used to make far more of a difference, though, The current market expectation is that 80% of television sales in the next year are 55" and up. I find that, at those sizes, the differences are becoming so small as to not be worth the extra cost of going to a movie.
And it IS extra cost. For two people, even a matinee these days often costs $20 just to get inside the door. That doesn’t include food, gas, parking, etc. I’ve gone to one opening weekend in the last twenty years, End Game, and it was absolutely worth it because Marvel fanship has been part of my life since childhood and it was the culmination of eleven years of filmmaking. Otherwise, it’s simply becoming not worthy my time and money to bother, and more and more Americans agree with that assessment.
Maybe Alamo bucks the trend. Maybe the value added proposition of dinner AND a movie keeps the industry afloat another forty or fifty years. But the days of the theater as a theater, where we go for the movie experience alone, is dying. Ten years from now, I’d be surprised to see AMC chains still going strong other than the odd location here and there where they are clinging to life.
And studios WILL take note of these trends. If they can make as much money going straight to pay-per-view and streaming and avoid the additional costs of distributing digital copies to the theaters, you can bet they will. We’ve talked a lot about the consumer experience and whether or not it’s better/worse. All they care about is cold, hard cash.
I dunno, my kid could be quite patronizing when I tried to get her to watch what I thought was high-quality cinema 
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I, too, love a comfy seat and a big, well maintained screen; however, I wonder how long it will be before VR can give us the “big screen experience” from the comfort of our own bed/lazy-boy? I’m sure that there would be a “communal experience filter” that would cheer, laugh, scream and groan along with our own responses.
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And if you have the space, you can get pretty close the movie theater popcorn with one of these:
I find 2.5 oz refined coconut oil + 3/4 tsp Flavacol butter flavor powder for 4 oz popcorn kernels gives a pretty close approximation. Although I recently switched to ghee + fine ground himalayan pink salt, in which case I need a little more or each (2.75 oz and about 1 tsp, respectively).
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Let’s see. Make a family of three spend well over $65 on tickets and stale snacks to see a movie in a theater with worn out seats, with a projector that was state of the art 5 years ago that doesn’t really hold a candle anymore to stuff you can get at Best Buy and watching it with several screaming elementary school aged kids who jump around in the aisles or stay at home with their new 4k tv and their own higher quality snacks for about $20. Tough choice.
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So at least you had some idea what they did as a business. I didn’t. I always felt more comfortable putting money in companies I heard about, knew what they did and had a reputation in the field. Not a recipe for rolling in dough but good for lazy buy and hold types like me.
And because they dont switch out the projector apparatus for 3-D vs regular movies, the screen is only 70% of the brightness it should be.
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