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Hollywood is Suffering Its Worst-attended Summer Movie Season in 25 years (latimes.com)

The number of movie tickets sold in the U.S. this summer (425 million) is likely to be the lowest level since 1992, the L.A. Times reports. "Theaters, studios hit by summer box-office blues." The reason: Too many bad movies, including sequels, reboots and aging franchises that no one wanted to see. Some point to rising ticket prices, which hit a record high in the second quarter. From the report: Then there are long-term challenges, including competition from streaming services such as Netflix and the influence of the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. How about all of the above? What is clear: This summer was marred with multiple high-profile films that flopped stateside, including "The Mummy," "Baywatch," "The Dark Tower" and "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword." Sequels in the "Alien," "Transformers" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchises also disappointed. The business is also reckoning with broader, longer-term threats that have kept Americans from flocking to theaters the way they used to. People now have more entertainment options than ever, and cinemas have struggled to keep up, despite efforts to adapt with improved technology and services, industry analysts say. The problem is exacerbated by an unforgiving social media environment in which bad movies are immediately punished by online word of mouth.

11 of 501 comments (clear)

  1. I can't be arsed by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    to go pay $15 dollars to watch a movie meant primarily for the Chinese. Start making movies for America again and I might show up. And that means more complex plots and dialog (which are harder to dub) few or no foreign product placements (which make no sense and break the movie flow even worse than regular product placements) and stop randomly including Chinese actors (I'm lookin' at you Rogue One).

    Hollywood stopped making movies for me so I stopped going. Go figure.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:I can't be arsed by ph0rk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Donnie Yen was probably the best thing in Rogue One. What are you smoking?

      --
      semantics are everything!
    2. Re: I can't be arsed by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The no-profit thing has nothing to do with piracy. It's to do with screwing people on their contracts.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    3. Re: I can't be arsed by sheramil · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pirates is the only one with superstar actors in it. Of course the Mummy had Tom Cruise but he's no Brendan Fraser.

      fix'd.

  2. So it wasn't just me by thesjaakspoiler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    thinking why the heck TV-series were more interesting than the movies....

  3. Punished.....as they should be. by homes32 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Love how they try to pin their failure on social media. Point in fact: Your movies sucked. Just because we can now tell people quickley and en mass how badly they sucked does not chamge the fact. Why should hollywood be rewarded by paying customers for producing trash?

  4. Fuck Movie Theaters -- they SUCK by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So I took Christopher Nolan's advice and saw Dunkirk at an IMAX this summer.

    Nolan's Cinematic Vision in 'Dunkirk' is Hollywood's Best Defense Against Netflix.
    He also wants you watch the movie in the theatre, and not on streaming service Netflix, which he says he rarely uses.

    There wasn't an IMAX close by so I had to take a hour ferry -- no big deal because I get to visit a good friend of mine. After paying for parking the dam theater entrance was on the back side of the building -- a 5 minute walk. OK, but this is "nickeling and diming" both literally and in travel time is starting to getting annoying. I then wander around for 10 minutes because some fucktard couldn't be arsed to put up a "Dunkirk" sign. They had a sign for another movie -- but that wasn't playing. And of course I go to the OTHER theater just to double check it wasn't playing there and of course it wasn't so back to the _first_ theater. ARGH.

    So with less then 5 minutes to spare I finally get a seat -- except it is near the Left edge of the theaters. Could be worse and I could be looking up.

    Except the "movie experience" is SHIT compared to home theater.

    * There was literally 20 fucking minutes of ads
    * Now I love _clean_ bass except the whole time this loud, booming bass was drowning out everything.

    Dunkirk was visually beautiful -- but I could have had a far BETTER experience on my 60" plasma at home.

    Movie Theaters SUCK compared to home theaters. Advantages are:

    * I always get the best set in the house
    * I always get to use the arm rest
    * Can pause the movie
    * Can rewind the parts I want in case I missed something or want to check something out
    * Go to the bathroom
    * Raid the fridge for snacks/drinks instead of over-paying for food
    * Turn on/off CC
    * Adjust the volume to MY liking
    * Don't have to listen to any idiots beside me constantly talking / snoring throughout the entire movie.

    Fuck Movie Theaters -- they SUCK.

  5. Re:then lets do the math for them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Black heimdal, black spiderman, hispanic blue beetle, see a trend? its called reading the demographic properly.

    Or, maybe the blackening of older traditionally white characters instead of just inventing new cool black characters is what turned people off? Everyone knows 2016 was the seminal year for black cinema.

  6. Make better movies again by AHuxley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Listen to the critics. Stop pushing for really positive reviews on social media to sell very average movies.
    Select scripts with more care so people in the USA can enjoy a movie.
    Find much better actors that more people actually enjoy seeing in a movie.
    Find actors on merit who test well with audiences for the needed role.
    That might be a new face or an actor thats been liked for decades. Test and see who would work well for a given role. Dont just place an actor in a role for some other reason.
    Find better funding so fun movies do not have to be altered to fit in with the history, faith or politics of other nations or groups.
    Sell the freedom and fun of Americana to the world. The USA has freedom of speech, sell that globally. Any other nation can do a boring censored movie.
    Stop trying to sell America and the world on very limited scripts.
    Consider mini series to fill out franchises with complex plots.
    If a new movies has hours of backstory to past movies to remove that would have been better as a series.
    People on average like a hero, fun and drama. Stop trying to push politics or placate the people providing the funds. Audiences want a story not a lecture for the price.
    If a script has to be censored, walk away from that funding.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  7. Re:Crank up the prices, produce garbage movies by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We went to a movie last month and were running late. I had wanted to stop by at a McDonalds or somewhere and get a bit to eat before the picture.

    We decided instead to buy some snacks at the theatre. My S.O. did that while I got the tickets.

    She ended up buying us each a 'hot pretzel' and a bottle of water and a tub of popcorn for us to share.

    The 'hot pretzel' was a big mass of dough on a plate.

    After we got out of the theater I happened to notice the recipt for the 'food.' The Hot Pretzels were like $14 each, the bottled waters were $5, the popcorn was I think about $8. Anyhow the 'snacks' were over $45 for two people. Unbelievable here in flyover country to pay that much for so little.

  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion