Not great for my economy. I too liked WTCS, but a $50 burn-through? Only so many of those in the budget.
It’s a shame the “meme stock” people pumped up AMC instead of Regal, everything nice around here is Regal. The only AMC theater is older and pretty useless. Hopefully they are able to re-organize and/or someone picks up many of their theater assets without much disruption. I’m sure some theaters will stay around. Obviously the pandemic crushed them, but right now it’s more about the lack of movies. I can’t believe some of the movies going straight to streaming. Even if they are box office bombs you’d think they’d want to let it ride at the box office. Prey surely could have pulled $100 million (if not multiples more with good word of mouth and a general dearth of movies now), so how much did Hulu pay for exclusivity? Just seems weird to me. How much value is there really to have streaming day one instead of after something like 45 days? Tom Hanks in Pinocchio is another one that’s shocking it went the straight to streaming route. Disney controls both properties I believe, so maybe they are playing hardball with the theaters?
I hear you, but to me the surprise is how ineffective they’ve all been so far. Apple put $6B in in 2019, and they were on the low end. It’s many billions since spread out among a dozen Netflix-hunters. Netflix spent the most. Stranger Things, eh, OK. I do enjoy the foreign stuff, but no true phenoms. Dark is a top 20 for me maybe, but I’m struggling to think of another killer. Even AMC+ has Better Call Saul (done), which is IMO a contender for Best Ever. Pumping dough just simply isn’t enough. Amazon’s LOR series will tell a tale. HBO’s GOT spinoffs too. Hulu has THT, but what else? Apple has some solid stuff, but mostly OK. The Disney investment in SW is so weak I’m bailing, although I did get see promise in Obi Wan. We’ll see soon if the theater is dead. So far, I’m unimpressed with the ROI from the streamers.
Never been big on the movie theater, but our local one reduced seating and installed very comfy recliners. They dang near recliners completely flat. With less people and more comfortable seating, I would consider going back. The crowded, uncomfortable theaters with sticky floors is a no go for me.
I remember a story in Jacksonville about a theater going to reclining seats. They were cutting the number of seats in half but said that has increased the number of customers in other theaters where they'd done it. The is was pre-Covid.
Those days are over for most theaters. It’s high end experience for high end prices mostly. That’s the reason for costs. Plus I haven’t been to a theater without beer and wine in a loooong time. Maybe the movie industry should subsidize theaters some how.
Local bookstores are making a comeback, large chains not so much. Much more difficult for locals in the cinema business, where build out to modern standards can run $300-400/sf plus the technology needed for modern sound. And locals are at a significant pricing disadvantage when it comes to negotiating film distribution with movie distributors. They have much less bargaining power than AMC or Regal does. It’s just a much different model than books. Regarding cinemas, theater operators share in very little of the ticket revenue, most of that is remunerated back to film distributors. Operators make their money on concessions, which they historically retain 100%, which is why the popcorn and soda that costs $5 everywhere else is $15 at the theater. Distributors can stay wealthy earning a fee for streaming at home, while operators go broke when that happens.
Don't misunderstand. I am not telling people not to watch movies or go to theaters. We just had another theater close in Greensboro and it makes me sad. Dozens of full-time and part-time employees out of jobs. It is, as you described it a personal choice, I am not trying to convince anyone else to agree with me. Maybe it is my disinterest in fiction.
The part of the industry that will thrive is the independent niche theaters in larger cities and college towns. They might even benefit from the demise of the multiplex, just like independent record stores did when the record store chains all went under. There will always be features people want to see on a big screen. We still have a few theaters that still display on film projectors, one of them with a 70mm projector. IMO, films shot on film that are projected on digital projectors look like crap. The vast majority of the best films in history were shot on film. Some of the top contemporary directors will still opt for film over HD when they think the cinematic look and feel will benefit from film grain and analog color correction.
A theater with beer?! I've never heard of such, but this town is pretty behind the times. I might would go more often if they did serve alcohol.
Even the big chains here serve beer and wine. AMC used to have a theater downtown that had a full bar (they just sold it to the people who run a historic theater in uptown) and even their suburban megaplexes serve beer/wine. But I live in New Orleans, so high school concerts serve beer to the parents, so yeah...
I still wouldn't mind the nostalgia of renting a movie from a store now and then. Watching the movie is whatever, the act of going and picking out a movie hoping that you find the movie you've been dying to see for weeks. Flipping all 100 sample cases around to finally find the last copy... Good times.
Don’t forget to rewind that tape or it’ll be $2.00! I think even before streaming, DVD sort of killed the video rental store due to how cheap they became after the first few years. Not much money in renting something that could be bought for $10. I never owned many VHS and never had a laserdisc player, but once they started DVD and blu-ray I started mostly just buying them instead of renting.
Been to Top Gun Maverick three times at an Epic with the reclining chairs here in Ocala. My youngest and I are petitioning for a fourth time. That said…we rarely go to movies in theater. I agree the price is high. But in the grand scheme I think it is reasonable with inflation at this point. I think the bigger problem is making movies that are must see on the Big Screen (I will watch Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick all day long at home. But they are both meant for the Big Screen). And just don’t see that many movies that command that presence.