Slashdot Mirror
Piracy Not To Blame In Decline of Moviegoers
lucyfersam writes "In a somewhat surprisingly earnest assessment, the NYTimes has an article about the massive decline in movie-going that does not once try to blame piracy and file-sharing programs. It sounds like studios are beginning to understand that they have only themselves to blame." From the article: "Multiples theories for the decline abound: a failure of studio marketing, the rising price of gas, the lure of alternate entertainment, even the prevalence of commercials and pesky cellphones inside once-sacrosanct theaters. But many movie executives and industry experts are beginning to conclude that something more fundamental is at work: too many Hollywood movies these days, they say, just are not good enough."
Curious to know where you live.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area I can assure you that we do not exaggerate the problem.
All of my friends here in the IT dept where I work have completely stopped going to movies because of the poor behavior of the audience.
I go once in awhile with the wife because we enjoy seeing big special effects laden SciFi movies on a big screen.
But I'm about ready to give it up. Teenagers with cellphones roam the multi-plex. They cruise from movie to movie and don't really care about what they are watching. It's just a hang out zone to them. They talk to each other and they talk on their phone.
Dozens of cellphones flip open repeatedly in the rows in front of you as the kids check for text messages. They jump up and down and roam from row to row and theater to theater.
Theaters have been made into kid friendly hang out zones where parents can drop the anti-social little shits for an afternoon. Most movies are made and marketed for a teen mentality now. Because of this adults feel less and less comfortable at the theater.
Movie ticket sales have been declining since the invention of television. According to Edward Jay Epstein, "In 1948, 90 million Americans--65 percent of the population--went to a movie house in an average week; in 2004, 30 million Americans--roughly 10 percent of the population--went to see a movie in an average week."
Epstein has been writing a number of quality articles for NPR & Slate about the Hollywood profit shift from movie theatres to home theatres. Here are a few of the recent ones.
The Vanishing Box Office
Hollywood's Death Spiral
Hollywood's Death Spiral, Part 2
Hollywood's Profits, Demystified
I live in "Podunk" and things are cheaper for sure. The best part about going to the movies here is that they will collect cell phones from people that are using them/looking at them during the movie. As soon as they see the screen light up they walk over and take the cell phone until the movie is over. Wouldn't work in a bigger city, but it works here.
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
Where the fuck do you live? I'm moving there :) I ALWAYS get kids talking. I saw Lord of the Rings 1, in an empty theater with kids running up and down the isles, screaming, playing without any parent or guardian in the theater. I screamed the shit out of them :)
:)
I've sat in theaters with black women who just would not shut up... holy crap, its a stereotype but its unfortunately true.
I even asked them to be quite twice.... only to receive dirty looks by them as if "how dare i ask them to shut the fuck up in a theater"
I've listend to boyfriends explain to their girlfriends the story or characters. When i saw ST:Nemesis, this guy was telling his girl all of the characters names and trying to get her to remember who they were from the tv show.
I SAW star wars ep2 and had people talk about the film during the film in a way that was like "And here comes the part when..." AS IT FUCKING WAS HAPPENING
Movie theaters are nightmares here in NY