Do enough people buy tickets in advance now that this really indicates anything of value? I'm old and have never pre-purchased a movie ticket in my life. I assume a lot of people do, but the few times I've been to the movies lately, it seems people are buying tickets at the theater.
I never do it in person. Alamo Season Pass -> select the reserved seats -> go sit down when you get to the theater. You have to reserve tickets for classic films or big releases because they often sell out, anyway.
I was going to the 10am or 11am screenings for years to avoid crowds and drunks who'd talk or otherwise distract from the show. I have a 4k projector so the only movies since the pan have been the Spiderverse sequel on IMAX, the Avatar sequel (regular screening), and Everything Everywhere All At Once in a small theatre with sofas and pizza and beer.
Either it's big enough to warrant a massive video and sound system (because I have pretty great ones at home already, so it has to be extravagant), or it has to be something I've heard about and want to see so much that we don't really care about the best, we just want to go. Otherwise, why mess around with high prices and rude people?
I hate to say it, but I think most theaters are gonna die.
I thought this was the case, but then I went to a full movie theater and really enjoyed being a part of an audience that was all experiencing the same thing. You could feel the emotion and that is a different sense than having the theater all to you to, but potentially just as rewarding.
I saw IT Chapter II in a completely empty theater, late at night. It was delightfully creepy. However, if I had been an employee there, I think I would have do do something with a red helium balloon to anyone watching that movie alone.
I think whether or not it's worth it really depends on the kind and quality of movie.
When I went to see Project Hail Mary, I enjoyed the full theater, when I went to watch the new Jurassic World movie in an empty theater I was bored out of my mind, on the other hand I've seen many anime movies in empty theaters where I absolutely loved having a quiet theater entirely to myself.
I remember I went to a small showing once as a kid. It was just our group and 1 lady in the theater.
We got to small talk and the lady mentioned she had once been the only customer for a showing and told the projectionist that she didn’t want to be a bother and could come back and another day.
The projectionist had apparently replied that it was no bother - they would roll the movie even if no one showed up!
Film projectors (at least when I did the job in the mid-90s) can't rewind or fast forward, so if for any reason someone buys a late ticket and walks in, the movie has to be running already in order to be on time for the next showing.
I have been quite a heavy patron of AMC theaters these past few years since COVID ended. I have seen A LOT of movies play to empty theaters. I used to actually peek at many of the rooms when I left my movie and so many were downright empty.
Its the norm and its probably why their stock is trading at $1.45 as of this writing.
Its a dead (not dying, dead) entertainment option. When you are competing for the same 24 hrs in a day with TV, Youtube, Gaming, Streaming, TikTok, Instagram and many others the theater is bottom of the barrel for young people today.
And don't tell me its because people are disrespectful or the commercials are too long. These are a problem but Alamo Drafthouse tried to tackle this and they ended up in bankruptcy. AMC would also be bankrupt today but it's saving grace was the meme stock frenzy they had a few years back. Probably bought them a few more years but that ride might be coming to an end.
Currently they fill the rooms for the pop movies like old established franchises but that only comes along every couple weeks at the most and the rest of the time the place is not really busy. This is a bit different in the big cities but AMC has overextended themselves with too many locations in the rural and suburban US.
...Also this app is not displaying accurate data (I assume they are pulling from AMC's API). My local theater is listing no results and I cross checked and there are movies currently listed that have 0 seats booked so the app is counting incorrectly for at least one theater.
EDIT: After I wrote this, the site auto updated with new data. Now I see some screenings but it is still inaccurate because it is still missing movies from that theater...maybe they are scraping instead of using the API? This is a simple problem if using the API (I wrote my own home cooked app): just iterate through all theater ids, find the ones with 0 bookings and display that list.
Movie theaters are reinventing themselves in various ways, and I’m unsure if it’s working, but some of it is creative.
Around here, films from Bollywood show in Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati languages. There are family films in Spanish (those aren’t bad dubs, but parallel scripts and A-list voice actors.) Want to watch a Studio Ghibli film? Here’s the timetable for dubbed; here’s a timetable for subtitles!
There are live video-game tournaments. There are premieres for live operas and symphony orchestra performances that are simulcast around a region.
There are Christian groups who go in to support a film, and they can turn those into fundraisers and evangelization activity.
The auditoriums can be rented out for special events. Big birthday, Kindergarten graduation, Quinceañeras, etc. They will support teleconferencing and businesses can hold seminars or all-hands meetings there.
I suppose that all of these schemes were harmed by the pandemic and lockdowns, but the advertising is still there, and the Hindus are still showing up on public transit.
I’ve been to a few showings by myself back in the moviepass days. It was really nice, I’d wait until a movie was basically at the very end of its run and watch whatever was playing. I can’t stand others making noise, too distracting.
I used to frequent the brisbane regent cinema precisely because it was reliably empty. The franchise kept it running because having a really nice prestige theatre was good for their brand, but compared to their other sites it was revenue neutral at best.
When I lived in Germany, I had an apartment in the vicinity of three tiny arthouse theaters. I used to go there all the time by myself because you could basically walk to all three of them. Saw a lot of movies I would have never seen otherwise, most of which I don't remember at all.
The theaters were never full. So it was basically just like watching a movie in your own living room. Yeah, except maybe for the handful of strangers that were there to watch with you.
This site will probably defeat its purpose. You discover an empty showing and are excited to have your own "private theater", but thanks to this site, somebody else will have the same idea and you'll both have to share your private theater.
I was the only person in the theater when I saw Phenomenon, 30 years ago. I’m sure the movie business isn’t a healthy ecosystem right now, but the existence of empty showings isn’t new.
I think Hollywood has been churning out derivative content for a while, and catering for "modern audiences" (as opposed to the silent majority) too much.
One or two exceptions - Project Hail Mary, for example.
But the decline of Marvel, Star Trek and Star Wars franchises has been stark.
* massive TVs are cheap now
* people behave disrespectfully in cinemas
* cinema tickets are now unaffordable for the low end of the market
* the experience hasn't modernised and become luxy enough to retain the high end of the market
* streaming services have high budgets now
I gotta dig up an old college economics paper I wrote on movie theatre ticket pricing. Movies are priced wrong but that’s complicated by the way the major studios want things run. It’s a whole mess
Movie theaters are insanely cheap. People just prefer to sit at home and scroll on their phones.
Amc a list is 20$, that's 16 movies a month. Cheaper than 4k Netflix. Amc is already bleeding money. Sadly consumer choices just changed to second screen bullshit
I don’t think pricing is the only problem with theaters. Especially over the last 15 years or so they’ve been increasingly competing with alternative ways of watching movies, and for a lot of people watching at home wins at any price.
Fancier theaters like the Alamo draft house seem to be trying to complete with watching at home in some ways, but for the most part theaters seem to just be doubling down on the parts if the experience that were already decisive- namely getting louder and adding bigger screens. That might tempt the people who already like what theaters have to offer into going slightly more often, but I think it’s made even more people stop going at all.
They are also showing movies people don't want to see because they have contracts with the studios who are doing nonsense with the numbers to move money around on their books.
Madame web was a great example, it was in theaters for months, and being heavily advertised, and no one was going. At the time I thought it was Sony trying to ruin Marvel's reputation, but it makes more sense that they needed a loss on the books, and most of the money they spent went to companies they had a piece of.
Meanwhile, you have movies that are in and out in a single weekend that go on to become cult classics because they never had a chance.
I remember walking in late to a movie with my wife and noticing that there was nobody there except us. We bought the tickets on site, so the show must have started before we went in, despite no tickets having been sold.
I have an alternative in this for Alamo Drafthouse. It sends me alerts as soon as new movies are listed, typically before promoted or announced online.
It’s meant I can jump on re-runs etc I really care about (just saw Fight Club last week) - and get the specific seat location I prefer.
(If you want alerts just contact me with your email and location - info in bio)
Love this concept.
- If it could give me a near to showtime notifications to help me decide if it's a true empty screenings. That would be great.
- If it connect with my Google Calendar for schedule, it would be amazing.
AMC should start showing Chinese and Korean dramas. That would help them a lot. I'm sure that they could work a deal with those studios that would let AMC set the ticket price. There hasn't been an American-made movie since Lord of the Rings that has compelled me to go see it in the theater. The movie studios seem to be pushing more extremes on immorality, violence, gore, etc, being completely disconnected from the average American's values. And then Disney and others make musicals with actors that can't sing -- mind-boggling. Hence, my wife and I watch Chinese dramas instead, a few episodes per week being my complete TV/Movie intake. They're paced better, develop characters, include a few kung fu moves, have nice visuals, aren't afraid of religious topics, etc.
Makes me wonder -- does it make any economic sense for a theater to have screenings before 2pm on a Tuesday? I get that some people can afford the leisure, but I'm almost certain the theater loses money on that
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 57.7 ms ] threadThat said, for "general admission" theaters, if you want to get good seats, you'd have to show up early and waste time watching all those trailers.
Either it's big enough to warrant a massive video and sound system (because I have pretty great ones at home already, so it has to be extravagant), or it has to be something I've heard about and want to see so much that we don't really care about the best, we just want to go. Otherwise, why mess around with high prices and rude people?
I hate to say it, but I think most theaters are gonna die.
When I went to see Project Hail Mary, I enjoyed the full theater, when I went to watch the new Jurassic World movie in an empty theater I was bored out of my mind, on the other hand I've seen many anime movies in empty theaters where I absolutely loved having a quiet theater entirely to myself.
We got to small talk and the lady mentioned she had once been the only customer for a showing and told the projectionist that she didn’t want to be a bother and could come back and another day.
The projectionist had apparently replied that it was no bother - they would roll the movie even if no one showed up!
Its the norm and its probably why their stock is trading at $1.45 as of this writing.
Its a dead (not dying, dead) entertainment option. When you are competing for the same 24 hrs in a day with TV, Youtube, Gaming, Streaming, TikTok, Instagram and many others the theater is bottom of the barrel for young people today.
And don't tell me its because people are disrespectful or the commercials are too long. These are a problem but Alamo Drafthouse tried to tackle this and they ended up in bankruptcy. AMC would also be bankrupt today but it's saving grace was the meme stock frenzy they had a few years back. Probably bought them a few more years but that ride might be coming to an end.
Currently they fill the rooms for the pop movies like old established franchises but that only comes along every couple weeks at the most and the rest of the time the place is not really busy. This is a bit different in the big cities but AMC has overextended themselves with too many locations in the rural and suburban US.
...Also this app is not displaying accurate data (I assume they are pulling from AMC's API). My local theater is listing no results and I cross checked and there are movies currently listed that have 0 seats booked so the app is counting incorrectly for at least one theater.
EDIT: After I wrote this, the site auto updated with new data. Now I see some screenings but it is still inaccurate because it is still missing movies from that theater...maybe they are scraping instead of using the API? This is a simple problem if using the API (I wrote my own home cooked app): just iterate through all theater ids, find the ones with 0 bookings and display that list.
Around here, films from Bollywood show in Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati languages. There are family films in Spanish (those aren’t bad dubs, but parallel scripts and A-list voice actors.) Want to watch a Studio Ghibli film? Here’s the timetable for dubbed; here’s a timetable for subtitles!
There are live video-game tournaments. There are premieres for live operas and symphony orchestra performances that are simulcast around a region.
There are Christian groups who go in to support a film, and they can turn those into fundraisers and evangelization activity.
The auditoriums can be rented out for special events. Big birthday, Kindergarten graduation, Quinceañeras, etc. They will support teleconferencing and businesses can hold seminars or all-hands meetings there.
I suppose that all of these schemes were harmed by the pandemic and lockdowns, but the advertising is still there, and the Hindus are still showing up on public transit.
The theaters were never full. So it was basically just like watching a movie in your own living room. Yeah, except maybe for the handful of strangers that were there to watch with you.
One or two exceptions - Project Hail Mary, for example.
But the decline of Marvel, Star Trek and Star Wars franchises has been stark.
https://www.youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker has some great commentary on the problem.
Also, a number of other factors:
Fancier theaters like the Alamo draft house seem to be trying to complete with watching at home in some ways, but for the most part theaters seem to just be doubling down on the parts if the experience that were already decisive- namely getting louder and adding bigger screens. That might tempt the people who already like what theaters have to offer into going slightly more often, but I think it’s made even more people stop going at all.
Madame web was a great example, it was in theaters for months, and being heavily advertised, and no one was going. At the time I thought it was Sony trying to ruin Marvel's reputation, but it makes more sense that they needed a loss on the books, and most of the money they spent went to companies they had a piece of.
Meanwhile, you have movies that are in and out in a single weekend that go on to become cult classics because they never had a chance.
It’s meant I can jump on re-runs etc I really care about (just saw Fight Club last week) - and get the specific seat location I prefer.
(If you want alerts just contact me with your email and location - info in bio)