4 ms·

It’s kinda surprising that I’ve never heard of movie theaters doing smaller watch-a-movie-with-friends-sized theaters. No showtimes, just reserve your living ro

by teeray 3y ago

It’s kinda surprising that I’ve never heard of movie theaters doing smaller watch-a-movie-with-friends-sized theaters. No showtimes, just reserve your living room, pick among the new releases, and play. Order food and drinks and they get delivered to the room. Yes, I realized I just reinvented streaming. The difference is that it gives the theaters that exist some path forward while offering the market something closer to what they want.

porkbeer 3y ago
I used to do this adhoc with friends, because all the projectuonests knew each other and would source films we would all pitch in on and show them after hours. After a few years they started an official monthly classic film selection and it was popular until projectionist as a job fizzled out. The whole culture is nearly lost, but no reason we cant revive it,
senkora 3y ago
This is sort of a thing for large corporate events that can fill an entire regular-sized theater.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
So, a lounge room? It sounds like a slightly more intimate variation of what We Work was doing. And we know how that ended. Even without the pandemic and with appealing to small businesses it just seems like that kind of upkeep for land was unviabble. The big "issue" is the US itself. These kinds of things do exist in Asia and some parts of the EU and works great, because housing is tiny and basically only for eating and sleeping. The US meanwhile has more land for bigger houses and backwards thar are the subject of house gatherings. This may be on the fall right now, so the idea ironically becomes more viable later for newer generations. but as it is there's not much incentive to rent out a large club room when you have a house to go to instead.
hirsin 3y ago
It's relatively affordable, or was during the late pandemic, to simply book a theater. They charge about the same as twentyfive tickets and it's for you and up to twenty friends. Was great to add an intermission to the middle of James Bond to go hit the restroom and get drinks.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  > you and up to twenty friends I hate to be “that guy” but in retrospect, that doesn’t really seem to have been a great idea during a worldwide, deadly, airborne pandemic… at least until the vaccines were widely deployed. I guess that’s what you mean by late pandemic.
  - rokkitmensch 3y ago
    The espoused opinion is not universally held.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      No opinion is.
  - hirsin 3y ago
    Basically. We all had a pair of shots I'd say. Easy even for strongly concerned folks to have six feet separation between bubbles.
sircastor 3y ago
A couple of our local theaters were doing this during the Pandemic. You could rent out the theater for something like $300 and they had a list of movies you could choose from. There wasn’t anything that accommodated the entirely family so we didn’t ever bother with it. I was hoping it’d hold out a bit more, but they’ve gone back to business as usual.
add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
That doesn't sound like streaming to me, it sounds much better. Getting out of the house, watching on a big screen, new releases made for the big screen as opposed to second screen content made to be forgotten once it falls off the home page.

by teeray 3y ago

porkbeer 3y ago

I used to do this adhoc with friends, because all the projectuonests knew each other and would source films we would all pitch in on and show them after hours. After a few years they started an official monthly classic film selection and it was popular until projectionist as a job fizzled out. The whole culture is nearly lost, but no reason we cant revive it,

senkora 3y ago

This is sort of a thing for large corporate events that can fill an entire regular-sized theater.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

So, a lounge room? It sounds like a slightly more intimate variation of what We Work was doing. And we know how that ended. Even without the pandemic and with appealing to small businesses it just seems like that kind of upkeep for land was unviabble. The big "issue" is the US itself. These kinds of things do exist in Asia and some parts of the EU and works great, because housing is tiny and basically only for eating and sleeping. The US meanwhile has more land for bigger houses and backwards thar are the subject of house gatherings. This may be on the fall right now, so the idea ironically becomes more viable later for newer generations. but as it is there's not much incentive to rent out a large club room when you have a house to go to instead.

hirsin 3y ago

It's relatively affordable, or was during the late pandemic, to simply book a theater. They charge about the same as twentyfive tickets and it's for you and up to twenty friends. Was great to add an intermission to the middle of James Bond to go hit the restroom and get drinks.

ryandrake 3y ago
> you and up to twenty friends I hate to be “that guy” but in retrospect, that doesn’t really seem to have been a great idea during a worldwide, deadly, airborne pandemic… at least until the vaccines were widely deployed. I guess that’s what you mean by late pandemic.
- rokkitmensch 3y ago
  The espoused opinion is not universally held.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    No opinion is.
- hirsin 3y ago
  Basically. We all had a pair of shots I'd say. Easy even for strongly concerned folks to have six feet separation between bubbles.

sircastor 3y ago

A couple of our local theaters were doing this during the Pandemic. You could rent out the theater for something like $300 and they had a list of movies you could choose from. There wasn’t anything that accommodated the entirely family so we didn’t ever bother with it. I was hoping it’d hold out a bit more, but they’ve gone back to business as usual.

add-sub-mul-div 3y ago

That doesn't sound like streaming to me, it sounds much better. Getting out of the house, watching on a big screen, new releases made for the big screen as opposed to second screen content made to be forgotten once it falls off the home page.