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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."
Let me see, which would I rather do: spend $30+ on a movie ticket, popcorn, and a drink just so I can watch the latest subpar selection of movies at a time set by the theater and have popcorn thrown at me by 13 year old cell phone wielding children, OR pick up whatever movie from the redbox for $0.99 (or DVD rentals through the mail) and a drink and popcorn from the local store all for less than $5 and watch it on my widescreen in the comfort of my own home. Tough call.
Movie Studios Curb Internet Piracy
Hollywood studios have come up with an effective method of deterring Internet file-sharing of movies: Make movies that no one wants to pirate.
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.
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.
Obviously this article was conceived, written, and posted by a BitTorrent using hacker who wants to see the continued demise of Hollywood be blamed on the wrong parties. There is no way that Hollywood is putting out bad movies. Look at how much they cost to produce, direct, edit, and market!
Even Robert Shaye, the studio leader behind "The Wedding Crashers," one of the summer's runaway hits, shares the worry about the industry's ability to connect with audiences. "I believe it's a cumulative thing, a seismic evolution of people's habits," said Mr. Shaye, chairman of New Line Cinema.
Yeah, people are annoyed with the fact that they have to pay $9.00+ to see something that cost 100+ million to make and it fucking blows. "Wait for DVD" is an all to common quote, especially with the MPAA pushing them out to the stores as fast as they can in order to attempt to curb piracy in the theatre.
It's really funny that they quoted Shaye. His movie, one of the few that did anything this summer (I haven't seen it yet), was done on a 40 million dollar budget and grossed nearly all of that back in its first weekend alone...
In previous years, he said, "you could still count on enough people to come whether you failed at entertaining them or not, out of habit, or boredom, or a desire to get out of the house. You had a little bit of backstop."
Yup, and honestly, it really seemed that it was more worth your while to spend quite a few dollars less, find a more enjoyable movie, and be able to relax for two hours. I can do that at home just as effectively for MUCH LESS money if I only wait for two months ($3.00 opposed to $18.50) and watch the DVD.
The box office numbers have led to intense, broad-ranging conversations across Hollywood about the implications. Many studios have commissioned market research to investigate the causes of moviegoing behavior - or the lack thereof.
Pay me, I guarantee you'll find out more and it will cost you less. I'll start you off here: pay the actors less money - they aren't worth 20+ million a movie. Don't use so many pointless special effects - they aren't working in most instances. Charge less for the movie so my ticket prices aren't $9+ -- you'll be able to better compete with DVD and people will be more likely to go to see the show. Ban cell phones, talking, and make adult only showings - it'll make adults more likely to see a movie w/o having to listen to a bunch of underaged kids, take calls, have their ringtones going, and spend the entire movie talking instead of watching the movie and/or making out. Finally, ask people what they think about it instead of whoever you have been paying to figure it out for you. In the article, Michael Lynton said:
Audiences have gotten smart to the marketing, and they can smell the good ones from the bad ones at a distance.
If we can why can't you? Seems like an open and shut case to me.
Perhaps because most Hollywood movies are targeted at 13-year-old American girls? Like, Oh My God, how could they, like, not get it?
Now, I think that some of those theories are completely valid. Commercials in the theaters absolutely piss me off. If I'm going to spend 9 bucks to watch a movie, they better not force me to watch commercials before it. Next thing they'll do is start commercial breaks in the middle of the movies. The cell phones are annoying and I like doing other things more than I like watching movies, but in the end, it comes down to what they are finally realizing. The movies suck. If there weren't any cell phones or commercials and I didn't have anything to do, I still wouldn't go.
FTA: In previous years, he said, "you could still count on enough people to come whether you failed at entertaining them or not, out of habit, or boredom, or a desire to get out of the house. You had a little bit of backstop."
That's amazing, because that's what I always figured they were thinking. And that's the attitude that keeps me away.
Now, I love good special effects as much as the next geek, but, call me old fashioned here, I actually like my movies to have this thing called a plot.
I used to say that I'd just wait for it to come out on video but I won't even waste my time with that anymore. Inevitably, I find myself at the end saying, "Well, there's two hours of my life I'll never get back."
I'll actually deal with the commercials and other annoyances if it means that I can be completely entertained.
A man with a gun is called a citizen. A man without a gun is called a subject.
I have noticed with the theaters in my area, that the previews are getting close to 30 min. long. With previews that long, I don't bother to show up to the theater till the time posted the movie should start. It is getting ridiculous.
1) Ticket prices have become ridiculous. I like going to the theater in general, but the prices are only warranted on very rare occasions that a film deserves to be seen on the big screen. There was a good discussion in the Tipping Point (I think) about how ticket pricing doesn't reflect supply and demand. The same price for Spider-Man and XXX: State of the Union? A lower price for films not that much in demand would increase the amount of overall tickets sold in gross revenue.
2) Two Towers had about 45 minutes worth of commercials that preceded it. By the time they were over and the film started, I wanted Frodo to get captured and tortured by some orcs.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
A lot of the movie theatres are just in a disgusting state. They're just not appealing environments for me.
You go there and half the ticket booths are not staffed and the automated ticket machines are all malfunctioning, so you can't pick up tickets bought in advance without having to wait in line.
You get inside the theatre and half the concession stands are unstaffed.
The ones that are staffed have lines longer than the bathrooms, have sticky goo all over the counter and are staffed by people who have no concept of customer service whatsoever.
Once you get your $3 coke, that costs $1 outside the theatre, and start walking to take a seat, you have to struggle to not get your feet stuck to whatever sticky shit is covering the floor.
Whenever you arrive at your seat, you're hoping that you don't sit down on one of the many seats that have been broken for more than 2 months. Once you're reasonably happy with the seat, that still creaks and is uncomfortable, you have to clear your immediate surroundings from droppings left by people attending the previous screening. Anything from gum on the seats and/or armrests, empty soda cups in the cupholders, nachos boxes with old, smelly cheese under the seat, etc.
Then when the movie starts, it actually doesn't start until 20 minutes of commercials.
Why would I go enjoy all that voluntarily?
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Do not forget about the rising price of movie prices themselves. Look for yourself at how much prices have gone up here. I can tell you inflation was not that high.
Look at other emerging markets. Tivo: It used to be that you would go and watch a movie when there was nothing on television. Now you can watch the shows you want to see on TV (and there are a lot more channels to choose from), when you have time. Going to the movie theater is now far more inconvenient than it used to be.
Another emerging market: Video games... With a limited amount of entertainment, dollars available and those funds are currently shrinking... Something had to give way to pay for the emerging video game market. Simplest answer: Movies are no longer having their competitive edge that they once did.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
In just about any creative enterprise, there is tension between the creators, who are often motivated by love of what they do; and the bean-counters whose only goal is to cut cost. The bean-counters have been winning. They've squeezed so much life out of their products for short-term gain that they've ignored the long term consequences, which we are now experiencing, at least in the USA:
- Crappy movies nobody wants to see, (hello Hollywood)
- Crappy music noboby wants to buy, (hello top 40)
- Crappy cars nobody wants to drive, (hello GM)
- Crappy software that is barely tolerated, (hello Microsoft)
There are people who will pay time and money for quality, but it isn't clear they can support businesses large enough to displace the mediocre behemoths.
Whispering every so often is one thing, but my girlfriend and I have had some bad experiences with going out to see a movie. We had a couple sit down next to us and the woman was some frumpy, dumpy middle age woman and she kept glaring at my girlfriend (who was just resting her head on my shoulder) and even coughed up and sprayed a bunch of spit on my girlfriend's leg. Then there are the cell phones, the kids that aren't forced to sit down and watch the movie or leave and things like that.
We really need the theatres to say to people, "look if it's an emergency, take the call, but otherwise if you take the call we'll throw you out." I leave my cell phone off anyway. The real problem is that so many Americans are just selfish bastards and don't bother to think about others. They don't care about others' rights because it's all about them, them and only them.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I disagree with most of the FP lot.
Most movie theaters are located in very high rent areas. Of course tickets will also be pricy. I don't think there's a quality drop, it seems pretty status quo.
I truly believe that our beloved Internet is to blame. You're seeing the same death knell in brick and mortar retail, restaurants, and even car buying. In a capitalist view, time preference is making new markets. The idea behind time preference is that markets flow towards the faster and cheaper sources. Price is rarely the reason.
Car dealers are selling cars at cost -- with no change in the market slow down. Cars are bought with future earnings often (financing). A lot of people fear their future earnings. Movie theaters prosper when people have money and time right now. Job security has declined, debt has gone way up, savings are nil.
My retail stores are down 50% since 2004. I have less cash to pay my employees. They have less cash to go to the movies. The movie theater employees have less cash to buy my goods, so they buy online -- money that is 'outsourced' to another state, unlikely to return to my local economy. Rinse, repeat.
Our dollar loses more value every day as the Fed inflates our currency. That is a fact. My local economy suffers, and in my experience the money that is made online by big warehouses tends to end up in Mexico and Asia. Not enough is recycled back to theaters, car dealers and local retailers.
Eventually time preference always wins. As our standard
of living declines, the standard of living in Mexico and Asia increases. The Internet is allowing the free market to balance itself out. Wage
internationally want to equalize no matter what government or big business wants to do. Its the law of a supply/demand reality.
Who here went to movies & restaurants often in the 90s? How many new cars at 8% interest did you buy then? How many new cars at 0% and employee price will you buy this decade? How much has your debt gone up in that time?
1. Stop releasing sequels.
2. Stop remaking classics.
3. Stop turning books/comics into films.
4. Stop relying on special effects.
5. Write a good story, dammit.
I pay ~$100 a month for a full-on Dish Networks setup - already had 500 watt 5.1 in the living room. Got a dual channel DVR from Dish and a dual receiver in the home office wired to the two PCs in there. If I'm still bored there's always Netflix.
The reason I say this is that after going to the movies once or twice a month or so I finally got sick of it. Two movie tickets, one shared soda and a bucket of popcorn run about $25 and the spousal unit believes that Movies Always Include Dinner Out.
So - if I get out of the deal for less than $60 I'm doing pretty well and it made the whole satellite thing extremely attractive.
These days we go to the movies a couple times a year instead of a couple times a month - and that's only when we think some film's special effects must be seen on a big screen - like LOTR, Star Wars, War of the Worlds and so on.
She's got about four gazillion channels of TV to watch, enough sound system to make the neighbors complain and in the end it's one hell of a lot cheaper than going to the movies.
Oh - and the full-on Dish setup is only about ten bucks a month more than digital cable was; and we wired up two more sets and got two more premium packages plus a DVR in the deal. Cable companies, maybe you should pay attention too.
And for the rest of you folks who think you have monopolies, I also bought two cell phones recently and ported the home wireline to my wife's cell. It's time consumers started voting with their feet (and with their wallet).
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
The Last DJ
I avoid having drinks because the last thing I want is
I should think the last thing you want is to have your head blown of, and your brains scattered about the theatre, in front of your whole family.
But maybe, just maybe, I have seen to many movies...
Theatre attendance declining because U.S. studios don't make good movies? What other shocking revelations await?
Next, they'll be saying that U.S. auto manufacturers are declining because they don't make good cars.
Thanks heavens there's at least one area in which the U.S. still leads. Thanks heavens Microsoft still makes the world's best software.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I agree with the theory that DVDs should be released simultaneously with the theatrical release.
I have two young kids, so I can't go and see movies in the theaters as much as I'd like. (Actually, I never get to see movies in the theater.) However, I keep being inundated with movie marketing in such away that I really want to see certain movies. But by the time they come out on DVD so I can rent them, I no longer care to do so. The marketing fog surrounding me has long since cleared.
A good example is the movie "40 Year Old Virgin." It sounds hilarious and I really want to see it. Will I want to see it four months from now when the DVD is release? Almost certainly not.
All the money the studios spend on marketing is wasted on people who cannot, for whatever reason, not go to theaters. If DVDs were immediately available, the marketing would not go to waste.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Another factor might be this: Over the last 5 years or so, Hollywood's marketing machine has become increasingly effective at hyping every single movie, making the opening of a movie seem like an event you have to participate in or be forever mitigated to a lowly social rung. This has made movie openings much larger than they were 10 years ago, even for utterly crappy movies. It might take them a while, but eventually people become numb to the hype and these new marketing techniques, and movie attendance drops accordingly.
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 think you could have stopped after the first 6 words.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Who needs a 'partner'?
Women do, that's who. They are programmed to trap someone who will stay with them and help raise their kids. Men, on the other hand, are programmed to disseminate their genes in the widest possible manner. Both strategies support human survival in their own way.
But now we live longer and healthier than we were meant to. Women are bearing children, on average, much later in life. And men can keep siring into their 70's and beyond. The counteracting agendas of the genders used to balance out, but this recent development of longer lifespans results in couples whose needs diverge as they get older.
Thus, as a 41-year-old husband and father, I am currently separated and dating a much younger girl. And I'm pretty happy about that.
Problem number three: A movie is not the best place for a first date. You need to interact, not stare at a screen on your first date. Dinner good, movie bad.
I would actually say dinner is NOT a good idea for a first date. Lunch is better.
It's a short affiar: friendly and light. No heavy pretense that comes with Dinner. If you don't hit it off, you're only wasted an hour or so of each other's time. If you do, you can always make additional plans that evening if you wish.
BWAHAHAHA! You actually PAY for the watered-down soda and stale popcorn? Sheesh, my girlfriend and I usually hit the local grocer/wallmart/meijer, put some bin candy in a bag, buy water/soda, and sneak it into the theater.
Better yet: if you try it, you might find that you're capable of surviving for two hours without ingesting any junk food at all.
David Gould
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