They wont. The propaganda is so heavy in movies now that the scripts are terrible and by extension movies are too. Hollywood is too busy pushing a race war to realize we dont like their movies anymore
One hypothesis, which I think is worth considering, is that maybe short-form video is just fundamentally more compelling than long-form video media. Think TikTok vs. 150 minute feature films.
Before modern technology there was major overhead, to both consumer and producer, when selecting any single piece of media. Producers had to acquire expensive filming equipment, go through an arduous editing process, and negotiate distribution. Consumers had to pick out what they were going to watch next, possibly travel to a venue, or at least jump through a bunch of hoops to load the next playback media.
It would make sense for the economics to bias towards long-form video media, even in the face of consumer preference for short-form. It would be absurd to release a 2 minute feature film to play in theaters. It'd even be absurd to schedule a 2 minute broadcast television slot. Even a 2 minute video is pushing it on a streaming service, unless there's a very good algorithm that the user's happy to delegate auto-playback to. Otherwise the overhead of picking the next video is on par with the video length itself.
Maybe most of us would prefer just to watch a hundred one minute videos, instead of a single full-length movie. It's just the technology to make this happen is just arriving now. Again, I'm not sure if it's true. But if you're in media, you definitely can't blind yourself to this possibility.
This sounds like "Maybe most of us would prefer to just think 100 tiny thoughts, feel 100 tiny emotions rather than one large thought, one complex emotion", and I think you're probably right, which is probably sad. After all, isn't the point of movies to spur you to think thoughts and feel feelings you wouldn't have thought and felt otherwise?
Shows that run multiple seasons are among the most popular. I mean shows like Westworld, Game of Thrones etc - and they have way more complex emotions and stories then typical theater movie.
Short-form and long-form are essentially different media. (I'd add that serialized long form, aka prestige TV, seems to be doing pretty well right now at least at the top of the pile.)
Short-form media has always been harder to monetize. We've had the technology for a long time to sell individual short stories, articles, etc. It doesn't seem to work very well. (Tangent. Why can't I buy an arbitrary short story on Kindle?) Most authors of 300 page books don't make much money either but there does seem to still be a fairly robust writing and publishing pipeline there.
Curious how Quibi comes into play with short-form.
Have also noticed Fox Searchlight has been recently acquiring short films out of the past few film fests. Believe they're making those avail on their YouTube channel.
Of course, the vast majority of short films at festivals etc. make very little, if any, money and they're rarely seen outside of extreme film buffs. Getting an audience through YouTube and monetizing it to at least some degree is probably a win.
That is definitely true for me. I have pretty much stopped going to theaters. At least if I watch a movie at home I can take a break whenever I want. Which might be turning it off and finishing it several days later. Streaming TV just makes this even easier and feel more natural by providing predefined breaks.
> Maybe most of us would prefer just to watch a hundred one minute videos, instead of a single full-length movie.
If that's true then it might speak to more than just entertainment consumption. It would mirror a trend in other areas like social media where before you would have long form blogs that went to facebook posts and now to shorter tweets.
Maybe it's a collective attention deficit disorder given to us by the constant distractions of modern technology.
It's certainly the overall impression one gets and I see it in myself. TBH, one of the reasons I sometimes like to see a movie in a theater is that I'll watch it straight through whereas at home I'm likely to at a minimum pause it once or twice to run into the kitchen or just do something else for a few minutes.
Among other things I do, I'm involved with content marketing/social media/etc. and there's quantitive evidence that viewing/reading is tilting towards shorter content in all forms. That's a bit different from entertainment that someone seeks out. But I suspect you have similar forces at work.
On the other hand TV series with stories spanning many episodes have become more popular. While individual episodes (40-60 mins) may be shorter than a movie, they're only convenient stopping points, like chapters in a book, not separate installments.
So I don't think the problem is that long-form is undesired.
How Will the Movies
(As We Know Them)
Survive the Next
10 Years?
I think big tent pole movies will still be there because they bring in the audience.
Small budget horror movies will exist because even if they didn't make money they didn't cost a lot of money. I think the medium priced movies are going to in trouble.
People complain about why all we get are remakes and superhero movies, it appears people aren't going to see new IP in 80-130 million dollar range.
By accepting that event cinema is the only thing the movie industry has left in its favour right now. As they say in the article itself, many people watch maybe four films a year, and usually stick to those with the highest profile.
So I think that's really what film as a medium is going to be in future. It's going to be the place you watch the next Avengers or Star Wars or James Bond or what not. The place for big picture films with million dollar budgets and rosters brimming with A listers, and nothing else beneath that.
Or okay, maybe indie cinema may exist on the fringes or something. But fact is, the industry has probably got to accept that low/medium budget films are pretty much history, and they've been replaced entirely by streaming services and sites like YouTube.
Still, it's not all bad news. No, if you want bad news, that's probably the future of television. That's on the way out right now, is probably going to completely supplanted by streaming services like Netflix in future, and as a format has pretty much no advantages over the internet whatsoever. Seriously, could you imagine trying to selling the experience of watching TV in a society that already has the internet? You couldn't. It objectively be a worse solution for most people.
So yeah, I think film is probably gonna be reduced a bunch of blockbuster films by large studios mixed with some arthouse works, and TV is probably just going to be completely replaced by streaming services and video sharing platforms.
>It's going to be the place you watch the next Avengers or Star Wars or James Bond or what not. The place for big picture films with million dollar budgets and rosters brimming with A listers, and nothing else beneath that.
That's mostly been me with going to theaters for a very long time. And I do watch a fair number of movies.
Presumably, for lower budget movies, direct to streaming becomes more common although it's hard to say what that means in terms of what works economically.
Anecdotally, many years ago, I was in the film group at school and we had 4 different movies over a weekend, filled large auditoriums etc. My understanding is that there are now occasional film showings but, as a whole, this doesn't exist any longer.
A lot of going out to see movies in a theater is habit. Take the habit away and you can see a big fropoff.
> Presumably, for lower budget movies, direct to streaming becomes more common although it's hard to say what that means in terms of what works economically.
Lower-budget productions, in general, are increasingly being produced as cable or streaming TV shows instead of movies nowadays.
Vox even did an article on the phenomenon the other day, pointing out that it's resulted in a number of shows being poorly-paced because they were originally written to be movies before they were padded out to be TV shows: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/19/18660602/tv-streaming-...
Your comment about television isn't in the same category; tv and Netflix et al are content delivery mechanisms whereas this article is talking about the content itself, not delivery.
Netflix (and Amazon, Hulu, HBO, etc.) are both content delivery and studios. The two functions don't need to overlap but it appears as if that's what's needed for differentiation and stickiness.
Television is host to a few different categories of media that should be considered separately. Miniserieses, episodic character shows, serial stories, and sports will continue to find audiences no matter the platform, because the experiences aren't necessarily fungible (though at the limit that platform could be "piracy"). Fungible experiences like TV news networks and one-step-above-white-noise daytime television are dead on their feet, long since replaced among younger demographics by free content on the internet. The future of TV is going to be difficult-to-replace high-effort content like HBO, whereas channels stuffed with low-effort content are going to be crushed under heel by the convenience and momentum of YouTube. The makeup of cable packages is going to have to radically shift to account for the fact that the already-subsidized long-tail channels are going to continue to lose their audience, likely moving cable towards a more a la cart model that will be increasingly hard to convincingly differentiate from services like Hulu or Netflix, and will (one hopes) eventually transition to no longer demanding a distinct cable or satellite connection due to lack of justification (though of course plenty of people already get their internet over cable infrastructure, and that won't change).
There is a not at all farfetched (anymore) scenario where Amazon or Netflix circle back around and roll out a series of movie theaters or "event cinemas" and try to sell people on it as some sort new real world experience where they're able to capture everything down to the concessions and market their own tentpole franchises.
They won't even need to make any investments in infrastructure, because they'll easily be able to cheaply snap up existing franchised cinema locations as they see the writing on the wall.
Coming soon: "Delivery Option: Save $5 on your next ticket at Amazon Cinema by having this package delivered directly to your nearest theater!"
Now with Personal Seat Licenses! For a low one-time fee you can own your seat at the Prime Cinema! Buy or sell your seat tickets using the Prime Cinema Seat Marketplace! Purchases made with the Prime Cinema Credit Card get 5% off. Alternatively you can simply add the PSL to your Amazon Prime Mortgage balance as a one-time courtesy!
The Alamo Drafthouse used to do this in Austin, except it was the AMC dramas “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.” It was free - $5 to save a seat that then went towards concessions - but the networks threatened legal action on the basis that it skewed viewership numbers or some such.
What was really clever about it was that Drafthouse was playing the previous week’s episode without commercials while the new one aired, then edited out the commercials for the current week’s episode and played it right after.
There was a period in the video game industry, right at the tail end of the arcade era, where video games were launched in the arcade in order to boost sales of the games in the console market.
I imagine Amazon and Netflix will look to a similar strategy with movie theatres in order to boost demand for both individual films and their services in general.
The past few years I am finding the Avengers, Star Wars and James Bond movies hard to sit through. I really don't need 3 hours of over stimulation of all my senses. There are better things to do in life.
yeah I like movies too but whats IN the movies now is hard to rationalize.
I find myself loathing the listed run times of 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours, while I'll gladly watch a miniseries on Netflix where each episode is just as long.
I'm usually thinking: how are they going to cut corners on character development this time, jam pack the action scenes and twist in, without me feeling exhausted of the whole ordeal?
I like the theatres because many of my living arrangements weren't conducive to turning the sound up so high that I can feel it in my body
but now, I catch most theatrical releases while on planes - which may be unique to me - and just regret every time I actually do go to the theatre.
Boy, you'd really be put out by classical theatre and opera (and commedia dell'arte, and rakugo, and...). Everyone in the audience of such shows has likely already seen the exact same story performed before, line for line! (And don't get me started about church services...)
Seriously, though: sometimes the point isn't to tell you something new, but to deliver a polished retelling of a well-known story that the production company loves, for a new audience.
Sounds like I'll be able to cut out the theater going experience from my life entirely then as those types of features are becoming increasingly more corporate and consumerist feeling.
“Event cinema” is precisely what caused this decline, transforming cinemas from clean, pleasant, affordable places to watch films with great audio and visual quality to today’s smelly, expensive, sticky auditoriums where digital video is crappily projected onto a wall and the sound is broken half the time. They decided to offer garbage and people decided to eat it.
Lol you would be wrong, just Google it. Theatres used to have ushers to keep the noise down and to keep the rooms from getting trashed, sound engineers to cater the room to specific films, attendants to make sure everything went right—now it’s just on autopilot, with mixed results.
Pre-multiplex maybe? Or an atypical urban theater catering to film buffs. Or Imax. But my recollection of most theaters 20-30 years ago is most of the screens being postage stamp size, audio being subpar, and the level of staffing not much different from today.
This was also my experience going to the movies in the '90s in North Texas. Don't forget that this was before stadium seating was invented, so good luck being able to see the screen if the person in front of you is taller than you. I hated going to the movies back then.
Cinemark started a revolution when they invented stadium seating (but even then, the original incarnation was problematic because it wasn't wheelchair-accessible until Cinemark settled with the DOJ).
The internet wins for "consume when you want" but TV is always going to win for "live" whenever a large audience is involved. Just from a sheer efficiency standpoint, the bandwidth involved for millions of TCP connections for a single broadcast is staggering.
That's why this model can work fine for niche live events that few people want but not so much for mass market live broadcasts. It's this reason that you've got to caveat "TV Shows" vs "Live TV" when you make that statement.
"Shows" can be easily cached on CDNs much closer to each consumer. "Live" can't.
If anything, I'd see the major broadcast networks and ESPN continuing to get stronger, while everything else on TV gets weaker.
The only TV shows that people have to watch "live" are shows with a community built around them, ready to react and discuss it as it's happening (Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc). This is where movie audiences are similar because that opening weekend crowd for an anticipated movie tends to share the experience.
I honestly wish they'd bring back midnight showings instead of 7pm Thursday showings, because that midnight crowd energy is impossible to replicate.
> the bandwidth involved for millions of TCP connections for a single broadcast is staggering.
The technical solution for that is multicast.
The internet doesn't really support multicast, but there are workarounds; the best known is BAMTech, which grew out of live streaming MLB baseball and was purchased for $1B in 2016 by Disney.
I have no idea how they do it, but I imagine it's not that different from Netflix. Put a box in ISP's everywhere that acts like a multi-user PVR. One stream per channel going in to the box, thousands going out.
> "Shows" can be easily cached on CDNs much closer to each consumer. "Live" can't.
Um, no? You could argue that it isn't technically caching, and the system doing it isn't technically a CDN, but there's no reason why a broadcast can't be streamed to, say, 1000 SDN nodes, which each spool the stream in memory and serve it to 1000+ different recievers. A SDN node (server) is different infrastructure than a television station, so there might be issues with capital outlay, but I highly doubt it's more expensive once sunk costs are tallied.
Latency for Cable TV is 3-4 seconds. That is possible to match, or at least be close to, with chunked delivery using CDNs.
Most "live" internet is definitely delivered via CDNs, you just tend to be 20s behind real-time because it's delivered in 6s or so chunks.
That won't pencil out for everyone, though. If you convert "four times a year" to "one blockbuster a season" you are going to get gaps in which the theaters scramble to find other ways to use the space and keep the lights on - the "throwback" nights, video game nights, etc.
The current value proposition of a theatrical release is primarily in the big screen and the big auditorium, and secondarily the access to content(which can be seen on screens of many sizes). This was basically also true when VCRs took hold, and it drove the wave of late-20th century blockbusters; it's only different now in that the value of the theater is more niche, and there are fewer barriers to wide distribution.
IMHO the thing that could support theaters going forward is a common 21st century theme: customization and unbundling. Keep it a primarily passive audience experience(we've seen the "interactive movie" trope before), but introduce an element of performance and "VJing", taking the emphasis off making one prerecorded film and moving it towards remixable material inside a common framework. Given that so many big releases now are CGI-centric, the production pipelines are already in striking distance of doing this, and live effects can supplement it. It just needs the intersection of technical capability against a business model open to this structuring of IP and talent - which might put it out of reach of the current studios but create opportunities for new ones.
I will say one thing in defense of flow-tv: you can be reasonably certain that what you have seen is the same as what every else have seen, so you have something in common with everybody that you can talk about.
In a fractured world where everybody has different truths and things they have seen, TV may be the one factor that ensures everybody at least have access to the same stories, even if they disagree with them.
Of course that is the experience before cable tv, not the experience of having 9000 channels, and none of them worth watching.
Like they've survived the past 20. Hollywood ticket sales have been declining sharply since 2002. [1] That's also the year that their inflation adjusted profits also peaked. Hollywood started making more and more awful movies while trying to argue that 'this is what people want.' Well, it clearly wasn't, isn't, and won't ever be. Nonetheless they'll continue down their current trajectory because they think they're right, as this article emphasizes.
Here's an extremely relevant article about Hollywood. [2] Hollywood has been one of the earliest adopters of active utilization and commercialization of "AI technologies". Scripts are actively analyzed using machine learning systems to try to predict profits. Guess what the AI says? Stuff that made money in the past will keep making money, and things that didn't won't. And what do we get out of Hollywood? Repetitive rubbish whose only novelty is tossing in some identity politics to, in this article's phrasing, offer a "more representative portrayal of the world in which we live."
More to the point, think about some of the all time greatest movies (as well as money makers). Here's [3] a list of the top 10 by gross. Tellingly, only 3 of the top 10 were made after 2000. But now consider the other films - Gone with the Wind, Titanic, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, ET, The Ten Commandments, etc. These films were all, if not extremely unique, certainly not derivative rubbish. Now look at the 21st century films and you'll see a whole bunch of generic superhero movies and sequels. Even if not the product of AI, it's certainly the product of a mindset that's no different than a profit oriented regression analysis of the past - the less glorified truism of what "AI analysis" is.
Maybe the biggest problem with Hollywood is summed by one sentence in the AI article I referenced: “[AI analysis] takes a lot of the risk out of what I do.” No, it just makes you comfortable releasing crap that you'd otherwise recognize as crap. Interestingly the producer that gave that quote ended up releasing two mega-flops after the article and has not released anything since. It's not like we've even scratched the surface of possible ideas, but Hollywood has become uncreative, lazy, and averse to any and all risk - to the point that they'd rather drown than try something else, so long as it happens slowly.
That the path of pretty much all mature industries. They got big because they did something novel but once they reach the top they have to spend all their energy defending their position and can’t/don’t want to do anything innovative. They hide behind processes, statistics , surveys, AI and whatever to avoid any kind of risk.
You see the same in tech. It’s been a long time since the biggest players have done much innovative stuff.
> Maybe the biggest problem with Hollywood is summed by one sentence in the AI article I referenced: “[AI analysis] takes a lot of the risk out of what I do.”
I think that sums up the problem with AI in general.
The real story so far of "AI" is about human desire to avoid responsibility for their actions. It is about saying "the magic box said you were a terrorist, nothing I can do about it" or, in this case, "The magic box said it should make a lot of money, I dunno what happened."
It is about the limited liability corporation gaining the ability to act semi-autonomously, with the profits going to the humans and the blame going to the machine.
Another significant factor is that international receipts have become increasingly important. And this biases towards films with a lot of explosions and away from quiet films with a lot of complex dialog.
Also what about more modest movies? If I'm not mistaken, Mad Max, Predator or Terminator were made with budgets that were ridiculous compared to their sequels.
Generic superhero movies make more profit. The IMO hugely underrated Batman v Superman tried to do something different, but critics hated it (Armond White being a notable exception[0]), and despite making a profit it was considered a financial disappointment. But formulaic Marvel movies continue to sell well. Audiences don't care about art.
This is based on perception, but it is not supported by the numbers which is why I made sure to source my comments. Profits are riding on inflation alone. Only one superhero movie made it into the top 10!
Even on ticket numbers for the big movies, everything is in decline. For instance Avengers Endgame is, by far, the biggest movie in recent decades. Yet it sold 3 million tickets fewer than e.g. Titanic. This is made even more remarkable by population growth. The population since 1998 (when Titanic was released) has increased by nearly 28%. Even the US population has increased by more than 19% since then. Titanic sold 94,524,324 tickets. A population normalized comparable success would move more than 112 million tickets, and that's using just a 19% growth factor.
Avengers: Endgame, the mega-hit of the 21st century, sold 91,353,296 tickets. The industry is dying and blaming absolutely everything except their own decisions which, in turn, is likely contributing to their own demise as they refuse to accept responsibility for their own declining results. One of the countless parallels shared between Hollywood and the big budget game industry.
I'm of the same mind here. But I also want to express that diversity is heavily important in movies, and movies that merely put diversity as a demographic ignore that the demographic comes with experiences. Many of the most successful movies today involve the diversity of experiences, but too much budget continues to go into rehashes.
I don't really watch movies myself, but I could tell you that Black Panther was a massive cultural success. As was Get Out. And The Shape Of Water (which I did see and enjoyed thoroughly, especially for its seamless integration with the battling of traditional and nontraditional masculinity). But I couldn't tell you anything about, I don't know, Antman or Daredevil other than that they existed at some point. And I think this reflects in commecial successes, also.
What has been forgotten is that masses do want some novelty, even if it isn't by very much. Incremental novelies, perhaps.
One of the biggest-grossing franchises in film history is rewarmed 30s SF pulp with a bigger effects budget.
>more awful movies while trying to argue that 'this is what people want.'
Moviegoers don't want the same old thing. But they also don't want this weird Lynch/Cronenberg (snobbish Godard) stuff. We should have books and films with enough cultural cachet that almost everyone should be experiencing them simultaneously (ie, there's too much fragmentation). But there should be small, independent, unique voices.
So when it comes right down to it, what we really want is something comfortable (known) that doesn't quite feel that way (but not too much) and everyone shares as a cultural touchstone, but one which is unique and special to each individual. This seems to be the real problem we're running against.
Also, tastes of critics (journalists) and audiences have diverged, but both act as a filter. For example, critics tend to like an identity politics angle, but audiences don't like being lectured to. At the same time audiences won't automatically flock to movies panned by critics either. Movies have to cater to both. It's like two polarizing filters layered on top of each other at a 90 degree angle.
I thought this was going to be about the fact that movies are stored on hard drives that are going to fail, and in formats that aren't going to be readable in ten years.
I would love to see theaters with $4 tickets. Not the whole crowded, "experience" that cineplexes have become, more akin to the art-house theaters that I remember. Plenty of indie and thoughtful films could make a little lucre that way. Better than no return at all.
I've sat out of the whole superhero franchise for, what, over a decade or so now? Can't stand movies-by-the-numbers.
I think the theater experience has changed pretty radically, unfortunately, the selection of movies.. haven't.
Here in Reno, the Cinemark chain put in the luxury loungers (far fewer seats per theater) and seat selection. With the movie club, you pay $8/movie for all tickets plus get a discount on snacks. Honestly, that's pretty fair.
I hate the superhero moment we're living through right now... some likable actors don't seem to show up ind event movies anymore because they're cashing the DC/MCU checks.
What I wish every time I go to a theater:
* Ditch the stupid Coca-Cola commercials. If we have to sit through those every time we have to go to a theater, we stop going to a theater.
* Theaters are set up for digital nowadays, per Fandom and certain fight events. Dig up some legacy films and show indie/classics/other films far more often. Or, make sure other movies play, even during the day on weekend... the theater is empty, why didn't Apollo 11 ever play in my town?
* Fix your movie chain marketing emails. They all, universally, suck.
* Tell us when the movie starts, not when you start the advertising (yeah, I know it's 15 minutes of trailers/commercials).
Not even to go into the "some movies would be better as HBO/ Netflix/ Showtime series" ...
> the theater is empty, why didn't Apollo 11 ever play in my town?
Heh, now there's a new promotion opportunity: "Show up at the theater and your party is the only one there? Select what movie you want to be shown from our immense backlog!" Sort of like no-show ticket deals on flights.
I think they should do screenings for more intimate groups. Do couches, coffee tables, etc. Like karaoke rooms.
But compete by giving more flexibility about time and selection. Maybe even offer blockbuster TV shows, so you can book a Stranger Things party with a group.
I think IP licensing might be the biggest problem there, which would mean that Hollywood is stepping on its own tail to some degree.
Depending on where you live, there's probably a handful of art-house theaters actively showing non-by-the-numbers movies with ticket prices hovering around $10.
I know where I live, these kinds of theaters are still doing quite well, and thrive off of showing smaller films, sometimes with Q&A events w/ filmmakers. They even do showings of classic films via 35mm prints they can get their hands on.
I know this isn't just some local thing either. I know it's happening in the DC/Baltimore, Detroit, LA, and SF area, as well as here in Colorado...
I think this is only true if you live in a major city. I live in the bay area, but I'm in Mountain View, not SF or Oakland. Despite being in one of the largest/most crowded metro areas in the US, as far as I can tell I would have to drive to one of those cities to find an indie movie theater. That's going to add a good hour to the outing, which means it's just not going to happen for me.
> I've sat out of the whole superhero franchise for, what, over a decade or so now?
I just tried to figure out whether I'd recommend any of the Marvel films on their own raw merit to someone without interest in the whole series and... no? Maybe Guardians of the Galaxy 2 if you like sci-fi. Solid theme, better writing than most, fairly good humor. Maybe the first Iron Man since it stands alone pretty well and it's not too hard to just stop there, satisfied, having basically seen what about half the rest of the movies do (god, there are what, 22 or 23 now?), entirely. Interesting perspective to think about them from.
If you have any interest in Marvel superheroes whatsoever I'd recommend Into the Spiderverse as the best single movie they've put out. It's animated, not part of their live-action "universe".
But yeah, none of it's Hitchcock or Renoir, at all. Or even upper-tier Spielberg. Well, maybe Into the Spiderverse hits almost that level, at least.
[EDIT] I don't mean to be too harsh to them, overall they're an incredible achievement in consistency, with only a couple being truly terrible (my attempt to give Thor 2 a second chance was... not successful, only made it about 30 minutes) which is pretty nuts, even for by-the-numbers filmmaking. At least four of the five Avengers entries are maybe the most flawlessly-executed high fan service in the history of ever (2 was a bit of a misstep—pulled their punches, I think, though even it's just shy of belonging with the others). But yeah, "would you recommend any of these to a film fan, not a blockbuster movies fan, who doesn't want to sit through 50 hours to see the whole thing?". That's a toughy. Maybe those couple, that's about it.
I'd probably recommend the initial Guardians of the Galaxy although I almost feel that's a cheat because it's not really a superhero film in the usual vein. Same with Deadpool.
Iron Man is probably as good a choice as any for a standalone Marvel film.
One problem is that the template for a modern big budget action film, which includes all the superhero films, weighs things down with so many explosions and special effects and just non-stop action sequences that they're all a bit exhausting and tend to overwhelm any humor or character interactions on the screen.
Your last point has been exactly my sticking point with most/all of these films. We went as a family to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, and about halfway through, my then-7-year-old son asked me when it would be over. It's just too much overstimulation, far too little plot. Star Wars: Rogue One was an identical film experience.
Age of Ultron's probably the worst offender in the series for—call it the Man of Steel effect, where there's a 20-minute (or longer...) "final fight" and I just wanted to take a nap by maybe the 5min mark. Almost all of them do it a little, though, even Guardians 2. The first Avengers film is notable for having precisely that sort of scene but being engaging nearly the entire time.
Rogue One was a frustrating near-miss. Leaning into genre tropes adjacent to those that were such a part of Star Wars (the original gigantic genre-pastiche film) was such a good idea, and man, it almost worked. I think they just didn't quite have enough confidence in that idea and hedged their bets too much, and of course couldn't resist doing the Interminably Long Gigantic Big Explosions Action Scene. That aside, the fleet arriving and immediate aftermath of that is maybe the only time any of the new movies have given me childlike "Star Wars Feels" like several of the moments in the original trilogy do, so there's that.
Rogue One was the only recent franchise blockbuster that came close to having a soul.
All the others seem to be a formulaic blend of running, shouting, shooting, CGI explodium, cartoon villains of astounding power and limited emotional depth, wisecracks™, on-the-nose moralising, and fresh-out-of-the-can sentiment.
But these movies sell. More thoughtful slower movies don't. It's a feedback loop. The studios pander to teen/young adult audiences, older audiences stay away, and the movies become younger, teenier, and less and less distinctive.
> The first Avengers film is notable for having precisely that sort of scene but being engaging nearly the entire time.
It's because it's interrupted. It has 30s of that, then it stops, have a minute of slower scenes, and then go for another 30s of action. It's probably cheaper too.
It also does a very good job of flowing from one character moment to another. A fried of mine noticed something I hadn't, recently: "this is just a scene of some Avengers doing team-up stuff in some combination, then one of a single Avenger personally beating Loki, repeat until every Avenger has beaten Loki, culminating in the Hulk".
That could be dull but, crucially, each of these differs from the others, whether by significantly varying the setting, or the way the characters fight, or the sort of bad guy they're fighting. It's also excellent at both short and long term setup and payoff, at least in minor ways, several times completing such an arc in a single scene—which is what you're supposed to do in just about any scene if you can swing it, of course, but many filmmakers seem to forget that, especially once the CGI explosions start. It may be paint by numbers but at least they, you know, actually paint every number, as if they are, if nothing else, very good and professional number-painters.
Contrast, say, Man of Steel, where it's mostly just one or the other of two dudes getting smashed or laser-blasted through/onto something hard, over, and over, and over. Or Age of Ultron, which has more variety and setup/payoff than Man of Steel (not a high bar to top), but is still way worse—clumsier and more slapdash, might be a good way to put it—than Avengers.
[EDIT] and yes of course you're very much correct, the pacing of the final fight in Avengers is part of the variety that keeps it from becoming a slog. The plotting and editing work on that whole sequence is damn impressive. It could probably be the main subject of a whole class on modern action storytelling in film—if you for some reason can't just use the entirety of Mad Max: Fury Road as your key work instead.
I wish the first half or so of Black Panther had stuck to the villain as the perspective character. It could have been outstanding, and not just by the standards of Marvel films. That's me Monday morning quarterbacking, of course, and I'm sure it's pretty hard to know what'll work before the film's made, and harder still to make the call to break from a proven formula.
I'd probably go with Black Panther or Doctor Strange.
Captain America: The First Avenger wouldn't be a bad recommendation either (and follow it up with the Agent Carter TV series, which is one of the finest examples of dieselpunk I've seen).
I'd think Ragnarok doesn't work too well unless you've at least got the gist of several of the other films, like the first two Thors (which... ugh, especially 2), probably the first two Avengers, Civil War AKA Avengers 2.5 which in turn drags in the first two Captain America movies (you'd think it should drag in Iron Man 3 too, at least, but they just kinda ignored what happened in that movie for some reason, so it doesn't). Especially lots of the jokes, but also much of the character development. Could be wrong about that.
My small city's family owned theater shows movies for $5/adult and $3/kid or senior. Lots of the candy is $1. It isn't the movie producers off in Hollywood dictating the price. It's the movie theater mega-chains.
The (Russo?) comment about multitasking brought to mind a discussion at work last month about AI taking over. I asked my younger 20-something co-workers if they had ever seen the movie "War Games".... One of them watched it and said he liked the movie, but when discussing specifics ("How about that big steel door in the side of the mountain!?") it was obvious he missed a lot of details due to multitasking. Netflix seems pretty smart in catering to this behavior, in that they removed on site reviews so just scan/skip/previewing a movie is the easiest way to see if it's good.
This is about how will theaters and the big marketing machine required for feature film cycles to continue. "Movies", as they call it, is an extensive economic driver from the marketing to the consumer alone. The streaming services have no where near the marketing expense of a feature film studio, and the self produced content from "studios" like Netflix, Amazon, and even Hulu compares far too well to the "Hollywood studios" for consumers to care. I wager in 10 years theaters will be in the same place as malls are now - dead, dying and empty.
We already spend so much time at home that there might be a pushback with the next generations where they try to find any excuse to have an event outside its confines. That said it will probably be augmented VR reality in the street or something of that nature.
It's the old chestnuts that firstly the home cinema experience is now pretty close to being equal in AV terms, and secondly I don't have to deal with a scuzzy cinema, overpriced tickets and idiots talking/on their phones.
What would draw me back would be a really high class experience with great films, great food, alcoholic drinks, a beautiful classy interior, and maybe a bar downstairs for a drink or two after the film. That could overall make a real lovely evening of the entertainment. Add in a creche/dog sitting to make it parent friendly. Don't know if it's economically viable though.
Many of the paragraphs are painful to read, and not just because, as Ava put it: "when I hear people being so rigid and so strict about certain forms and presentations, it just reminds me of that "Simpsons" cartoon, "Old Man Yells at Cloud" -- but also because there's a clear sociocultural gulf between the kind of semi-fictitious art-seeking, high-culture but low-access-to-celebrities Sundance fan for whom many of the interviewed appear to target their works and the kinds of people who actually exist in their potential audience.
It's as if their target person, whose lack of access to the actual movie festivals where these films are first shown, is made whole by urban theatres in culturally-thriving cities, with these theatres serving as a democratizing force of access, so that the viewer can ponder the topics and messages in the film and reflect on its lessons for themselves and their communities -- while they seem oblivious to the fact that technology and online distribution have democratized access not just for dopamine-cravers whose tastes they seemingly find lacking, but also for their target groups.
The fact is, in the history of public art and entertainment, there has never been a time where access to one's idealized audience was easier. Some filmmakers have demonstrated that they can successfully leverage these new channels to make their works have more of an impact, than they would have had otherwise, while others seem to writhe in discomfort as they try to articulate their displeasure with a world that no longer matches their preferred where of scarcity was the norm, their societal role was clearly seen as provoking emotion and critical thought, and they had leverage over the venues that would dole out the privilege of this access.
What we think of as “movies” (traditional theater distribution) will become limited to big-budget “tentpole” movies that anchor a larger media franchise including toys, games and other forms of media. The art film world will probably survive as a niche, if for no other reason than they have a dedicated audience — think the same situation with non-digital photography. But art films will likely trend more provocative as the streaming services are also funding a lot of high-concept films.
Movie production costs have gotten so low that online streaming is quickly becoming the predominant model. These low costs allow streaming studio heads to diversify across genres and take lots of small risks, which ultimately reduce me the risk to the production company. This increased risk tolerance allows them to give up almost all creative control to the writers, actors and directors. A-list actors and directors are willing to give up a lot of money to get that creative control, so the streaming services still recruit top talent.
But by far the biggest cost difference is marketing. The only way studios can justify a $50M marketing budget for a movie is if that marketing also drives additional commercial activity outside of theatrical attendance (games, merch, anticipated sequels, etc.) Streaming services can benefit from a constant, consolidated marketing budget: they can advertise the “new movie of the week” with a sustained ad buy over time while still retaining the brand advertising uplift for the entire service. Global distribution is also waaaaay easier for streaming services.
Ultimate takeaway though is that the window release model is dead. Everyone in the media industry has known this for years; and I think that we’ll look back at 2019 as the year that really started to happen for real.
What won't be obvious, but at some point will tip over and wreak havoc on the industry, will be AI generated films. You might think of the poor quality deepfakes when I say that, but we are in the baby stages of something far more powerful. Imagine if it was possible to autogenerate a script/story, then autogenerate scenery, music and humans to play out that story. There is AI work already going on in each of those areas, and as the quality improves, it will become an obvious next step to put it all together into a single Movie Machine, of sorts, that can remix existing movies (I think the first wave), and/or synthesize movies completely from scratch based on various parameters you provide (e.g., 'a movie like star wars, but with an all female cast', or 'an inspiring movie about dogs', etc).
It is not a matter of "if" this day will come, but simply "when". I think 10-15 years is very possible. We'll have audio software that generates all the music we could want in a single app, have a single book app that generates any novel in any genre we want, or creates videos/movies we want from a single application. How could humans compete with their 1-5 movies a year against a computer app that could generate 5 movies a minute?
I think it could easily find its way into Youtube first, as there is much less to lose, and far more to gain, from short videos that capture attention. With apps used by content creators to create music, or help with VFx, etc, to eventually generating entirely new videos without requiring the content creator to do any work, and they will jump at the chance if it gets them more subscribers.
There will come a day, when there is a really popular film, that was completely created by a computer. That day will come not in a 100 years, but in the next decade or two.
That will also take away Hollywood's ability to be gatekeepers and tastemakers. That power distributed throughout the population will be a huge change.
My guess is that it will be everything but the story that is auto generated for a long time. We already have this human does not exist etc, but creating a compelling story hasen't happened so far -- the closest thing we have had are automatic newspaper writers, so maybe documentaries? (Oh God, then it will be impossible to figure out if a given documentary is true or made up).
Event movies for teenagers sell lots of popcorn and candy. Sophisticated indie movies for adults don't. A huge amount of the profit margin at the theaters is driven by the concessions counter. This drives which films the big theaters want to show.
Isn't this true of every medium? When's the last time you went to a concert of a local musician, or a small theatre play, or bought a book that wasn't already a bestseller?
I work in the arts and I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I know who have been to a theatre to see something smaller than "Hamilton".
The internet is here so everything must scale. If you're not serving a billion people you're a failure.
Disappointed that "cost" only appeared once, and neither "ticket" nor "price" appeared in the article. Ticket prices for movies at the theater are absurd. It's an experience that we've lost, and it's been buried under ludicrous consumer costs.
People have been complaining about movie ticket prices for decades. Average inflation-adjusted ticket prices are pretty much the same as they were in 1970.
And London tickets probably cost a lot more than the US average in 1970 too. Certainly, in NYC movie tickets have tended to cost quite a bit more than the suburban theater norm.
I'm going to cinema to experience the movies the way, I can't experience them at home: at enormous screen, with great sound. By doing that, I'll select movies that will utilize that, and it's, naturally, blockbusters with great special effects.
I don't need to go to cinema to see drama or comedy or anything else, I can easily do that from the comfort of my own house.
Somewhat the same as you. Even though I have a very expensive home theater setup, it just can't compete with the theaters, plus theres the whole not wanting to wait for a bluray release - which might not even have the same quality or audio.
The unfortunate consequence of this is that some previously viable types of movies won't make financial sense in a mostly streaming world. Spending 50 million dollars to produce a comedy only to have it end up on Netflix competing directly with thousands of low budget comedy TV shows and indie films isn't going to work. Would a movie like Austin Powers be able to make money today?
Austin Power's would probably make money today, but it probably wouldn't be made. Because it's impossible to only make "good movies," especially when you are working without an established fanbase or franchise, for every Austin Powers you make, you get 2-3 shitty high budget attempts that flop.
We should also ask ourself if high budget comedies are really necessary. You could do Austin Powers on a cheap budget and it would probably only reduce the quality a bit. So maybe it's not the end of the world if the Austin Powers movies of the future are lower budget and on TV.
It's a bummer this is happening in a major way internationally too. Wandering Earth was maybe the worst movie I've seen in 10 years, yet China is falling over itself saying it's the best "Sci-Fi" ever made. Once Asia only churns out Michael Bay garbage, it'll all be over.
I thought it was fascinating. It took a lot of the tropes everyone takes for granted in US blockbusters and China-fied them.
Seriously jarring. When you see a different culture trying to do them, it makes you realise just how just how unconvincingly stiff and nationalistic those tropes are.
I don't know if that was deliberate. If it was, it was a much cleverer movie than it appeared to be.
As home theaters get bigger and better, I feel like movie theaters are going the wrong direction trying to amp up the experience. Sure, they can ride the Marvel movies for a while and catch people who need to be there opening weekend, but the core viewers have been chipped away.
I think there are two ways forward: return to the crummy old theater model of playing classic movies day and night (why don't any multiplexes have 1 screen dedicated to this?) Curation is key as well as choice. It would be bice when there are 8 crappy movies at the theater to see "Die Hard" and "The Godfather" playing so there is always an option for people that just want a night out.
Which is the second point: movie theaters are one of the last remaining "things to do" on a normal night that is kid-friendly and group-friendly. Malls are gone (or profoundly dead) and movie theaters are one of the last options. Although I feel like the concept of "going out" is itself maybe dying.
Malls are gone? Serious? Here in Canada they are getting more and more jam packed with more upscale retailers and ever growing crowds. Heck, check out Square one mall in Mississauga, ON -- the place is booming for last 10+ years.
Heck, even the crappier (2nd class) malls have been putting on the proverbial lipstick and targeting hip food retailers thus inviting younger crowds dating and chilling.
The only malls that seem to die off are the ones who were opened in places which are not progressing economically (for example low-income neighborhoods) and they never took off to begin with nor has the neighborhood improved economically.
In the US, the situation seems pretty bifurcated. Upscale malls (mostly urban or near-urban) are generally doing pretty well. Bigger/better mid-market malls in the suburbs of relatively affluent cities are still mostly doing OK too.
But you don't even need to go to low income areas. The mall that is nearest me in a smaller city about 40 miles from Boston has anchor stores that are pretty much all retail chains that are cratering (Sears, JC Penny, Toys R'Us). The grocery store and Home Depot in the complex are always busy but the actual mall and other small stores are a ghost town. It's not exactly an upscale area but it's not depressed. (Heck, there are Tesla chargers in the parking lot.)
The US might be different from Canada here, most of our malls were built back when the now-graying suburbs were booming, and cities (especially the hip ones) have tended to fiercely resist them. Now that the younger crowd whom one would expect to populate the mall are largely fleeing suburbia for cities, malls in the US tend to be popularly associated with "that sad, empty, decaying structure back in the hometown that you escaped". Then again, this could just be my Western-Pennsylvania bias talking.
Dying and prospering malls are just a function of the income/wealth gap increasing. There used to be a much larger population that could afford discretionary spending at malls, or maybe didn’t have anything better to spend their money on like on demand media and video games at home. But now, only the richer areas can afford to pay for very marked up items that can sustain a mall environment.
You can search for an Apple Store or Nordstrom’s and find the wealthy part of town wherever the mall they are in is located. Also works with Whole Foods and a couple other stores.
My experience in North Texas is that malls aren't so much going away as they are concentrating in a small handful of locations.
We lost or are losing a bunch of malls, but there are also a small handful that are thriving. Prestonwood, Valley View, and Collin Creek may be dead or dying, we still have Stonebriar, NorthPark, and the Galleria doing very well. There are fewer malls, sure, but the ones we have left are thriving.
Of course, Dallas is one of the most thoroughly suburban parts of the country. Sure, there are a small handful of people moving to places like Uptown or Oak Cliff, but the northern suburbs are still booming, and almost everyone I went to college with who's still in the area either lives in a suburban apartment complex, or if they're financially successful, bought a house in the exurbs. And even if a good chunk of twentysomethings are moving to the city, there are still all the teenagers living with their parents in the suburbs. And for that matter, there are twentysomething adults who are living in the suburbs with their parents because their careers haven't taken off.
In small towns in Canada, malls are dead. Where I grew up, all the malls I visited as kid are gone or ghost towns.
What's happening in bigger cities is consolidation; lots of dead malls and empty stores but a few key retail locations are booming. The neighborhood mall, where you might go to hang out, is gone.
The trend right now in Vancouver is to combine malls with condo complexes although none are finished enough to see if that will be a success.
Malls haven't really gone away, just changed shape. The big indoor malls of yesteryear are being replaced by (mostly) outdoor developments that combine restaurants, stores, offices, apartments, and entertainment.
It depends where you are. A Santana Row (Santa Clara) probably wouldn't work in snow-belt cities because people wouldn't want to go there for a big chunk of the year. Sidewalk seating isn't so attractive when it's snowing.
I agree in general that sprawling shopping centers have tended to replace a fair number of indoor malls. That probably mostly reflects the ascendancy of big box stores over small specialty retailers for mainstream consumers.
I never go to the movie theater except for when I'm in a town that has an Alamo Drafthouse(https://drafthouse.com/).
The experience of good food, drinks and great curated movies is awesome. It's not just going to the movies, it's an evening out. I hope they continue to do well, and when they do decide to come to my town, I'll be there very often.
Last movie I saw there was Black Panther. Instead of ads before the movie, they had a retrospective/documentary on the history of Black Panther in the comics.
It's interesting how people are looking for very different experiences at the cinema. I haven't tried the Alamo Drafthouse in SF yet, but I am generally not a fan of the hip cinemas. The food and drink is generally a huge distraction during the movies, and the seating and screen technology is usually not a top concern.
I really just want the best screen and nice seats, and sad as it may be, it's really just the big cineplex chains that deliver on that. As far as movie curation goes, that's certainly a weakness of the big chains, but at least in SF I have been shocked at the variety of foreign/indie/classic films that show up at the AMC and Cinemark if you pay attention to showtimes.
The drinks at Alamo aren’t distracting like at a dinner theater.
And that isn’t the allure anyway. The people who run Alamo have concentrated so hard on customer experience that it’s almost embarrassing to the other theaters.
1) Nobody takes your ticket. Buy it online and walk directly to your seat.
2) no advertisements for liposuction of real estate before the movie starts. The media playing while you wait is interesting clips that are relevant to the movie you are about to watch. When I saw “hackers” there, it was a bunch of hilarious old computer ads from the 90s, music videos of the soundtrack, etc.
3) if you talk, text, or arrive late you get kicked out. People follow this rule.
4) There might be some alternative revenue stream[1] but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like you exchange money for a ticket to a movie.
Honestly Alamo feel less hip, and more like it’s run by cranky old cinema buffs that want you to shut up and pay attention during the movie. It’s like a theater for adults.
[1] at other theaters it feels like they don’t care about you buying a ticket, and the ticket is really just an excuse to sell you extremely expensive popcorn.
Those things are all good ideas, but they honestly don't bother me much. Perhaps SF is just a fairly savvy/respectful cinema audience, but I've very rarely had any distracting audience members. The advertisements and preroll clips are obnoxious, of course, but with reserved seating you can know when to show up to avoid most of it. And so it really just comes back to the audio/visual tech and the seating, and the local AMC and Cinemark are far and away the best in that regard.
Just to add to the comments above you, all of the Alamo Drafthouses I've been to have been the best screen and audio I've been to. I've frequented chains and independent theaters. But I should point out that I don't live in a city as big as SF, so it's just one man's opinion. Your AMC and Cinemark might just be better.
AMC Metreon is pretty top notch. It has the largest-format true IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and all the seats have been recently replaced so that even the base model theater has nice recliners.
The Cinemark at the Westfield Mall also has fairly recent new seats, and their XD screens are quite nice.
So yes, I'm spoiled, but I've honestly never even given much thought about attending a showing at the Alamo Drafthouse because I'm fairly sure it can't compete.
That sounds amazing, and I'm jealous. The closest Alamo Drafthouse to me (Twin Cities) has one of their new Big Show screens which I'm dying to see: https://drafthouse.com/twin-cities/the-big-show
The ones in Austin (where the company is based) are old movie theaters with old screens that are small. I don't mind, because other parts of the experience are better, but ALamo Village for example may as well be a theater from 1984.
It probably helps that kids are a rare sight in SF which are generally the cause of annoyance at a theater. Alamo has a strict no children rule except for family specific showtimes, so it's a good option if you live in a more kid friendly city.
With the exception of tourists around Times Square, there are large areas of Manhattan that are the same way. Kids are sometimes seen but not too often.
Out of all the places that are deliberately kid- and family-friendly, I don’t see a concern with some places being more adult friendly. If it was “kids are a rare sight in California” or event “a rare sight in the US”, sure. But one city, with a ton of family-friendly towns nearby? Not that dark.
How many non-tourist children do you see in the Chicago Loop? How many in Manhattan? How many in downtown LA? Cities inherently are not family friendly and not places many people want to raise their children. That's why the suburbs exist. It's not a San Fransisco problem, it's a city problem. Parents tend to want large private fenced-in green places for their children to grow up in, which don't exist and cannot exist in cities.
Again, there are enough family-friendly places that exist that you don't need to fret for the future generations not spending their childhood playing street hockey on Broadway.
Manhattan has plenty..... especially Upper West Side, and UES, and Kips Bay area (I have a school nearby, so see them everyday) and there is a high-school right next to Madison Park, and the East Village is dotted with schools.
I know this as I play rec. Volleyball during the winter, and they are always held at local school's gyms.
While I agree the west side of midtown doesn't have many though... (Hells Kitchen/Chelsea/West Village) as they are not necessary family friendly areas.
Same for Brooklyn, While you maybe not see any in Williamsburg, If you go to Park Slope, it is stroller nation..... you'd be out of place if you are young and single...
Also not true. There about 120,000 kids living in SF. I raised a child here. The reason you don’t see kids is that you are probable going places where there are not that many kids. Check out your local parks, schools, zoo and child friendly museums (Exploratorium) to see local children.
That looks awesome. Our local equivalent-ish, Cinetopia, recently closed and I'd love for someone else to step in and provide an even better experience. One reason I don't typically go to the theater is because I hate everything but the movie itself. I'm willing to pay for a premium experience.
Having been to Cinetopia many times, I just went to Alamo Drafthouse for the first time.
It was incomparably better. Cinetopia, back in it's heyday before they started showing ads and serving much worse food was trying really hard to be as good as Drafthouse but still didn't get there. Cinetopia of the last 4 years was easily worse than a newer Regal theater in a lot of ways. (standing in line to scan my QR code to print a ticket so I could stand in line to show my ticket? Please. And so many loud children.)
Drafthouse may just rekindle my love of actually going out to the movies.
My problem with Alamo is that if I drink beer, I’ll need to go pee about 45-60 mins later, so it basically guarantees that I’ll miss 3-5 minutes of the movie.
I would honestly go way more often if they had intermissions.
Hopefully they don't survive...current state of Hollywood's output is garbage, IMO. I'm definitely not the target audience for what they're making. Currently re-watching all the old Spaghetti Westerns, they're better entertainment than any recent movie I can think of.
IF I may assume, majority of the people commenting here are 25+. I am sorry but movie theaters are not targeting you as primary audience. Why? You are an adult, you are likely to enjoy somewhere with alcohol/adult-food, in adult-only setting and somewhere you can get better value for your 'hard earned' money. Sure, you MAY catch that marvel flick but how many times do you really anticipate really watching a movie at cinema during the year?
See, with marvel and superhero movies and with chick flicks and raunchy over-the-top comedies, who are they targeting? You? Give me a break!
They are targeting the youth! The ones 16-22, you know the ones who are mostly students and have awkward social lives to begin with and the ones who are likely to religiously follow the movies, later buy the related merchandise and talk about it for long time in their gatherings.
And for kids below 16, there is a healthy stream of cartoon movies that Pixar, Disney and the like keep doling out to the masses -- case in point, the next Toy Story or Pets movie.
Because for that age group (22 and under), cinema is the biggest bang for the buck AND the cheapest night-out with friends (spend around 10 dollars for movie ticket followed by cheap pizza slice and can of cold drink before heading home).
did you go to cineplex or iMAX? Those are the ones I am talking about. Otherwise, I dunno, maybe the locality/jurisdiction/state you live may have laws allowing for alcohol in cinemas.
Every theater I've been to in Chicago has had alcohol, often times full bars. The cheap student targeted ones with the lumpy seats and the fancy off Michigan Avenue ones as well.
In an attempt to get those audiences, especially in major cities like SF that don't have a huge underage population. However, that's far and away not the norm when you think about the world overall.
I’d wager this is a US specific thing due to the heavy regulation of servings alcohol. One Europe even McDonalds and Disneyland serve alcoholic drinks, you’d be hard pressed to find a movie theater that doesn’t.
Because you live in a hip city and seek out those theaters? Of the six or so theaters in driving distance from my (including indie ones), none serve alcohol.
Do you mean that there is a bar attached to the cinema where you can grab a beer before/after the movie, or that you can buy a beer to actually bring into the theatre a drink while watching the movie?
Some of that is the population, but 24% of tickets sold went to the 25-39 demo, compared to 16% of 18-24. 40% of tickets are sold to people 24 and under, and 60% of tickets of is >24.
yeah, when I wrote my comment, I intentionally left out the parents because in many cases, parents are forced to go to cinemas because they need to accompany their kids.
> you are likely to enjoy somewhere with alcohol/adult-food, in adult-only setting
You're right on this, I usually go to the 'adult only' theater near me where I can order a beer and a really good hamburger to eat while I enjoy a movie in a cushy lounging chair. These things have been popping up all over the country and I bet it's helped bring adults back to movie theaters.
I do enjoy Pixar movies though. It seems those are always packed for the 21-over crowd too.
When thinking about saving up for a home theater system I calculated that for the same money I could go to a movie theater once a week for the rest of my life. So it's not that expensive if you have a theater in your area with good gear and good acoustics.
This is a fair observation, but surely you can get a reasonable home theater system (nice new TV, receiver, speakers) for $3k, or less if you're not super picky. Assuming it costs at least $10 to go to a movie, that $3k home theater system is 300 tickets, or less than 6 years of going to movies every week.
But, regardless of efficiency from a cost perspective, that's not why people get home theater systems. They get home theater systems because they don't like watching movies in movie theaters, and so they can have better experiences watching stuff at home.
If you're not intensely annoyed by experience of seeing movies in (typical) movie theaters, then the #1 reason a lot of people get home theater systems isn't applicable to you. When I was a student, seeing movies in crowded theaters never bothered me, but they seem to get more annoying every year. That's probably not the theaters getting worse (they seem to be getting better even?), rather that's just me getting older and my annoyance getting amplified as a result. You experience the same annoyances 1000x, sometimes they cease to be annoyances, or sometimes they become even more annoying each time. Eventually it adds up and you're suddenly a grumpy old person like me who hates crowded movie theaters.
A movie targeted at kids and teenagers needs to appeal to parents to do well. They're the ones paying, and often have to watch it themselves. My parents (apparently) refused to take me to the Care Bares movie because they knew it'd be terrible. They were perfectly happy to go see Toy Story.
The more modern superhero or cartoony 3D movies are often designed to appeal to a fairly broad audience.
192 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 244 ms ] threadMatthew Ball's Netflix series is a great companion: https://redef.com/original/netflix-misunderstandings-pt-1-ne...
Before modern technology there was major overhead, to both consumer and producer, when selecting any single piece of media. Producers had to acquire expensive filming equipment, go through an arduous editing process, and negotiate distribution. Consumers had to pick out what they were going to watch next, possibly travel to a venue, or at least jump through a bunch of hoops to load the next playback media.
It would make sense for the economics to bias towards long-form video media, even in the face of consumer preference for short-form. It would be absurd to release a 2 minute feature film to play in theaters. It'd even be absurd to schedule a 2 minute broadcast television slot. Even a 2 minute video is pushing it on a streaming service, unless there's a very good algorithm that the user's happy to delegate auto-playback to. Otherwise the overhead of picking the next video is on par with the video length itself.
Maybe most of us would prefer just to watch a hundred one minute videos, instead of a single full-length movie. It's just the technology to make this happen is just arriving now. Again, I'm not sure if it's true. But if you're in media, you definitely can't blind yourself to this possibility.
Theater movies have usually simple story.
Short-form media has always been harder to monetize. We've had the technology for a long time to sell individual short stories, articles, etc. It doesn't seem to work very well. (Tangent. Why can't I buy an arbitrary short story on Kindle?) Most authors of 300 page books don't make much money either but there does seem to still be a fairly robust writing and publishing pipeline there.
Have also noticed Fox Searchlight has been recently acquiring short films out of the past few film fests. Believe they're making those avail on their YouTube channel.
Think it's much easier for people to consume 25min chunks across 2 seasons (6 episodes each) than a full-length film.
If that's true then it might speak to more than just entertainment consumption. It would mirror a trend in other areas like social media where before you would have long form blogs that went to facebook posts and now to shorter tweets. Maybe it's a collective attention deficit disorder given to us by the constant distractions of modern technology.
Among other things I do, I'm involved with content marketing/social media/etc. and there's quantitive evidence that viewing/reading is tilting towards shorter content in all forms. That's a bit different from entertainment that someone seeks out. But I suspect you have similar forces at work.
So I don't think the problem is that long-form is undesired.
How Will the Movies (As We Know Them) Survive the Next 10 Years?
I think big tent pole movies will still be there because they bring in the audience.
Small budget horror movies will exist because even if they didn't make money they didn't cost a lot of money. I think the medium priced movies are going to in trouble.
People complain about why all we get are remakes and superhero movies, it appears people aren't going to see new IP in 80-130 million dollar range.
We might as long as it's an adaptation from a medium with a lower barrier to entry, e.g. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings.
So I think that's really what film as a medium is going to be in future. It's going to be the place you watch the next Avengers or Star Wars or James Bond or what not. The place for big picture films with million dollar budgets and rosters brimming with A listers, and nothing else beneath that.
Or okay, maybe indie cinema may exist on the fringes or something. But fact is, the industry has probably got to accept that low/medium budget films are pretty much history, and they've been replaced entirely by streaming services and sites like YouTube.
Still, it's not all bad news. No, if you want bad news, that's probably the future of television. That's on the way out right now, is probably going to completely supplanted by streaming services like Netflix in future, and as a format has pretty much no advantages over the internet whatsoever. Seriously, could you imagine trying to selling the experience of watching TV in a society that already has the internet? You couldn't. It objectively be a worse solution for most people.
So yeah, I think film is probably gonna be reduced a bunch of blockbuster films by large studios mixed with some arthouse works, and TV is probably just going to be completely replaced by streaming services and video sharing platforms.
That's mostly been me with going to theaters for a very long time. And I do watch a fair number of movies.
Presumably, for lower budget movies, direct to streaming becomes more common although it's hard to say what that means in terms of what works economically.
Anecdotally, many years ago, I was in the film group at school and we had 4 different movies over a weekend, filled large auditoriums etc. My understanding is that there are now occasional film showings but, as a whole, this doesn't exist any longer.
A lot of going out to see movies in a theater is habit. Take the habit away and you can see a big fropoff.
Lower-budget productions, in general, are increasingly being produced as cable or streaming TV shows instead of movies nowadays.
Vox even did an article on the phenomenon the other day, pointing out that it's resulted in a number of shows being poorly-paced because they were originally written to be movies before they were padded out to be TV shows: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/19/18660602/tv-streaming-...
Coming soon: "Delivery Option: Save $5 on your next ticket at Amazon Cinema by having this package delivered directly to your nearest theater!"
:s/Victory/Amazon/g
Good stuff right here. Scary that all of these things are a real possibility.
Cinematography genius!
Edit: I would still pay $$$
What was really clever about it was that Drafthouse was playing the previous week’s episode without commercials while the new one aired, then edited out the commercials for the current week’s episode and played it right after.
Those were good times.
I imagine Amazon and Netflix will look to a similar strategy with movie theatres in order to boost demand for both individual films and their services in general.
I wish that I at least liked the one thing that was what the whole world apparently decided all at once was the only way to do things.
I'm not even that snobby but I think these films are garbage from the perspective of what I've liked about movies over the last 60 years.
The reason "movie-theatre movies" are the way they are, is that everything that's not a "movie-theatre movie", people would rather watch on Netflix.
I find myself loathing the listed run times of 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours, while I'll gladly watch a miniseries on Netflix where each episode is just as long.
I'm usually thinking: how are they going to cut corners on character development this time, jam pack the action scenes and twist in, without me feeling exhausted of the whole ordeal?
I like the theatres because many of my living arrangements weren't conducive to turning the sound up so high that I can feel it in my body
but now, I catch most theatrical releases while on planes - which may be unique to me - and just regret every time I actually do go to the theatre.
Boy, you'd really be put out by classical theatre and opera (and commedia dell'arte, and rakugo, and...). Everyone in the audience of such shows has likely already seen the exact same story performed before, line for line! (And don't get me started about church services...)
Seriously, though: sometimes the point isn't to tell you something new, but to deliver a polished retelling of a well-known story that the production company loves, for a new audience.
Cinemark started a revolution when they invented stadium seating (but even then, the original incarnation was problematic because it wasn't wheelchair-accessible until Cinemark settled with the DOJ).
That's why this model can work fine for niche live events that few people want but not so much for mass market live broadcasts. It's this reason that you've got to caveat "TV Shows" vs "Live TV" when you make that statement.
"Shows" can be easily cached on CDNs much closer to each consumer. "Live" can't.
If anything, I'd see the major broadcast networks and ESPN continuing to get stronger, while everything else on TV gets weaker.
The only TV shows that people have to watch "live" are shows with a community built around them, ready to react and discuss it as it's happening (Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc). This is where movie audiences are similar because that opening weekend crowd for an anticipated movie tends to share the experience.
I honestly wish they'd bring back midnight showings instead of 7pm Thursday showings, because that midnight crowd energy is impossible to replicate.
The technical solution for that is multicast.
The internet doesn't really support multicast, but there are workarounds; the best known is BAMTech, which grew out of live streaming MLB baseball and was purchased for $1B in 2016 by Disney.
I have no idea how they do it, but I imagine it's not that different from Netflix. Put a box in ISP's everywhere that acts like a multi-user PVR. One stream per channel going in to the box, thousands going out.
Um, no? You could argue that it isn't technically caching, and the system doing it isn't technically a CDN, but there's no reason why a broadcast can't be streamed to, say, 1000 SDN nodes, which each spool the stream in memory and serve it to 1000+ different recievers. A SDN node (server) is different infrastructure than a television station, so there might be issues with capital outlay, but I highly doubt it's more expensive once sunk costs are tallied.
The current value proposition of a theatrical release is primarily in the big screen and the big auditorium, and secondarily the access to content(which can be seen on screens of many sizes). This was basically also true when VCRs took hold, and it drove the wave of late-20th century blockbusters; it's only different now in that the value of the theater is more niche, and there are fewer barriers to wide distribution.
IMHO the thing that could support theaters going forward is a common 21st century theme: customization and unbundling. Keep it a primarily passive audience experience(we've seen the "interactive movie" trope before), but introduce an element of performance and "VJing", taking the emphasis off making one prerecorded film and moving it towards remixable material inside a common framework. Given that so many big releases now are CGI-centric, the production pipelines are already in striking distance of doing this, and live effects can supplement it. It just needs the intersection of technical capability against a business model open to this structuring of IP and talent - which might put it out of reach of the current studios but create opportunities for new ones.
In a fractured world where everybody has different truths and things they have seen, TV may be the one factor that ensures everybody at least have access to the same stories, even if they disagree with them.
Of course that is the experience before cable tv, not the experience of having 9000 channels, and none of them worth watching.
Here's an extremely relevant article about Hollywood. [2] Hollywood has been one of the earliest adopters of active utilization and commercialization of "AI technologies". Scripts are actively analyzed using machine learning systems to try to predict profits. Guess what the AI says? Stuff that made money in the past will keep making money, and things that didn't won't. And what do we get out of Hollywood? Repetitive rubbish whose only novelty is tossing in some identity politics to, in this article's phrasing, offer a "more representative portrayal of the world in which we live."
More to the point, think about some of the all time greatest movies (as well as money makers). Here's [3] a list of the top 10 by gross. Tellingly, only 3 of the top 10 were made after 2000. But now consider the other films - Gone with the Wind, Titanic, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, ET, The Ten Commandments, etc. These films were all, if not extremely unique, certainly not derivative rubbish. Now look at the 21st century films and you'll see a whole bunch of generic superhero movies and sequels. Even if not the product of AI, it's certainly the product of a mindset that's no different than a profit oriented regression analysis of the past - the less glorified truism of what "AI analysis" is.
Maybe the biggest problem with Hollywood is summed by one sentence in the AI article I referenced: “[AI analysis] takes a lot of the risk out of what I do.” No, it just makes you comfortable releasing crap that you'd otherwise recognize as crap. Interestingly the producer that gave that quote ended up releasing two mega-flops after the article and has not released anything since. It's not like we've even scratched the surface of possible ideas, but Hollywood has become uncreative, lazy, and averse to any and all risk - to the point that they'd rather drown than try something else, so long as it happens slowly.
[1] - https://www.the-numbers.com/market/
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/media/solving-eq...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films...
You see the same in tech. It’s been a long time since the biggest players have done much innovative stuff.
I think that sums up the problem with AI in general.
The real story so far of "AI" is about human desire to avoid responsibility for their actions. It is about saying "the magic box said you were a terrorist, nothing I can do about it" or, in this case, "The magic box said it should make a lot of money, I dunno what happened."
It is about the limited liability corporation gaining the ability to act semi-autonomously, with the profits going to the humans and the blame going to the machine.
[0] https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/03/batman-v-superman-cul...
Even on ticket numbers for the big movies, everything is in decline. For instance Avengers Endgame is, by far, the biggest movie in recent decades. Yet it sold 3 million tickets fewer than e.g. Titanic. This is made even more remarkable by population growth. The population since 1998 (when Titanic was released) has increased by nearly 28%. Even the US population has increased by more than 19% since then. Titanic sold 94,524,324 tickets. A population normalized comparable success would move more than 112 million tickets, and that's using just a 19% growth factor.
Avengers: Endgame, the mega-hit of the 21st century, sold 91,353,296 tickets. The industry is dying and blaming absolutely everything except their own decisions which, in turn, is likely contributing to their own demise as they refuse to accept responsibility for their own declining results. One of the countless parallels shared between Hollywood and the big budget game industry.
I don't really watch movies myself, but I could tell you that Black Panther was a massive cultural success. As was Get Out. And The Shape Of Water (which I did see and enjoyed thoroughly, especially for its seamless integration with the battling of traditional and nontraditional masculinity). But I couldn't tell you anything about, I don't know, Antman or Daredevil other than that they existed at some point. And I think this reflects in commecial successes, also.
What has been forgotten is that masses do want some novelty, even if it isn't by very much. Incremental novelies, perhaps.
One of the biggest-grossing franchises in film history is rewarmed 30s SF pulp with a bigger effects budget.
>more awful movies while trying to argue that 'this is what people want.'
Moviegoers don't want the same old thing. But they also don't want this weird Lynch/Cronenberg (snobbish Godard) stuff. We should have books and films with enough cultural cachet that almost everyone should be experiencing them simultaneously (ie, there's too much fragmentation). But there should be small, independent, unique voices.
So when it comes right down to it, what we really want is something comfortable (known) that doesn't quite feel that way (but not too much) and everyone shares as a cultural touchstone, but one which is unique and special to each individual. This seems to be the real problem we're running against.
I've sat out of the whole superhero franchise for, what, over a decade or so now? Can't stand movies-by-the-numbers.
Here in Reno, the Cinemark chain put in the luxury loungers (far fewer seats per theater) and seat selection. With the movie club, you pay $8/movie for all tickets plus get a discount on snacks. Honestly, that's pretty fair.
I hate the superhero moment we're living through right now... some likable actors don't seem to show up ind event movies anymore because they're cashing the DC/MCU checks.
What I wish every time I go to a theater:
* Ditch the stupid Coca-Cola commercials. If we have to sit through those every time we have to go to a theater, we stop going to a theater.
* Theaters are set up for digital nowadays, per Fandom and certain fight events. Dig up some legacy films and show indie/classics/other films far more often. Or, make sure other movies play, even during the day on weekend... the theater is empty, why didn't Apollo 11 ever play in my town?
* Fix your movie chain marketing emails. They all, universally, suck.
* Tell us when the movie starts, not when you start the advertising (yeah, I know it's 15 minutes of trailers/commercials).
Not even to go into the "some movies would be better as HBO/ Netflix/ Showtime series" ...
Heh, now there's a new promotion opportunity: "Show up at the theater and your party is the only one there? Select what movie you want to be shown from our immense backlog!" Sort of like no-show ticket deals on flights.
But compete by giving more flexibility about time and selection. Maybe even offer blockbuster TV shows, so you can book a Stranger Things party with a group.
I think IP licensing might be the biggest problem there, which would mean that Hollywood is stepping on its own tail to some degree.
I know where I live, these kinds of theaters are still doing quite well, and thrive off of showing smaller films, sometimes with Q&A events w/ filmmakers. They even do showings of classic films via 35mm prints they can get their hands on.
I know this isn't just some local thing either. I know it's happening in the DC/Baltimore, Detroit, LA, and SF area, as well as here in Colorado...
I just tried to figure out whether I'd recommend any of the Marvel films on their own raw merit to someone without interest in the whole series and... no? Maybe Guardians of the Galaxy 2 if you like sci-fi. Solid theme, better writing than most, fairly good humor. Maybe the first Iron Man since it stands alone pretty well and it's not too hard to just stop there, satisfied, having basically seen what about half the rest of the movies do (god, there are what, 22 or 23 now?), entirely. Interesting perspective to think about them from.
If you have any interest in Marvel superheroes whatsoever I'd recommend Into the Spiderverse as the best single movie they've put out. It's animated, not part of their live-action "universe".
But yeah, none of it's Hitchcock or Renoir, at all. Or even upper-tier Spielberg. Well, maybe Into the Spiderverse hits almost that level, at least.
[EDIT] I don't mean to be too harsh to them, overall they're an incredible achievement in consistency, with only a couple being truly terrible (my attempt to give Thor 2 a second chance was... not successful, only made it about 30 minutes) which is pretty nuts, even for by-the-numbers filmmaking. At least four of the five Avengers entries are maybe the most flawlessly-executed high fan service in the history of ever (2 was a bit of a misstep—pulled their punches, I think, though even it's just shy of belonging with the others). But yeah, "would you recommend any of these to a film fan, not a blockbuster movies fan, who doesn't want to sit through 50 hours to see the whole thing?". That's a toughy. Maybe those couple, that's about it.
Iron Man is probably as good a choice as any for a standalone Marvel film.
One problem is that the template for a modern big budget action film, which includes all the superhero films, weighs things down with so many explosions and special effects and just non-stop action sequences that they're all a bit exhausting and tend to overwhelm any humor or character interactions on the screen.
Rogue One was a frustrating near-miss. Leaning into genre tropes adjacent to those that were such a part of Star Wars (the original gigantic genre-pastiche film) was such a good idea, and man, it almost worked. I think they just didn't quite have enough confidence in that idea and hedged their bets too much, and of course couldn't resist doing the Interminably Long Gigantic Big Explosions Action Scene. That aside, the fleet arriving and immediate aftermath of that is maybe the only time any of the new movies have given me childlike "Star Wars Feels" like several of the moments in the original trilogy do, so there's that.
All the others seem to be a formulaic blend of running, shouting, shooting, CGI explodium, cartoon villains of astounding power and limited emotional depth, wisecracks™, on-the-nose moralising, and fresh-out-of-the-can sentiment.
But these movies sell. More thoughtful slower movies don't. It's a feedback loop. The studios pander to teen/young adult audiences, older audiences stay away, and the movies become younger, teenier, and less and less distinctive.
It's because it's interrupted. It has 30s of that, then it stops, have a minute of slower scenes, and then go for another 30s of action. It's probably cheaper too.
That could be dull but, crucially, each of these differs from the others, whether by significantly varying the setting, or the way the characters fight, or the sort of bad guy they're fighting. It's also excellent at both short and long term setup and payoff, at least in minor ways, several times completing such an arc in a single scene—which is what you're supposed to do in just about any scene if you can swing it, of course, but many filmmakers seem to forget that, especially once the CGI explosions start. It may be paint by numbers but at least they, you know, actually paint every number, as if they are, if nothing else, very good and professional number-painters.
Contrast, say, Man of Steel, where it's mostly just one or the other of two dudes getting smashed or laser-blasted through/onto something hard, over, and over, and over. Or Age of Ultron, which has more variety and setup/payoff than Man of Steel (not a high bar to top), but is still way worse—clumsier and more slapdash, might be a good way to put it—than Avengers.
[EDIT] and yes of course you're very much correct, the pacing of the final fight in Avengers is part of the variety that keeps it from becoming a slog. The plotting and editing work on that whole sequence is damn impressive. It could probably be the main subject of a whole class on modern action storytelling in film—if you for some reason can't just use the entirety of Mad Max: Fury Road as your key work instead.
Black Panther is probably the first one to watch as a standalone.
Captain America: The First Avenger wouldn't be a bad recommendation either (and follow it up with the Agent Carter TV series, which is one of the finest examples of dieselpunk I've seen).
Into the Spiderverse is absolutely great as well.
What would draw me back would be a really high class experience with great films, great food, alcoholic drinks, a beautiful classy interior, and maybe a bar downstairs for a drink or two after the film. That could overall make a real lovely evening of the entertainment. Add in a creche/dog sitting to make it parent friendly. Don't know if it's economically viable though.
It's as if their target person, whose lack of access to the actual movie festivals where these films are first shown, is made whole by urban theatres in culturally-thriving cities, with these theatres serving as a democratizing force of access, so that the viewer can ponder the topics and messages in the film and reflect on its lessons for themselves and their communities -- while they seem oblivious to the fact that technology and online distribution have democratized access not just for dopamine-cravers whose tastes they seemingly find lacking, but also for their target groups.
The fact is, in the history of public art and entertainment, there has never been a time where access to one's idealized audience was easier. Some filmmakers have demonstrated that they can successfully leverage these new channels to make their works have more of an impact, than they would have had otherwise, while others seem to writhe in discomfort as they try to articulate their displeasure with a world that no longer matches their preferred where of scarcity was the norm, their societal role was clearly seen as provoking emotion and critical thought, and they had leverage over the venues that would dole out the privilege of this access.
Movie production costs have gotten so low that online streaming is quickly becoming the predominant model. These low costs allow streaming studio heads to diversify across genres and take lots of small risks, which ultimately reduce me the risk to the production company. This increased risk tolerance allows them to give up almost all creative control to the writers, actors and directors. A-list actors and directors are willing to give up a lot of money to get that creative control, so the streaming services still recruit top talent.
But by far the biggest cost difference is marketing. The only way studios can justify a $50M marketing budget for a movie is if that marketing also drives additional commercial activity outside of theatrical attendance (games, merch, anticipated sequels, etc.) Streaming services can benefit from a constant, consolidated marketing budget: they can advertise the “new movie of the week” with a sustained ad buy over time while still retaining the brand advertising uplift for the entire service. Global distribution is also waaaaay easier for streaming services.
Ultimate takeaway though is that the window release model is dead. Everyone in the media industry has known this for years; and I think that we’ll look back at 2019 as the year that really started to happen for real.
It is not a matter of "if" this day will come, but simply "when". I think 10-15 years is very possible. We'll have audio software that generates all the music we could want in a single app, have a single book app that generates any novel in any genre we want, or creates videos/movies we want from a single application. How could humans compete with their 1-5 movies a year against a computer app that could generate 5 movies a minute?
I think it could easily find its way into Youtube first, as there is much less to lose, and far more to gain, from short videos that capture attention. With apps used by content creators to create music, or help with VFx, etc, to eventually generating entirely new videos without requiring the content creator to do any work, and they will jump at the chance if it gets them more subscribers.
There will come a day, when there is a really popular film, that was completely created by a computer. That day will come not in a 100 years, but in the next decade or two.
I work in the arts and I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I know who have been to a theatre to see something smaller than "Hamilton".
The internet is here so everything must scale. If you're not serving a billion people you're a failure.
http://collider.com/movie-ticket-price-inflation-statistics/
I don't need to go to cinema to see drama or comedy or anything else, I can easily do that from the comfort of my own house.
Plus A-List is really cheap
We should also ask ourself if high budget comedies are really necessary. You could do Austin Powers on a cheap budget and it would probably only reduce the quality a bit. So maybe it's not the end of the world if the Austin Powers movies of the future are lower budget and on TV.
Seriously jarring. When you see a different culture trying to do them, it makes you realise just how just how unconvincingly stiff and nationalistic those tropes are.
I don't know if that was deliberate. If it was, it was a much cleverer movie than it appeared to be.
I think there are two ways forward: return to the crummy old theater model of playing classic movies day and night (why don't any multiplexes have 1 screen dedicated to this?) Curation is key as well as choice. It would be bice when there are 8 crappy movies at the theater to see "Die Hard" and "The Godfather" playing so there is always an option for people that just want a night out.
Which is the second point: movie theaters are one of the last remaining "things to do" on a normal night that is kid-friendly and group-friendly. Malls are gone (or profoundly dead) and movie theaters are one of the last options. Although I feel like the concept of "going out" is itself maybe dying.
Heck, even the crappier (2nd class) malls have been putting on the proverbial lipstick and targeting hip food retailers thus inviting younger crowds dating and chilling.
The only malls that seem to die off are the ones who were opened in places which are not progressing economically (for example low-income neighborhoods) and they never took off to begin with nor has the neighborhood improved economically.
But you don't even need to go to low income areas. The mall that is nearest me in a smaller city about 40 miles from Boston has anchor stores that are pretty much all retail chains that are cratering (Sears, JC Penny, Toys R'Us). The grocery store and Home Depot in the complex are always busy but the actual mall and other small stores are a ghost town. It's not exactly an upscale area but it's not depressed. (Heck, there are Tesla chargers in the parking lot.)
You can search for an Apple Store or Nordstrom’s and find the wealthy part of town wherever the mall they are in is located. Also works with Whole Foods and a couple other stores.
We lost or are losing a bunch of malls, but there are also a small handful that are thriving. Prestonwood, Valley View, and Collin Creek may be dead or dying, we still have Stonebriar, NorthPark, and the Galleria doing very well. There are fewer malls, sure, but the ones we have left are thriving.
Of course, Dallas is one of the most thoroughly suburban parts of the country. Sure, there are a small handful of people moving to places like Uptown or Oak Cliff, but the northern suburbs are still booming, and almost everyone I went to college with who's still in the area either lives in a suburban apartment complex, or if they're financially successful, bought a house in the exurbs. And even if a good chunk of twentysomethings are moving to the city, there are still all the teenagers living with their parents in the suburbs. And for that matter, there are twentysomething adults who are living in the suburbs with their parents because their careers haven't taken off.
https://time.com/4865957/death-and-life-shopping-mall/
What's happening in bigger cities is consolidation; lots of dead malls and empty stores but a few key retail locations are booming. The neighborhood mall, where you might go to hang out, is gone.
The trend right now in Vancouver is to combine malls with condo complexes although none are finished enough to see if that will be a success.
I agree in general that sprawling shopping centers have tended to replace a fair number of indoor malls. That probably mostly reflects the ascendancy of big box stores over small specialty retailers for mainstream consumers.
The experience of good food, drinks and great curated movies is awesome. It's not just going to the movies, it's an evening out. I hope they continue to do well, and when they do decide to come to my town, I'll be there very often.
Last movie I saw there was Black Panther. Instead of ads before the movie, they had a retrospective/documentary on the history of Black Panther in the comics.
They know movies, and do them right.
I really just want the best screen and nice seats, and sad as it may be, it's really just the big cineplex chains that deliver on that. As far as movie curation goes, that's certainly a weakness of the big chains, but at least in SF I have been shocked at the variety of foreign/indie/classic films that show up at the AMC and Cinemark if you pay attention to showtimes.
And that isn’t the allure anyway. The people who run Alamo have concentrated so hard on customer experience that it’s almost embarrassing to the other theaters.
1) Nobody takes your ticket. Buy it online and walk directly to your seat.
2) no advertisements for liposuction of real estate before the movie starts. The media playing while you wait is interesting clips that are relevant to the movie you are about to watch. When I saw “hackers” there, it was a bunch of hilarious old computer ads from the 90s, music videos of the soundtrack, etc.
3) if you talk, text, or arrive late you get kicked out. People follow this rule.
4) There might be some alternative revenue stream[1] but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like you exchange money for a ticket to a movie.
Honestly Alamo feel less hip, and more like it’s run by cranky old cinema buffs that want you to shut up and pay attention during the movie. It’s like a theater for adults.
[1] at other theaters it feels like they don’t care about you buying a ticket, and the ticket is really just an excuse to sell you extremely expensive popcorn.
The Cinemark at the Westfield Mall also has fairly recent new seats, and their XD screens are quite nice.
So yes, I'm spoiled, but I've honestly never even given much thought about attending a showing at the Alamo Drafthouse because I'm fairly sure it can't compete.
Wow that’s a dark thought when you say it out loud isn’t it?
Not that San Francisco needs any more stuff to make it seem even more distopian.
Again, there are enough family-friendly places that exist that you don't need to fret for the future generations not spending their childhood playing street hockey on Broadway.
I know this as I play rec. Volleyball during the winter, and they are always held at local school's gyms.
While I agree the west side of midtown doesn't have many though... (Hells Kitchen/Chelsea/West Village) as they are not necessary family friendly areas.
Same for Brooklyn, While you maybe not see any in Williamsburg, If you go to Park Slope, it is stroller nation..... you'd be out of place if you are young and single...
just saying...
These do exist in cities - for example even in central London.
I would honestly go way more often if they had intermissions.
See, with marvel and superhero movies and with chick flicks and raunchy over-the-top comedies, who are they targeting? You? Give me a break!
They are targeting the youth! The ones 16-22, you know the ones who are mostly students and have awkward social lives to begin with and the ones who are likely to religiously follow the movies, later buy the related merchandise and talk about it for long time in their gatherings.
And for kids below 16, there is a healthy stream of cartoon movies that Pixar, Disney and the like keep doling out to the masses -- case in point, the next Toy Story or Pets movie.
Because for that age group (22 and under), cinema is the biggest bang for the buck AND the cheapest night-out with friends (spend around 10 dollars for movie ticket followed by cheap pizza slice and can of cold drink before heading home).
I’d wager this is a US specific thing due to the heavy regulation of servings alcohol. One Europe even McDonalds and Disneyland serve alcoholic drinks, you’d be hard pressed to find a movie theater that doesn’t.
According to MPAA stats, the most frequent moviegoers are 18-39. https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MPAA-Theatri...
Some of that is the population, but 24% of tickets sold went to the 25-39 demo, compared to 16% of 18-24. 40% of tickets are sold to people 24 and under, and 60% of tickets of is >24.
You're right on this, I usually go to the 'adult only' theater near me where I can order a beer and a really good hamburger to eat while I enjoy a movie in a cushy lounging chair. These things have been popping up all over the country and I bet it's helped bring adults back to movie theaters.
I do enjoy Pixar movies though. It seems those are always packed for the 21-over crowd too.
But, regardless of efficiency from a cost perspective, that's not why people get home theater systems. They get home theater systems because they don't like watching movies in movie theaters, and so they can have better experiences watching stuff at home.
If you're not intensely annoyed by experience of seeing movies in (typical) movie theaters, then the #1 reason a lot of people get home theater systems isn't applicable to you. When I was a student, seeing movies in crowded theaters never bothered me, but they seem to get more annoying every year. That's probably not the theaters getting worse (they seem to be getting better even?), rather that's just me getting older and my annoyance getting amplified as a result. You experience the same annoyances 1000x, sometimes they cease to be annoyances, or sometimes they become even more annoying each time. Eventually it adds up and you're suddenly a grumpy old person like me who hates crowded movie theaters.
The more modern superhero or cartoony 3D movies are often designed to appeal to a fairly broad audience.