5 ms·

I think the theater business is dead, it will just take a long time. Comparing box office [0] is hard due to COVID and there’s still money to be made. But it’s

I think the theater business is dead, it will just take a long time. Comparing box office [0] is hard due to COVID and there’s still money to be made. But it’s not the same. I think we’ll find that the box office peaked a few years ago. People still buy records and CDs so there will always likely some theaters. Just not like it was. [0] https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/ https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/

JKCalhoun 4y ago
You're probably right. I would love to see it become a golden era of the niche matinee where smaller theaters can flourish that show older films, art films, foreign films etc. I would love to see distributors offer up high-quality digital copies of their films for small theaters to screen. Might be another source of cash flow to the rights-holders. It would be nice to see, just as an example, "Andrei Rublyov", on the big screen in 8K or whatever quality.
- gffrd 4y ago
  Seconded! While I lament the number of bookstores and music shops that have gone away, and that boom times are unlikely to come again (and birth wide variety) … what remains are generally purposeful, well-cared-for, well-appreciated places. It's not what I'd wish, but it's where I hope things go for the theatrical experience as well.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  > I would love to see it become a golden era of the niche matinee where smaller theaters can flourish that show older films, art films, foreign films etc. You should love the reality we live in, then, because that's exactly what's been happening and it's in some sense part of the problem. My spouse and I go to the theaters as often as we ever have, but it's very noticeable that the lion's share of the movies we now watch in theater are special showings of older movie classics or "cinema of country X" type festival events, which than often select from the last ten years or so. This has held for the past half-decade across two countries. When we lived in Seoul, there was a few years when it was a popular couple date option to go to open air rooftop cinemas showing modern classics like "Her" or "Before Sunrise", or to go to the Silver Cinemas originally subsidized for seniors where you'd watch old Hollywood classics from the 40s to 60s (we managed to watch a 70mm projection of all the 4 hours of "Lawrence of Arabia" that way). Now in Berlin, there's a large selection of small cinemas showing random movies from all eras. Our favorite is situated in an old DVD store and specializes in a combo of movies and serving specialty whisky ... it's as hipster as it sounds. I think the last movies we went to see there were "First Blood" and "Persona" and "Leon", I guess. And it's fun, but at the same time it's kind of sad your only two options are watching the latest Marvel flick or All Time Top 250 movies from the 1970s. That still means so much that movies used to be is gone. The second-tier smaller blockbusters you had in the 80s and 90s for example, non-franchise original IP, or the even the lesser known movies from decades past. If you're not on top of the food order, you're just gone. I'm not too doom-y and gloom-y overall on the state of movies, there's still more interesting movies each year than I can keep up with if I aggregate all the possible venues. But the selection in cinemas is, well, very two-note.
nixpulvis 4y ago
I think you are wrong. It's a great excuse to get out of the house and go out to do something still somewhat lowkey social. You can't always just hang out at home.
- grugagag 4y ago
  I still do go to the movies but not much option for holywood movies. Independent movies are worth watching in theaters though.
- bookofjoe 4y ago
  I disagree. I leave my home for 2-3 hours/MONTH to refill my prescriptions and run a couple errands. Been that way since March 2020 when Covid appeared and have no intention of altering my routine.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    well i'm so glad you get to define what everyone else gets to do. it's such an honor to be limited by your preferences. thanks for being that person for us all.
  - pharmakom 4y ago
    Hope you are doing OK
    - bookofjoe 4y ago
      See above
  - wonderwonder 4y ago
    I am not attacking here, I am genuinely interested. Why do you isolate like this? Are you or a family member severely immunocompromised? Or is it a general unease over catching COVID? If it's the latter how long will you continue to live this way? Just curious, you will of course live your life however you want.
dylan604 4y ago
>I think the theater business is dead, it will just take a long time. I think the word you are looking for is dying. Dead vs dying is not the same thing. Dead is dead, unless it's a zombie. Dying a slow death is what you're describing, but miracles can happen that prevent the actual death. Also, peaking doesn't mean dead. I'm just really confused by your definitions
- drewcoo 4y ago
  > Dead is dead, unless it's a zombie. I think they might want our brains, actually.
- prepend 4y ago
  Dead as in no cares about investing in it because it’s dying. So sort of like in the fashion sense. I mean bellbottoms still exist, but they are rare . Or similar to the expression “jump the shark” in that it is still popular, but less so over time. And its inevitable demise is known so it speeds up its demise.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Yes, movie theater going probably will become a niche activity, but not until the current superhero spectacular trend ends. These movies are made for viewing in large auditoriums with huge screens and dozens of speakers. The gap between home entertainment systems and movie theaters continues to narrow and special effect ladened movies are the last movies that still are solidly on the movie theater side of the gap. Once that burns out, even if home entertainment systems never catch up with movie theaters, there won't be much left to keep most of the theaters in business.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  I used to believe so as well, until I recently watched Avatar 2 on IMAX
  - greedo 4y ago
    IMAX is just too rare for most moviegoers. I'd have to drive 5 hours to watch a movie on IMAX, and thought I'd have loved to see Avatar 2 on it, it's just not worth it for most people.
kerkeslager 4y ago
I do wonder if Alamo Drafthouse might change that. Unlike AMC/Regal/etc., they're not forcing you to watch 30 minutes of ads before a movie, charging absurd prices for low-effort, low-quality concessions, or hiring minimum wage workers who don't care if the theater is filled with screaming teenagers. Instead, Alamo Drafthouse feels like a cultural throwback 1990s Blockbuster, a place where you go to have movie nerds show you movies and include you in their nerd-dom, and with better food. And yeah, the self-congratulatory nonsense that is the Oscars is out of touch with audiences, but there are lots of studios that are doing great things--they're just not trying for Oscars, so they're not winning them.
- hexis 4y ago
  Sadly, even the Drafthouse is already well into decline, too.
- prepend 4y ago
  I think Alamo will stick around but there may be 1-2 per city instead of lots serving many pictures. I think theaters can be fairly cheap to run and my city already has a few “hobby” theaters that don’t make money but are kept open by someone who really likes movies.
bob_theslob646 4y ago
What about people who live in large population dense cities that may not have a television and want time away from their tiny apartment?

JKCalhoun 4y ago

You're probably right. I would love to see it become a golden era of the niche matinee where smaller theaters can flourish that show older films, art films, foreign films etc. I would love to see distributors offer up high-quality digital copies of their films for small theaters to screen. Might be another source of cash flow to the rights-holders. It would be nice to see, just as an example, "Andrei Rublyov", on the big screen in 8K or whatever quality.

gffrd 4y ago
Seconded! While I lament the number of bookstores and music shops that have gone away, and that boom times are unlikely to come again (and birth wide variety) … what remains are generally purposeful, well-cared-for, well-appreciated places. It's not what I'd wish, but it's where I hope things go for the theatrical experience as well.
sho_hn 4y ago
> I would love to see it become a golden era of the niche matinee where smaller theaters can flourish that show older films, art films, foreign films etc. You should love the reality we live in, then, because that's exactly what's been happening and it's in some sense part of the problem. My spouse and I go to the theaters as often as we ever have, but it's very noticeable that the lion's share of the movies we now watch in theater are special showings of older movie classics or "cinema of country X" type festival events, which than often select from the last ten years or so. This has held for the past half-decade across two countries. When we lived in Seoul, there was a few years when it was a popular couple date option to go to open air rooftop cinemas showing modern classics like "Her" or "Before Sunrise", or to go to the Silver Cinemas originally subsidized for seniors where you'd watch old Hollywood classics from the 40s to 60s (we managed to watch a 70mm projection of all the 4 hours of "Lawrence of Arabia" that way). Now in Berlin, there's a large selection of small cinemas showing random movies from all eras. Our favorite is situated in an old DVD store and specializes in a combo of movies and serving specialty whisky ... it's as hipster as it sounds. I think the last movies we went to see there were "First Blood" and "Persona" and "Leon", I guess. And it's fun, but at the same time it's kind of sad your only two options are watching the latest Marvel flick or All Time Top 250 movies from the 1970s. That still means so much that movies used to be is gone. The second-tier smaller blockbusters you had in the 80s and 90s for example, non-franchise original IP, or the even the lesser known movies from decades past. If you're not on top of the food order, you're just gone. I'm not too doom-y and gloom-y overall on the state of movies, there's still more interesting movies each year than I can keep up with if I aggregate all the possible venues. But the selection in cinemas is, well, very two-note.

nixpulvis 4y ago

I think you are wrong. It's a great excuse to get out of the house and go out to do something still somewhat lowkey social. You can't always just hang out at home.

grugagag 4y ago
I still do go to the movies but not much option for holywood movies. Independent movies are worth watching in theaters though.
bookofjoe 4y ago
I disagree. I leave my home for 2-3 hours/MONTH to refill my prescriptions and run a couple errands. Been that way since March 2020 when Covid appeared and have no intention of altering my routine.
- dylan604 4y ago
  well i'm so glad you get to define what everyone else gets to do. it's such an honor to be limited by your preferences. thanks for being that person for us all.
- pharmakom 4y ago
  Hope you are doing OK
  - bookofjoe 4y ago
    See above
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  I am not attacking here, I am genuinely interested. Why do you isolate like this? Are you or a family member severely immunocompromised? Or is it a general unease over catching COVID? If it's the latter how long will you continue to live this way? Just curious, you will of course live your life however you want.

dylan604 4y ago

>I think the theater business is dead, it will just take a long time. I think the word you are looking for is dying. Dead vs dying is not the same thing. Dead is dead, unless it's a zombie. Dying a slow death is what you're describing, but miracles can happen that prevent the actual death. Also, peaking doesn't mean dead. I'm just really confused by your definitions

drewcoo 4y ago
> Dead is dead, unless it's a zombie. I think they might want our brains, actually.
prepend 4y ago
Dead as in no cares about investing in it because it’s dying. So sort of like in the fashion sense. I mean bellbottoms still exist, but they are rare . Or similar to the expression “jump the shark” in that it is still popular, but less so over time. And its inevitable demise is known so it speeds up its demise.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Yes, movie theater going probably will become a niche activity, but not until the current superhero spectacular trend ends. These movies are made for viewing in large auditoriums with huge screens and dozens of speakers. The gap between home entertainment systems and movie theaters continues to narrow and special effect ladened movies are the last movies that still are solidly on the movie theater side of the gap. Once that burns out, even if home entertainment systems never catch up with movie theaters, there won't be much left to keep most of the theaters in business.

hackernewds 4y ago
I used to believe so as well, until I recently watched Avatar 2 on IMAX
- greedo 4y ago
  IMAX is just too rare for most moviegoers. I'd have to drive 5 hours to watch a movie on IMAX, and thought I'd have loved to see Avatar 2 on it, it's just not worth it for most people.

kerkeslager 4y ago

I do wonder if Alamo Drafthouse might change that. Unlike AMC/Regal/etc., they're not forcing you to watch 30 minutes of ads before a movie, charging absurd prices for low-effort, low-quality concessions, or hiring minimum wage workers who don't care if the theater is filled with screaming teenagers. Instead, Alamo Drafthouse feels like a cultural throwback 1990s Blockbuster, a place where you go to have movie nerds show you movies and include you in their nerd-dom, and with better food. And yeah, the self-congratulatory nonsense that is the Oscars is out of touch with audiences, but there are lots of studios that are doing great things--they're just not trying for Oscars, so they're not winning them.

hexis 4y ago
Sadly, even the Drafthouse is already well into decline, too.
prepend 4y ago
I think Alamo will stick around but there may be 1-2 per city instead of lots serving many pictures. I think theaters can be fairly cheap to run and my city already has a few “hobby” theaters that don’t make money but are kept open by someone who really likes movies.

bob_theslob646 4y ago

What about people who live in large population dense cities that may not have a television and want time away from their tiny apartment?