Another potential blow to accelerate the decline of the movie theater industry

dave

I read about people talking during movies, but as a frequent movie-goer, this is just not something I run into. I conclude it to be a consequence of the movies I choose to watch. I think the last thing I saw was The Brutalist (which got mixed reviews, FWIW).

Heat84

InternetJeff Texting, Weed and Sing-Alongs: Four Radical Ideas for Bringing New Audiences to Movie Theaters

Actually, sing-alongs aren’t new. That was happening in the 70’s with The Rocky Horror Picture Show. How has nobody in here mentioned that yet? That movie was slightly before my time and I know one or two of you criticizing bringing sing-alongs back are hypocrites because you probably participated in the Rocky Horror Picture Show sing-alongs back in the day. Or more recently. I think the sing-alongs for that movie still happen in theaters where they show old movies.

urbanriot

InternetJeff

Some ideas are just so bad that you think that they are satire.

These movie corporations are stupid, all they have to do is make popcorn affordable again. The cost of concessions are entirely why people aren’t going to the movies anymore. $42 (Canadian) for 2 “regular” popcorns, 2 regular drinks, and 2 snacks… $1.25 to put butter on top or $2.50 for layered butter!? Insane. Seriously, that’s the cost of lunch.

broknsymetry

Heat84 The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

…was not intentionally made to be a “sing-along”. The audience partici… pation was an organic outcrop of its cult status. There was cosplay and props in addition to the singing. I still remember the lyrics to every song even after all these years.

JanJ

Display’s are better now than ever before at Movie Theaters…. (I remember going to a “DIGITAL” Theatre demonstration in Hollywood many, many years ago, and I was surprised at the quality)… Better NOW!

But Technology flows downhill!!!!

Display’s are better now (4K) at home, too… 8K is here, but not enough product support yet…
Today’s displays run rings around yesterday’s HD Display’s!!
(Especially if you have a Dolby 5.1 System; you’ve calibrated the display; and Enabled the 4K specific Settings, in the display; And Feed 4K to Display!

Today’s Up-Down-Cross Converters are far better than they were 20 years ago also…. Used to be amazing that one device could do a couple HD formats, at the expense of MPEG Aritfacts….. Now its multiple formats across Multiple Resolutions, and artifacts are far less, everywhere! That makes some consumer video gear look better than broadcast gear from 20 years ago…

I’m liking The Home Experience also!

Beachie

broknsymetry The audience partici… pation was an organic outcrop of its cult status.

I see what you did there…. 👀

telcodad

urbanriot These movie corporations are stupid, all they have to do is make popcorn affordable again. The cost of concessions are entirely why people aren’t going to the movies anymore. $42 (Canadian) for 2 “regular” popcorns, 2 regular drinks, and 2 snacks… $1.25 to put butter on top or $2.50 for layered butter!? Insane. Seriously, that’s the cost of lunch.

But the theaters say that’s how they make their money - they say the money made from ticket sales just about pays their costs.

WalterDnes

urbanriot These movie corporations are ~~stupid~~ effing greedy

The studios strip-mine every penny. The theatres get almost nothing from ticket sales, and have to make it up with overpriced concessions. See https://www.themovieblog.com/2007/10/economics-of-the-movie-theater-where-the-money-goes-and-why-it-costs-us-so-much/

Most of the money that a theatre takes in from ticket sales goes back to the movie studio. The studio leases a movie to your local theater for a set period of time. In the first couple of weeks the film shows in the theatre, the theatre itself only gets to keep about 20% – 25% of the green.

This percentage will vary from movie to movie depending on the specifics of the individual leasing deal. For instance, 2 movie theatre managers told me that for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the studio took 100% of the box office take for the first week of release.

Now, as you move into the second and third weeks of release, the percentage starts to swing to anywhere from 45% – 55% that the theatre gets to keep. It gets better after the fourth week when theatres generally can keep up to 80% or better of the ticket sales. There is an obvious inherent problem with this arrangement. I don’t know about you, but when I finally get around to seeing a film that’s already been in the theatres for 4 or 5 weeks, I’m usually one of the only people in the place. It doesn’t do the establishment a lot of good to keep 80% of the ticket sales when only 14 tickets are sold per show. And with more and more and more movies getting released every week, the length of time that a movie stays in theaters is shrinking. Bad news for the movie theaters.

Movie theaters are then forced to really make their money off concessions. One theater manager said “We’re not in the movie business… we’re in the candy business”. Very true. So if you ever wondered why a $0.15 bag of popcorn is costing you $5, and a $0.08 cup of Coke is running you another $4… it’s because the economics of the industry system is so screwed up that the concession stand is where theaters have to make most of their money.

CrashMan

Have not been in a theater since 3 years before Covid. The theater prices have pretty much priced themselves out of our interest. Streaming is the way now for us.

urbanriot

WalterDnes

The theatres get almost nothing from ticket sales, and have to make it up with overpriced concessions.

What a terrible business model. They should charge for what the tickets are worth and equally charge what the concessions are worth.

dave

urbanriot

I suspect they have figured it out already. People don’t “go out for popcorn”, they go to see a movie – so keep the price of the attraction lower, and stick it to the punters on the extras.

I like that model, since I don’t view watching a movie as requiring a snack.

InternetJeff

urbanriot They should charge for what the tickets are worth and equally charge what the concessions are worth.

Movie tickets, or anything, is inevitably worth what people are willing to pay. Theaters should allow people to bid on tickets. If movie goers only want to pay $2 to sit through 3 hours of some dreck, so be it, that’s all the theater gets. Maybe institute demand pricing.

In turn, theaters should be able to bid on content offered by Hollywood. If the market won’t pay what Hollywood spent to create some mess, oh well too bad.

As it is now, you pretty much have to pay the same price to see X as you do to see Y. In a free market, it’s highly unlikely that two different products are going to be worth exactly the same to the same person. It would be like every brand and type of 12 oz canned good in a grocery store was sold at exactly the same amount. Preposterous.

dave

InternetJeff

In my movie-going opinion, the big-chain theatres have little problem in filling full-price seats when showing dreck. The dreckier the better. That’s why franchise movies crank out sequel after sequel (“Dreck Part XIII”).

urbanriot

dave

People don’t “go out for popcorn”, they go to see a movie – so keep the price of the attraction lower, and stick it to the punters on the extras.

No, they don’t “go out for popcorn”, that’s silly, and they don’t just “go to see a movie” - they go for the experience. Go back to the 70s and the 80s and everyone had popcorn and drinks in hand at the start of the movie, back when it was affordable.

telcodad

urbanriot … and they don’t just “go to see a movie” - they go for the experience. Go back to the 70s and the 80s and everyone had popcorn and drinks in hand at the start of the movie, back when it was affordable.

Yes, the few times that I’ve gone to a movie theater lately, I not only enjoyed the larger screen and better sound system, but I also indulged in a bucket of popcorn* and a large frozen Coke, to complete my movie theater “experience.” 😉

- And that bucket of popcorn just about lasts through the 15 minutes of ads and previews that precede the actual movie that’s being shown. 😃

InternetJeff

urbanriot

On the increasingly infrequent times that we visit a theater, the wife brings our snacks in her purse. She approaches it as a Special Ops mission and enjoys smuggling in contraband, LOL
😁

InternetJeff

telcodad 15 minutes of ads and previews that precede the actual movie that’s being shown

I’ve timed the local cineplex, and they add exactly 22 minutes of ads and previews. We never go to crowded screenings, and we time our arrival so that we are sitting down in the seat just before the show starts. An ad-free experience.
😁

broknsymetry

InternetJeff the wife brings our snacks in her purse

Ever since I was old enough to go to the theater alone I brought my own snacks and drinks. I don’t remember much of the theater when I was a young child but I doubt we could afford to buy snacks at the concession even if they were cheap back then. But when my best friend and I would walk to the movies we always stopped on the way for candy and such. As an adult my wife would always bring a small backpack with snacks and ice cold Capri Suns for the four of us, the ushers would never check. But the greatest was the Drive-Ins, you could pack a full picnic in the trunk and you wouldn’t be alone - half the moviegoers brought their own and you’d be having dinner with everyone.

ugly95

dave I suspect they have figured it out already. People don’t “go out for popcorn”, they go to see a movie – so keep the price of the attraction lower, and stick it to the punters on the extras.

I like that model, since I don’t view watching a movie as requiring a snack.

I think this might be one of those situations where we don’t really have a full picture of how the agreements work. I’m admittedly talking out of my ass here, because I don’t know how they work.

But I would guess that there is probably some type of agreement (or forced acceptance) between the movie studios and the movie theatres about how much tickets can cost. If movie theatres set ticket prices too high and it results in fewer people coming to the threatres, I doubt that movie studios would want empty theatres on the opening night of their movies.

There would also be a split on the ticket sales between the studio and the threatre. Increasing the cost of the ticket, would get them more money, but they’d still be splitting in as a percentage with the studios. It is likely that they have the ability to upsell more on concessions.

Guy54435

broknsymetry I have been in the trunk of a car numerous times going into the drive in. Someone had to keep the beer cooler safe. Our local drive in would sometimes do random trunk checks to see if people were being snuck in.

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