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Netflix CEO: Movie Theaters Are 'Strangling the Movie Business'' (businessinsider.com)
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings thinks the state of film is a "real tragedy" and that movie theaters are "strangling the movie business," he said at The New Yorker's Tech Fest on Friday. From a Business Insider report:On Friday, Hastings came down hard on these theater owners, saying there had been no innovation in the movie theater business in recent years, even as TV has been shaped by the rise of cable and internet networks. "Money" and "innovation" has flooded to the TV industry, Hastings said. Not so with film. The movie theater business has seen flatline revenue, Hastings said. Part of the problem is that small movies, such as many Netflix has snagged from places like Sundance, would be better distributed both at home and in theaters. That's a convenient position for Netflix to take, but Hastings said the movie studios feel the same way. Each movie studio would like to "break the oligopoly" of the theaters, but "they don't know how," he continued. If they collude to face the theaters, it's anti-trust, but if they are the ones to take the first step, their films will get killed. That means they just go along with the status quo.
It's all a bunch of teenagers kicking the back of your seat and smacking gum and talking on phones. I'll pass.
...it's the only place i'll watch films anymore; they innovate and do a wonderful job of it...
This being Slashdot, many of you don't want to go to theaters and see films. You want to view them at home, from your HTPC where you won't be bothered by other people, people you consider dumb, rude, loud, too young, always on their phones and generally needing to get off your lawn.
I remember this last time movie theaters came up. I was in the minority because I do consider going to the movies to be a social experience, especially when when seeing a suspenseful or funny movie.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
$12 tickets plus $20 snacks per person certainly doesn't help...
My understanding from how movie theatres work is that they barely make any money at all from the showing of movies. It is the production studios that take the greatest amount of profits from the movies shown at the theatre. Where theatre's make money is primarily from the extremely unhealthy food folks buy at the theatre. It's why we hear so much about movies from producers that flop because that represents a huge loss. Theatres are not so worried so long as folks still go to the theatre to see movies.
Gas stations use a similar model where most of their actual profits are from non-gas sales. They behave very much like a corner store. The gas that's sold isn't very profitable otherwise.
My local theater has been innovating in recent years, contrary to Hastings' claims. Some of the changes have been good, such as the ease in buying tickets before arriving at the theater and ability to pick out assigned seats when purchasing tickets.
But most of the "innovations" are horrible. I don't mind (and would often partake) in food and drink at the theater. But unfortunately it comes paired with in-seat delivery during the movie. Waitstaff walking around the theater is a great way to ruin a movie. Always-on lighting ensure people can read menus, but they also completely defeat the purpose of having a dark room to show the movie. Why even bother turning the house lights down, if there's going to be a light on at every seat?
In case I've managed to get any enjoyment out of the theater experience up to that point, staff circulate to drop off the check about 10 minutes before final credits. AKA, during the climatic scene of most movies.
I'd be more likely to go to the theater more often if there hadn't been these innovations in recent years. As is it, I went out to see Cap'n America, and I'll likely get out for Dr Strange, and that will make this year an exception. Most recent years I go the movies once, if it at all.
I seldom go to theaters any more.
The food mediocre and overpriced.
There are no intermissions or breaks on 3 hour long movies. Old movies had intermissions. Live theater has intermissions. When do I get rid of all this soda that has made its way to my bladder? I can pause a movie at home any time I want.
I'd go to the movie theater if they brought the volume back down to what is was 20 years ago. Even with ear plus in, I can't stand the volume -- it physically hurts.
KIDS: STAY OFF THE LAWN!
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
[Mayor Quimby voice]: I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Sounds like a great opportunity for entrepreneurs. Seems like a good fit for those who have the mentality of restaurateurs. There have been some some dinner theater type place for a long time. How a bout an local organic restaurant that also serves up documentaries with your soup? Even sounds like an opportunity for Starbucks: coffee, a scone and a Sundance movie. Sounds like the content providers really want to be outlets so what's the problem.
What competition? If anything, Netflix IS the competition to the movie buggy whip business.
Time has passed you by, theaters. You may have a reason to continue existing as a niche product, but for watching "normal" movies, you're superfluous and, essentially, not competitive anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is like saying that Hardware manufacturer's are responsible for the failing software industry! What a myopic statement to make. It's the film industry that's strangling things. If they would share more profits with the theaters, then the theaters might actually have money leftover to innovate!!! The whole reason digital projector's were forced on the industry is that the film industry wanted more money. It had nothing to do with quality. It was control of distribution and profits. This single moved did more to hurt innovation in theaters than any other single move by the film industry. Most small movie theaters went under because they could not afford the tech.
Why the F does everything have to be about "innovation" all the time? No change is not a de facto negative.
Some things don't need new bells and whistles... can we really improve on forks? Or cast iron pans? for example?
As mcmonkey points out in "No innovation? I wish!", constant change for the sake of some fantasy-land of "innovation!" can lead to a New Terrible.
The constant full-court press of "Growth!" is a cancerous convolution of profit-driven economies. Stability is a welcome and necessary trait.
I used to love going to the theatre but over the last 15 years the experience has become more and more difficult to enjoy
The big distributors built massive theatres miles away from anything, charge a premium on everything (with added fees for dumb gimmicks I never wanted, like 3D or multi-screen). Ugly digital projection run by automation rather than humans to ensure that the screen isn't blurry or off centre or otherwise fucked up to the human eye.
People who did pay the small fortune to get in are bored after 5 minutes and start flipping their massive phones out illuminating their narcissistic habits
Seeing movies at the threatre used to be a joy, yeah popcorn and a drink was expensive back then too, the floors were sticky and there was that kid that kept kicking the back of the seat but once you were in there that stuff faded away, it was magic, you were on the beaches of Normandy with Tom Hanks. You were standing in the rain with Neo wondering what was going to come next, you laughed your ass off when Ace Ventura parked his car (like a glove).
Now I get in, watch 30 minutes of commercials, cringe at the violently unbalanced audio, try and figure out if the blurry pixels on the corner of the screen is the angle of the digital projector lens or my glasses and then after all that watch the soft-reboot of something that wasn't very good in the first place because the movie I wanted to see was only shown twice thanks to some accountant somewhere who bought statistics from a company that decided all movies should be the most banal experiences possible ensured that "The "Blockbuster"" should play 47 times a day to empty auditoriums
I. Am. Done.
Watching a movie at home is fine, but it's not like the theatre used to be... I'm getting old and jaded but even the fucking dollar theatre was a better experience than what we have now, at least when you saw a shitty movie in those days some hilarious drunk bastard would add some colour to what you were watching and oh well, it actually was a dollar or two to get in anyway so who cares?
Maybe the experience could come back, but then we lost drive ins back in the 90s and they never came back...
Somebody bury this corpse
I think that many people are missing the draw of theatres, or perhaps they're just worse in the USA and/or you're going at the wrong times.
Yeah, you might get some loud, popcorn-throwing kids if you go to a brand-new StarWars movie at the 8pm showing, but frankly at home I have:
* A nice-sized LCD TV
* A good 5.1 surround-sound system that I wired/configured myself
* Comfy couches
* Good tasting food
* A nice XBMC setup for watching shows
However, what I also have is a 2-yr-old. That means that realistically, all the above are pretty much used to display episodes of "Curious George" or "Pororo". As much as I'd like to crank it all up late at night and watch some movie with fancy effects and big explosions, the surround gets turned down to avoid waking the kiddo.
The alternative, my wife and I swap turns going out with friends to see the shows we really want in the theatres (or on the odd occasion, go together and get a sitter). Generally there's a nice dinner beforehand, and the shows themselves are at an hour when other people's sh*thead kids are already home or in bed. Yeah, the popcorn, drink, and tickets are a bit expensive, but getting 4 hours of time out is worth a lot!
The movie is the same movie (save for small details on what is/isnt cut) in theater vs home. So why pay $12.50/person in theater vs $20/total for home?
The movie theaters need to make it more about the experience than just the product (the movie) itself.
A few local theaters have changed their seating to be 180-degree leather reclining seats. Something that makes the experience a HELL of a lot more comfortable. Some theaters also include Dolby Atmos, if you love amazing sound systems. I've also heard of some friends mention there is a theater nearby that offers at-seat catering of food/alcohol, tho I've yet to go to this one. And lastly, for those on a budget, there is a local $2 theater that shows movies just after the big chains, and then makes it even cheaper for half-priced Tuesdays.
So are buggy whips.
You can put up as big a screen at home as you have room for, and money to spend. It's not even that expensive, especially as compared to the cumulative costs of a movie theater habit.
Once you have a system at home, you no longer have to put up with sitting by strangers breathing various horrors in your general direction; crying babies; talking people; missing sections of the movie because you needed to hit the head; incredibly expensive and limited "snacks"; spilled sodas running over your feet from behind; seating not specifically chosen by you (and frankly, unlikely to be comfortable); lack of privacy; interference from people using cellphones (or conversely, your inability to use one if you need to); being tied to the theater's schedule; being deluged with ads from every business with an ad budget and no way to mute the obnoxiousness; waiting in line; dealing with the weather; being unable to re-cue the movie to see something you didn't quite catch; dealing with a watch-once-per-huge-cost experience.
If you put some (not a lot of) effort into it, you can have much better theater seating than you're going to get out of 99.9999% of commercial theaters (reclining, soft, blanketed, your SO snuggled up right next to you with out an armrest in someone's soft parts, perfect viewing position every time.) Great sound is easy too. "Largeness" is primarily about resolution and seating distance, so it's really more tricky to get right if you want to please a larger number of viewers. If you are most concerned about you and your SO, for instance, you can set thing s up very easily so the same amount of your visual field is covered, you have excellent resolution, and fabu sound. Going bigger is always awesome, but it's important to understand that the main benefit is the ability to seat and similarly gift a larger number of viewers with equivalent high resolution.
Theaters, near as I can tell, offer only the following:
o a place to take a date that's public, so they have a safety net re you climbing all over them in an unwanted fashion
o an action that is expensive, which can make a date feel like you consider them worthy of same (raise prostitution arguments here, I won't argue.)
o a largish screen, presuming you don't beat them at that game (which takes foresight and money in terms of home spaces)
o about 90 days (at present) one-upsmanship on home viewing timing; that, of course, is wholly artificial -- but quite real.
o higher resolution in some theaters, however this is almost always hugely compromised by non-sharp imagery. Some CGI does show this off, presuming you are seated at the correct distance to the screen, which isn't by any means a given. Even seating at optimum distance with just 1080p isn't all that easy to get right -- there's pretty much just a few feet, depth-wise, where normal visual acuity and that kind of resolution meet and derive full benefit. Likewise, there's only a small set of rows / seats in a commercial theater where you'll actually get the benefit of even higher resolution, presuming the movie actually uses such resolution.
...If those points aren't valuable to you (they aren't to me, at all) then the theater is now effectively a buggy whip. I haven't been to a movie theater in almost ten years (pretty much since projection systems dropped into a range where I decided they were doable.) And you know what? Although my system is moderately expensive, to the point where it blows most people's minds, based on the number of movies we own and have watched, many multiple times, I have saved a huge amount of money, which I then get to put into other things.
I understand the theater business owners' desire to preserve their business model. But I think the writing is on the wall. And I really think that a society that attempts to artificially protect someone's particular business model is making a mistake at any le
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
While there is much study and discussion about monopolistic behavior, and the formation and maintenance of monopolies, and the dismantling or replacement of monopolies, there is less about the decline and eventual diminishment (to the point of irrelevance) of said monopolies.
The movie industry is facing the disintermediation of several components of the industry. Production is being democratized and decentralized as equipment is cheaper than ever, and even animation is affordable. We will see 4K recording on smartphones that is good enough to project.
But the exhibitors are struggling also, with 4K TVs offering a competitive home theatre experience, alternative outlets such as Netflix penetrating their markets, and cable pay outlets such as HBO also leveraging
online streaming to expand markets. Geographic restrictions are being defeated. Piracy seems, to me, to be both unimportant and at a stable level.
The producers will soon abandon the exhibitors, or more accurately expand their exhibition options, and make first releases on other channels or platforms.
And exhibitors are trying to adapt, to attract either a loyal audience, or to increase profits. They cannot continue to raise prices on concessions, and ticket prices by themselves are becoming a problem. So more are adding amenities. Regal has had both reclining seats and reserved seating for a while - I see AMC is installing recliners locally (Phoenix), and I expect all exhibitors will.
And audience behavior will be addressed as the market shrinks. If I'm paying a premium for a comfortable seat, reserved seating, and probably a bit for my popcorn and watery iced tea, I'm inclined to buttonhole the manager and tell them that texting and incessant noises are leading me to go elsewhere. In a standard theatre, I'm less tolerant than ever of being kicked in the back by someone's kid. Especially in an 'R' flick. That was an uncomfortable conversation, explaining that a 10 year old kicking my seat was wrong twice.
Industries either deliver value, meet needs, or perish.
What else can the exhibitors do?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The studios are not allowed to own their own theaters, per the 1948 ruling in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.. The ruling is the same as making the claim that Matco can't make it's own tools and sell them from their own trucks or Apple can't sell iPhones from its own stores. Totally lame and arbitrary and definitely contributes to reduced investment, thus reduced innovation.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Part of the problem is that small movies, such as many Netflix has snagged from places like Sundance, would be better distributed both at home and in theaters.
Right.
If they collude to face the theaters, it's anti-trust, but if they are the ones to take the first step, their films will get killed.
Baloney. The small films often "get killed" anyway. Put in a modicum of advertising (say, subway billboards) and implement a competent social media campaign, and if the audience exists they will find the film.
Hastings probably wants a Netflix exclusive, which might well get a film killed, but a simultaneous release on all the popular monetized platforms will do fine.
The big if's are if the film is any good and if the marketing and distribution are confident. The trick will be as soon as any of the three is bad, the other two will be assigned blame. So get it right already.
Probably best to start with a low-budget sequel to a film with an existing fanbase because creating demand out of the gate is going to be hard. "Bridget Jones's Baby" would have been a good one, for instance. But the studios stand to profit by cutting out the theatres, so there's a far incentive to take on some risk.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They waste space, cost a lot of money and tend to become obsolete quickly. Devotees spend more time playing with their system than they do actually enjoying a movie and I figure I can go out to the movies for a few decades once a week for the money some people put into trying to replicate a movie theatre. It's really almost the Uber vs buying a car in reverse. Why buy a car or a movie theatre when someone else can provide you one on demand for less?
A couch and less than gargantuan screen is perfectly fine for light fare at home for me.
I enjoy the big screen experience at my local theater. They spent the thousands on power reclining seats instead of me, I can reserve seats ahead of time and I have a choice of ultra cheap matinees or the Friday night full price tickets.
Getting out of the house isn't a bad thing to do either.
Grocery stores are strangling the food industry. Car dealerships are strangling the auto industry. Local storage is strangling the cloud industry. Pencils and paper are the downfall of Evernote.
Although I've been a programmer for 30 years, I [relatively] recently (2012) got my degree in Cinema Studies, which is the formal analysis of film as a text. (It's not just saying whether a film is good or bad, but examining themes, set design, sound, etc.) Part of my studies involved looking at the whole process, from pitching a film through global distribution. We all complain about the high costs of movie tickets and snacks at theaters, the frequently lousy chairs and so forth, but the movie studios are not innocent in those costs. While I don't have exact figures to give, out of a $12 movie ticket, the theater may only be getting about $1.50 of the revenue, maybe even less, as the studios are charging them exorbitant licensing and leasing fees for each movie. In addition, they sometimes force theaters to take films that they know are or will be crappy as part of a package deal in order to get the big films. Ever hear the term blockbuster? That's from studios leasing a block of films to theaters, most of which will not be good, in order to get one or two films that everyone is going to want to see. The first blockbusters were films that they sold outside of those blocks because they wanted to make sure that they maximized their potential income.
The only place theaters, including both the small boutique theaters and big chains, make money on are the snacks and food they serve in the theater. As the movie studios continue to raise the costs of leasing the films, the theaters are forced to increase their food costs to keep up while trying to strike a balance with the actual ticket costs. (Lets face it, none of us would likely pay $20 to see Twilight. Hell, I wouldn't take money to see it...)
And then, there's Hollywood's push towards digital distribution, which I admit makes the movie-going experience more pleasant all around. (I've been in a theater when the celluloid film strip melted on the projector, not to mention the graininess that's sometimes there.) A theater quality digital film projector system costs over $75,000, you can probably pile at least another $20k or more on top of that for theater quality THX and/or Dolby speakers, $5-10k for a good projection screen, and God knows how much for seats, maintenance, etc. for each individual theater room at a multiplex. Some of the movie studios have helped with the transition from celluloid to digital projection, it was in their best interests after all, and in the past helped with the hifi to stereo transition, but on the whole, the studios' only goal is to squeeze money out of the theaters. And don't get me started on why they keep making formulaic sequels and remaking/rebooting films... That's got absolutely nothing to do with them being out of ideas, in case you're thinking that...
So, bottom line, Hastings is only partially right. The theaters are the easy target for his blame, but then he's not trying to put films in theaters. It's the movie studios that are really to blame for the sad state of film though.
The sharpest blade is no match for the sharpest mind.
"The movie theater business has seen flatline revenue, Hastings said".
That's a truly beautiful example of deceptive speech. He meant that revenue has been "flat" - in other words, they are not always getting more money with every passing year. When you think about it, how bad can that really be? Must everything grow eternally, without limit?
But the word he chose to use was "flatline", a medical term for "the continuous straight line displayed on a heart monitor which indicates cardiac arrest or death". (COED) A "flatliner" is someone who is dead! So, even if you understand his real meaning, there is the connotation of death and decay in the background.
Of course, I suppose it's always possible Hastings was merely following the common instinct to lengthen words by adding extra syllables.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Horse hockey. The studios don't own the theatres, theatre companies do, and the studios want an arm and a leg to show the films, and the theatre companies want the other arm and a leg for profit... and the theatres pay the staff from the food and drinks.
The result is, what, it was $20/person last year for an IMAX show of Interstellar. $20 for a MOVIE? And another what, $10? $15? $20? for popcorn and sodas?
Gee, I just don' know why fewer people is going to da theatres....
For good films on Netflix, get a DVD subscription. The studios have refused to let Netflix have good stream content.
There are two types of movies being made now:
flash bang glitz that might benefit from a large screen but offset by garbage plot and dialog, not worth paying for so I watch at home
indie-ish movies with good story and plot but don't really benefit from the big screen so I watch at home
love is just extroverted narcissism
First VHS was strangling them. Later everyone with an internet connection could "steal" all the movies they had worked so "hard" to produce. And now when this "theft" has finally started to decline, the movie theaters are wrapping their slimy hands around their necks.
"I say to you that the movie theaters is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
- Reed Hastings
not for all home users... Netflix is playing bad here
"quality" is very subjective here (it's more-like taste) - I'm always listening people that "that excellent movie is not on Netflix catalog"
Well if you really want to see a movie on its release date there are not many legal options.
First off, you're exactly right. If you want to see something the minute it's released, that's the only way to go.
So I'd like to offer another thought. What's so great about that?
Seriously. What's so great about having something the minute it's available? We put a lot of importance on that for some reason. The 2017 Chevys are out early, the latest Star Wars film was just released, Apple just made a phone that is 2% faster than their last one.
Why do we care?
Perhaps that's the thing we should be examining. The theater isn't a barrier to seeing a movie, they're a barrier to seeing a just released movie. That movie you want to see will be the exact same movie a week or a month or a year from now. And you have plenty of legal avenues (and far cheaper ones, and far more pleasant ones) than going to a theater.
Maybe the real problem is instant gratification, and our dependence on it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
there are some niche theaters, you know... "metropolitan" areas are full of them (god, how I miss São Paulo in that way... :P)
It seems to me that the real problem is the low quality output of the Hollywood studios, combined with their monopoly on the US market.
In Europe you often see films from many different countries/cultures, in the US, its ALL Hollywood monoculture output only.
Everything Hollywood make is totally formulaic and predictable, and the plot has become irrelevant to the eye-candy. Go back to the black and white movies of the 40's/50's. Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Gone With The Wind etc. Amazing, engaging, intelligent stories.
Now all we get is just endless hybrids of one of 7 or so standard moralized storylines,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and a bunch of CGI effects. The result is entirely predictable, unimaginative and only truly engaging to people with an IQ of about 80 at most.
Presumably because that's what the studios now believe is the lowest cost/least effort approach needed in order to make something that will probably be profitable, rather than actually good.
Its gotten so bad that a high percentage of American masses seriously think Hollywood Physics is how things actually work in real life.
http://www.informationweek.com...?
Has this critic been to a Cinetopia? Theaters with wine bars that seat you in living room style seating and serve you food and drinks to your seats sounds like an innovation to me. Of course, you pay through the nose for this service, so it's really only good for taking dates to that you want to impress. I'm pretty sure all their theaters are 100% digital too.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
it's already happening: besides popular crap that full theater rooms, "authoral" (and general good) things makes empty rooms on theaters (in movies I generally go to the theaters to watch, normally was just few people in the session... I imagine some session are left empty...)
I second that
Movie theaters do not have a strangle hold. Please the studios control everything AND there's nothing preventing a movie studio from going direct to Netflix if they wanted.
Fuck off you money grubbing bastards.
Depends on the movie theater doesn't it Potsy. There are independent move theaters that show the smaller type movies. You will almost never see an indie or foreign movie in a major chain but you will see them in smaller, independent movie theaters.
Movie theaters had their reason to exist when they offered an added value over what you could have at home. That ceased to exist. Big screen? Have it. Dolby 7.1? Have it. 3D? Glad I don't have it. What else is there?
I know that this is slashdot and that we like to focus on features, but for me the value proposition of movie theaters resides in their selection. This is probably irrelevant for you if you just want to watch the latest blockbuster but if you are interested in independent movies, having an independent theater whose owner has a vision of what makes movies interesting beyond $$ is priceless.It's like going to an independent record shop where the owner will have a selection of the new records he likes, and not proposing just the mainstream music.Some of the movies may challenge at first, but they will expend your vision of what movies can be and what kind of stories can be told.
So basically, I let the owner of the theater do the selection for me, not based on my preferences, not based on my previous viewing history, not (entirely) based on what she thinks will make him earn the more money, but based on her cinematographic sensitivity and their extensive knowledge of movies. And I pester about the selection sometimes, and sometimes I will feel I have wasted my money on a movie, but I know that those people have brought me great movies I would not have seen otherwise and ultimately it's worth it.
CHINA does. That is why no innovation, high prices, and just serving liquor. Basically, CHina can destroy American studios and cause them to sell to China for a fraction of the $. Smart on their part.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
is the closest thing to innovation that I've seen in a movie theater in over 20 years.
Unfortunately, it's expensive and far away - so we stream movies at home most of the time.
The biggest reason I don't go to movie theatres much any more is that the studios and theatres insist on showing them almost only in "3D" - which looks like a blurry dark mess.
"Real-D" is total crap, not being able to project at proper brightness and with too much "crosstalk" between the eyes. The only mildly barely watchable 3D tech is IMAX 3D, but for which there is only one theatre in the whole country where I live (and it has been open for less than a year) and which costs twice as much as a 2D ticket (when they are available...).
But even that does not work well. Stereoscopy at a fixed depth is straining on the eyes and they can't adjust fast enough when there are fast movements, making everything a blur.
Many movies tend to mess up the scale for bigger effect, for instance making large structures look like tiny plastic models balancing at the tip of my nose -- and that just breaks the "suspension of disbelief", reminding my brain that I am watching a movie. When the framing and perspective instead is natural, such as they are in wide shots, the 3D effect is often so small that it does not add anything.
So, give me 4K projection in 2D, in a large theatre with a good sound system! That's how you compete with watching a month later at home. Even if I watch only a DVD on a 32" TV, that still gives me better image quality than in a 3D theatre.
Forget food and drink! I don't want my movie experience ruined by loud chewing noises in my neck and acidic smells.
But DO organize midnight premieres of new blockbusters, where the biggest fans and the devout cosplayers (including me) show up. Those have been some of the best movie experiences of my life.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
A theater's function is for someone to: Sit down Watch and (hopefuly) enjoy movie What "innovation" is needed? 3D? (on and off fad done to death)? Sensurround? (done with Earthquake but the bass was so powerful, it caused some people's ribs to fracture) Smellovision? (a stupid novelty plus allergy concerns) Imax? (exists) Change the tempature in sync with what's on the screen? (please God, no) Sorry for my ignorance, but seems to me like the equivilant of someone trying to come up with a non powered hammer that does more than drives and pulls out nails. Yeah, the ordinary hammer seems rather boring when you think about it, but I want my hammer to just be a hammer. All the theaters need to do is make sure the equipment is in good, working condition, that the seats are comfortable, that the place is clean, and most importantly, that it isn't overrun by selfish, disruptive idiots.
I've been to a number around the country. While some are like they were 40 years ago, some are very modern. The one I was at this week you pick your seat when you buy the ticket. You can pay in cash, credit card or tap the android phone like I did. There are a LOT fewer seats than there used to be in this upgraded theater. The seats they have are mechanical very well padded chairs. Push a button and they'll recline for you. I saw the Clint Eastwood flick Sully. Space between my row and the one in front of me was quite a bit. I could walk by my wife to get out without any trouble at all. Yet the theater seated around 100. Most rows had 11 seats, 5 and 6 per row, then there were around 11 rows, however the last row was just a few chars since that was also the way to get in.
Sound was 7.1 and was probably right about the right volume for the space. I could hear everything even though I'm up in age and I can't hear like I used to. Too many rifle shots and fireworks over the years. It sounded excellent.
Try going to a theater. It's not your Grandfather's theater anymore.
George Lucas and Star Wars stopped me from going to the movies (and I want to tell him that). I went to Phantom Menace and when I got home I was *still* infuriated about having to sit through about 50 commercials. All I could remember about the movie was the racial stereotyping. It was years before I went to another movie. I've seen about 6 films since that experience (The Prestige, Avatar, Storm Surfers, August Osage County, a Star Trek, and Snowden), all of them because someone with me wanted to go (except Avatar and SS; I wanted to see the new era of 3D and the surfing).
I NEVER even THINK about going to the movies because they charge you to ruin your afternoon or evening. If the price of admission was given to me by them, I still wouldn't go. That said, I really enjoyed Snowden and there was NO COMMERCIALS! I was stunned, but happy. Sad to say, they never turned out the house lights so my gf couldn't give me one without being seen. I really want to see Dr. Strange but will only go if I know they'll turn the lights out. ;)
Astro
Seriously, everyone is talking about the features of a good cinema or how annoying all the teenagers are, but Nobody has even touched on the fact that all the movies running these days are just complete shit. There is nothing original happening. Everything is either the nth sequel to some shitty film that never should have had a sequel or it's a remake of a film that was good the first time around and is still just as good today.
Personally, I don't go to the cinema any more because I would rather sit at home with a good book. In fact sitting at home with a bad book is preferable to 3 hours of shit like Batman vs Superman. I would almost prefer spending three hours sitting in the emergency ward with multiple stab wounds.
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
I might go see a first run movie in an IMAX theater; yet only if it warrants seeing in huge, 3D; like a flick with lots of special effects. Otherwise, I am very happy to rent the DVD and watch in my small home theater.
I cannot afford $15-$20/person to go to the movie theater. $2 to $5 is fine with me for the rental.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.