In 2019 a friend and I got subscriptions to Regal and began going to a movie a week. Most days we’d plan something, but sometimes we’d just show up and pick something. (We blindly picked Underwater, and what a great surprise. Also decided to see the Tom Hanks Mr. Rogers film and proceed to ugly cry all over myself.)
Then COVID.
The last movie I saw in theaters as a subscriber was Bad Boys for Life. I tried to go see Dune 1. I drove 30m, bought popcorn and a slushee, and waited… But the video file was corrupted. They said they had to redownload it before the next show, so they canceled the showing and gave everyone a free ticket. I never bothered using it. I just went home and watched it for free on HBO Max.
I love theaters, both as nostalgia and just to have the experience. But man, “paying extra to go out of your way” is a difficult sell.
The moviegoing experience is too expensive. $20+ tickets and a bag of popcorn priced like a steak dinner? Movies used to be a date night activity, it’s too damn expensive for that now. What teenager can even afford to take a girl to the movies?
And the films are crap. I watched Hollywood die, bloat and start to outgas. They don’t make comedies anymore. There’s maybe the Meet The Spartans guys who frat bro no homo joke their way through “parodies”. Everything else is churned out corporate sludge with way too much CGI.
B movies just don’t get made anymore. The upper end of B movies, like all those junk food action movies Cannon used to make, are now premium cable/streaming service TV shows. In the 80’s if you wanted to see cheap crap action schlock you’d go to the theater or rental store and see “Chuck Norris Is: Eagle Death Kick”, now you turn on Longmire and watch Grizzled McViagra shoot an injun right in the rezz. All of the really low budget independent “someone found a camera” stuff that RedLetterMedia laughs at three at a time end up on Youtube now, like Viva La Dirt League and their gaming-centric skits. During the Flash era and into the early days of Youtube there were a lot of budding animators but Youtube decided to kill that. So B movies are gone.
Hallmark has replaced the rom com, as far as I can tell. Everyone’s mom is currently busy lapping up “Woman living busy life moves to a small town and falls for an architect over the Christmas holiday CLXXIV” They churn out a few dozen of them every year. They don’t make While You Were Sleeping or My Big Fat Greek Wedding anymore, the rom com has gone the way of “finger family pregnant frozen elsa kills hitler spiderman,” optimized for maximum eyeball on screen time, except instead of toddlers it’s middle aged women.
What’s left but the five official franchises they’re allowed to make media about anymore? Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, DC and Star Trek. And that last one has made the jump back to TV. Quippy dialog filmed like a big sound board so they can make the whole movie in post. It’s amazing how long it’s worked.
I used to go see movies all the time with friends/family, then it got too expensive.
I got a better job and could afford to go back, but then COVID hit, and my (ex)wife was terrified of being shot, and so my first movie in years was the first new Dune, played at an Alamo Draft House.
I went with a couple friends, got a seat too close to the screen, my friend started POUNDING their popcorn, chewing super loudly, while other people talked. Like, I thought people would shut up once the commercials ended and the movie began, but no, it didn’t even wane! I got up and left after a few minutes, got a refund on my ticket. Haven’t even thought about going back. Whatever I watch, it’ll be on my couch, at home, for free.
How about the fact that there’s a massive oligopoly in the industry? How about one studio basically steamrolling the industry with one franchise in the 2010s which alienated movie goers? How about movie-going being expensive AF?
When a new cinema opened in my city back in december 2022, I got an unlimited movie pass. That allows me to see every movie I want, as often as I want. It costs 20 euros per month.
If you want to see a movie a few times a year, the cinema is expensive. Individual tickets can be up to 16 euros here, plus snacks and drinks.
But if you want to see ALL the movies, well, it’s surprisingly cheap by comparison. I really only need to see 2 movies per month to make the pass viable. But I’m not seeing 2 per month - I’m seeing at least two, three per week. I’ve done three movies back to back.
So the trick to casual movie going is: go see everything :D
I thought theaters were going bankrupt after offering those unlimited passes. They banked on people getting the pass and maybe using it once or twice.
There was a company called MoviePass that did go bankrupt because they were basically paying people to go to movies.
They didn’t negotiate deals with the theater chains or movie studios to give discounts to their members in exchange for more total customers. The studios want to sell more tickets and the theaters want to sell more popcorn, after all. No, what they did was basically issue people debit cards that could only be used at movie theaters. Customers would pay a flat monthly fee and then MoviePass would pay full price for as many movie tickets as the customers wanted.
Their business model relied on most of their customers under-utilizing the service like a gym membership. That’s the only way it would have worked. No one would pay for the service if it didn’t at least theoretically save them money, “I can watch 10 movies for the price of 7”, and the thing is most of their customers fully utilized their service. People who go to the movies a lot were the only one who heard about it.
People loved movie pass. It was great, for them. Not remotely sustainable though.
Yeah it was wonderful of them to use venture capital to send so many people to the movies.
Yeah, in the US they really scaled back those movie pass programs. I’m in the Netherlands though.
I honestly don’t care how the economics of it work. But I’m using that pass to the fullest extent possible. I’ve seen a hundred and one movies this year so far, so about 110 or so total. That works out to two per week or 8 per month. So I’m getting my money’s worth for sure.
I do buy the occasional popcorn or a drink, but certainly not every movie.
I know in the US they figured that pass use would drop off after the initial period. Much like how gyms are packed in january, but by march those people have stopped coming. Of course, they apparently missed the fact that going to the movies is actually fun. Going to the gym isn’t (for most people).
I still casually go see 90’s films for $8 at a small place downtown sometimes, I even get popcorn.
I just like going to the movies. It’s nostalgic for me. I grew up in the 90’s. Put Forrest Gump on a theater for a cheap price and I’ll be there.
I love the movies, too. And I’d love to go if I had a smaller local theater where I reside compared to the large corpo chains. During the handful of times I’ve been to the movies I end up disappointed with the experience: other persons are obnoxious (constantly talking, chewing loudly with mouth open, kicking seats, etc), they play on their cell phones with bright lights, it’s extremely cold, and the audio is incredibly loud that I get headaches from the experience. I found that using my concert ear plugs helps tremendously. I could go at a later point when the movie is no longer drawing large crowds, but at that point if I waited this long to see the movie I might as well wait longer for it to release to physical media I can own and rip to my PC.
Anything except lower ticket prices right?
Ticket prices are really not that much more expensive than it was like 25 years ago when you count for inflation.
Problem is that wages haven’t really gone up to match inflation… so it seems like a lot more. Same with everything else.
Wow, you’re right! Me and my friends saw Red Dawn, first showing in town, for $2.50. That’s $7.75 now.
Having a hard time finding matinees ATM, but standard times are $11-$12, do $7-$8 would make sense.
Took my kid to see Moana 2 yesterday. Medium popcorn was $11.50. WTF…
Distribution rights keep going up and the movie theaters pass those costs on to you in the form of concession prices. Blame the studios.
Yeah, movie theaters barely make money from actually playing movies. It’s another reason why selling alcohol started getting more popular at movie theaters.
Being the price down and I’ll consider going again
for me it’s not even the cost of the movies themselves that’s causing me not to go. it’s the cost of everything else in my life that has been adding up, so unnecessary entertainment expenses like movies are an easy thing to cut back on. Maybe there is a lower threshold that would get me to go more, but it’s probably not a realistic one.
also at home I have exactly the food and drinks I want at any time, I can pause for pee breaks, and I don’t have to deal with any annoying people, ads, or trailers.
Yup, nothing is worth 20 bucks a ticket. Especially considering 3 weeks later you can ‘rent’ it for 5 bucks.
Especially considering everything is a reboot or a sequel now. I want some original movies again.
Yeah, bring back original movies like Hundreds of Beavers, Conclave, Memoir of a Snail, The Substance, A Real Pain, Babygirl, The Last Showgirl, I Saw the TV Glow, Challengers, Wicked Little Letters, Love Lies Bleeding, Origin, The Zone of Interest, The People’s Joker, Kinds of Kindness, Poor Things, All of Us Strangers, The Holdovers, Anatomy of a Fall…
Did any of those appear in the theater, or are they all straight to streaming?
They all had theatrical runs AFAIK.
Crazy, I’ve only heard of two of those movies. I guess my ad blocker is working. Haha.
Thanks for the recommendations
A couple of them aren’t out yet. A couple I missed, or they just didn’t get theatrical releases here (Australia). Everything else, I Saw in the cinema. Anora, as well, hasn’t come out here yet. The Brutalist. I could go on…
Or pirate for free and have a more pleasant experience.
Free market. Amiright?
I don’t want to watch some half assed nostalgia bait sequel or marval movie #3492
There’s a hundred original movies shown every year. Just because they don’t have hype and general discussion doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Literally wtf are you talking about? It’s never been easier to look up what movies are playing in theatres right now and how they’ve been received, even if you don’t actively keep up with releases. Straight up bizarre take for a movie forum
It’s always convenience and cost
- the cost is absurd
- I used to wait 4-6 weeks so I could watch without crowds but now the movie is gone
- just like with live tv, I no longer have to follow their schedule. However if it is only out for a short period, they’re going to miss me.
- lack of advertising, believe it or not. Maybe they still advertise, but advertising is. So bad now that I block as much as I can. Even if they tried and it’s “a tragedy of the commons”, that’s their fault that I no longer hear that a movie exists
It’s too bad because now that my kids are away at college I keep thinking I can go more frequently. But not if it’s too expensive, too inconvenient, and I don’t even know what movies there are
In reality, I actually do go to opening weekends more frequently now that there is reserved seating and less crowds, but my overall movie frequency is much lower.
Even Alamo Drafthouse is not a solution. We finally got one but it’s downtown only, so that’s a lot of inconvenience.
Yes on the advertising. The few movies I would have gone out of my way to see in the theaters never had advertising on anything I watched.
There have been times I’ve heard of videos and I’m like “they made a sequel?!” or I’m just shocked to hear they made a movie about something at all. I’m trying to remember the specific movie but I think it was based on a video game.
I live in dense metro suburbs. The theaters are empty at 2 weeks. Just bump up your schedule. Most tickets at bought before visiting so you cans ee the map of seats open
I just started going to the theaters again. It’s been pretty fun. I’d still rather buy a blu-ray and watch it at home. I wanna go see Nosferatu when it comes out.
Bring lower prices and quality media back and I’ll think about it
I do miss movie theater popcorn but otherwise streaming at home all the way
movie theater popcorn is super easy to make yourself with something like this. you can of course get all the components separately as below, but the all in one packs are a convenient way to try it out.
for 1 medium-ish bowl (easily doubled if you have a big enough vessel):
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1/3 cup kernels (Orrville Red. works for me, the main thing for good popping is fresh kernels)
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~3 tablespoons of butter oil/topping
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1/4-1/2 tsp flavacol depending on your salt level preference
(all this costs about $35 total and will last you quite a long time)
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toss it all in a pot (or stainless steel mixing bowl) and mix around to distribute everything evenly.
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turn the heat to medium and swirl the pot/bowl to keep everything moving and prevent burning.
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when the pops slow down to once every few seconds you’re done.
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add more butter topping to taste.
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I’ve been itching to see a movie in a theater recently but nothing that’s playing interests me.
Maybe you just don’t like movies? I’ve seen tons of films theatrically this year, almost none of them mainstream blockbusters.
