The casual moviegoer is a thing of the past. That's a big problem for Hollywood
Gone are the days where prospective moviegoers would roll up to the theaters and gawk at the board for their next watch. Theaters are trying to make up that business in other ways.
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?
Nah, it's the fault of the casual moviegoer. Of course.
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.
When it costs $50 for 2 people to see a shitty movie?
Without concessions, that's the highest price I've ever heard of. It's half that around here.
I imagine it will vary based on your location, but I'd venture to guess most major cities like mine would be similar.
I live in an outskirts suburb of a major city, and @BearOfaTime@lemm.ee suggested price point matches up.
Checking the current "headlining" movie at my local theater (which happens to be an AMC Theater) to get a single "Adult Ticket" is $21.50 for tomorrow's Tuesday showing outside of working hours (6:30PM). With "fees", it brings it to $24.18 for a single adult ticket.
The "Childrens Ticket" price is $18.50 per.
That's what it costs here. It's a hunnit if you want concessions.
i think mean wage of full time earner in US is 27 bucks pre tax...
why would a person pay half days of wage for this?
prices are so out of wack vis-a-vis income that it is turning comical but yet corpo and regime whores don't understand why plebs feel some way lol
plus quality of hollywood slop is beyond bad... hollywood was always pedo central but at least they could make flip prior to 2010s. no they want your money while shoving shiti agenda in your ass.
they even managed to wear the normie marvel fan jfc
I have been to European theaters that are dine-in and smaller. You got maybe 30 comfortable seats and with tray tables. You order your food / beverages 60 minutes before the movie.
During those 60 minutes you can wait in the lounge and have a drink with an appertife.
When the commercials start the food is served, then the movie starts and everyone is enjoying their meal and movie.
When the half way point hit they pause the movie as days of yore and you get a 20 minute break for going to the toilet and order more things.
They also serve tea and coffee during that time for free.
The kicker is that the tickets are little bit cheaper then the traditional big theater and the experience is 10 times better and more intimite since it only takes 30 people in one saloon.
We have a similar experience in Australia called gold class or (de)LUX. Much better way to enjoy a movie if it's within your budget
The kicker is that the tickets are little bit cheaper then the traditional big theater
Gold Class is not similar. It's twice as expensive and nothing is free; a coffee or tea is ~$5.
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
Being the price down and I'll consider going again
not just lower price but 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.
Free market. Amiright?
It's only a problem for Hollywood, and not simply the theatre companies, because they refuse to go back to the convenience of streaming the movie like they did during COVID lockdowns.
I would much rather stay home, make my own popcorn, and watch a movie on my own TV, in my underwear, being able to pause if I need to pee, than get dressed, drive across town, and sit in a sticky seat in a big dark room full of strangers who usually make hella noise during the film, paying 3 times more than the ticket just for a small bag of popcorn, and having to hold in my pee until I feel like my bladder will literally burst so I don't miss anything.
The only time the theatre experience was ever better than just being at home, was the first time I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show. Because the audience fucking participates!
Dammit Janet!
Oh Brad!
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.
It’s always convenience and cost
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.
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
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.
Hollywood does not respect the audience, movie theater is a bad service.
Why would working person pay either of these parasites?
Yarr ;)
Last movie I went to (like 2-3 years ago), there was a lady on her phone with the brightness turned all the way up nearly the entire time.
No thanks.
Rude people have always been around the moviegoing "experience".
Then cellphones and social media popped up, making things geometrically worse.
Then in order to not inconvenience the mindless assholes inside their theaters, they managed to run the real movie lovers out of their establishments.
Then somehow, incredibly, the pandemic made things even worse! Like something about being alone with their hollow lives for a year or two, broke something in the hollow psyche of those already mindless, rude hordes.
There was one time in 2007 that blew my mind in a movie theater, they were screening a limited engagement of No Country For Old Men before general release, so everyone who was there, was there for the love of cinema.
There is no music soundtrack in that movie, it has long stretches of silence, and in each of those scenes, in this packed large old movie house, I swear you could hear a pin drop.
My god... what an exceptional movie experience that night was, I'd never experienced anything quite like it, before or since.
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.
Bring lower prices and quality media back and I'll think about it
Watching at home is more affordable and convenient. Even going out to the movie theater is time consuming having to drive there and find parking then drive back if you don't live in a place close to the theater even if prices were reasonable.
I live less than ten minutes from a decent enough multiplex, but I only go to one or two movies a year, when it’s a project I am excited for and the spectacle of the thing makes the giant screen, giant speakers, and properly darkened viewing room outweigh all the incredible advantages of watching at home.
I still don’t get any popcorn though. If I’m into the movie enough to deal with the… ugh… theater, I don’t need to bother with overpriced concessions.
Movies at home: $0
Movies at home: I don’t have to go anywhere
Agree with you… there’s a clear winner there.
I haven't been to see a movie in a theater since 2019, and at this rate I don't think I would even go if it was free.
I still casually go see 90's films for $8 at a small place downtown sometimes, I even get popcorn.
I just like going to the movies. It's nostalgic for me. I grew up in the 90's. Put Forrest Gump on a theater for a cheap price and I'll be there.
You've hit the nail on the head. 8$, not 24$ for entry and 18$ for popcorn and pop. Movie theater prices are insane.
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.
The same people in this thread blaming remakes and marvel are also not going to see any of the other smaller but unique and quality films that come out in theaters. There was literally 1 marvel studios film that hit theaters this year.
Are there good mid budget movies even being made? It seems like it's either massive blockbuster or award bait garbage.
There are tons, but people aren't paying attention to them. And certainly aren't going to the theatre to watch them. I think you asking that question just reinforces my point.
There are and have been a lot, Blink Twice, Smile 2, We Live in Time, Conclave, alien Romulus, The Substance and Thelma to name a few just from this year.
A24 did "Dicks: The Musical" last year which was one of the funniest, most profane, things I ever watched...
Trailer (NSFW):
Signature musical number (NSFW):
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):
(all this costs about $35 total and will last you quite a long time)
I know a lot of people swear by the stovetop method, but if you're the kind of person who would somehow manage to burn cereal, a Whirlypop is 30 bucks well spent. Way fewer unpopped kernels than mocrowaving, and it stirs everything from the bottom so it's almost impossible to burn.
And yes, flavacol is the magic ingredient!
Why would I pay >$30 for a subpar watching experience where there's annoying people all around, I can't stretch my legs, I can't bring in my own food, and I'm shoved an industry ad that blames me for seeking a better market option (the seven seas stores tend to have the same movies for less than 1/30th of the price)?
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.
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 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.
Maybe I'm weird but never in my life have I just gone to a theater and hoped there was something interesting enough showing to draw me in just from a title or maybe a poster in the lobby. I just can't imagine pre-allocating my time and money to such a venture on a whim with little to no idea of what I might be getting in to.
It did happen back in the day when a lot of movie theaters were attached to a mall. I actually saw The Matrix that way, wandering through the mall with my girlfriend after dinner, and the poster looked interesting to both of us. Hadn't heard a thing about it. That was a cool experience.
Once theaters shifted to a destination unto themselves, you really don't see the 'wander into a movie' thing anymore.
I actually saw The Matrix that way, wandering through the mall with my girlfriend after dinner, and the poster looked interesting to both of us. Hadn’t heard a thing about it. That was a cool experience.
That must've been awesome
That movie blew my mind and it's one of the very few I paid to see multiple times in theaters. I think that one was four times.
I'm really lucky, there's an independent theatre near my place. If I don't have plans, I'll see what's on as I trust them to choose good stuff. Seen a lot of really awesome movies I never would've caught otherwise and best of all, absolutely spoiler free.
Sure, some that were not my jam at all but overall, walking into a movie and knowing next to nothing about it can be exhilarating, the story can go anywhere and you have no idea what's up.
True, with assigned seating and online sales I don't look at the movie board.
The sale is made before I enter the building, but the same is true of fast food these days - maybe they need to redefine "casual".
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 a huge screen. But man, "paying extra to go out of your way" is a difficult sell.
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.
Have you checked your local non-chain theatres?
We're in an age of huge screens and sound systems at home.
Plus it seems we're also in an age of paying a months worth of streaming service for one person to see one movie.
It's no wonder the cinema is on its arse.
Tbf i thought wicked was pretty great-
This is the same problem as the videogame industry - a handful of the biggest players are pumping too much money into each movie to be profitable. They are counting on a blockbuster franchise to expand on with a string out series of sequels that never achieve the same level of success as the first one.
The only difference between movies and videogames is indie game devs are able to show the market is still there but no one wants the product of big hype. Movies don't have that. There was a time when a streaming service would buy some indie movie but now each one is making their own movies and the potential for new, original ideas is stagnating.
Boutique theaters would probably exist for a while. I mean, watching Avatar on a laptop is not the same. Stage show isn't dead.
Put the subtitles on the screen! Why would anyone go watch a movie they can't hear? Tell people what the actors are saying. Theatres won't bother to compete with the home video experience of watching a movie with subtitles.
So people watch movies with the subtitles on? Like, is that a thing? Might be cultural thing, but I've almost never encountered that.
It's incredibly common in the US, especially among younger people. This was just on the first page of my search but I'm sure you can find tons of similar stories over the years: https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/more-americans-prefer-watching-shows-with-subtitles-study-finds/ar-AA1rj48O
Overall, half of respondents said they use subtitles regularly.
Personally I've always done it since my youth as well (around '96.) Admittedly that was mostly because I mostly used my TV to watch late at night instead of sleep... But it wasn't even unheard of then to prefer subtitles. And it was pretty common at the HD switch over, often citing bad speakers (both quality and physical design.)
Regal just closed the 13 screen theater closest to me, not sure what's going to happen to it now. :(
But given my last experience there was bad enough that I walked out and went somewhere else after waiting 15 minutes in a non-moving ticket line that they insisted on running through their concession counter... Yeah, nothing of value was lost.
I would very much prefer the theater experience but Hollywood hasn’t had a movie worth going.
