[moistoreos]

Off-Topic Rant:

> "Ultimately, Spielberg balked, and last month his company even signed a deal with Netflix, likely because he now sees the writing on the wall: Modern audiences enjoy watching movies at home."

Yea, because movies are stupid expensive. 20 years ago it was literally half as much to see a movie. You want more people in the audience in a theater? Lower the price. The simple economics behind this are astonishing. You're competing with the home experience which has become a lot better over the last decade. Which direction did you seriously expect this to go?

Get rid of matinee and make that the standard price at every hour on Sun-Thu.

[lotsofpulp]

Maybe it is not possible for theaters to go low enough to compete with a 65inch+ 4K TV available for $700+?

[orev]

(In non-COVID times) People still like to get out of the house and go do something. Going to a movie is one of the things they might like to do. However the high cost of a movie ticket is a deterrent to some, so lowering the price is a reasonable reaction to try to get more people to go.

[LinuxBender]

People still like to get out of the house and go do something

I second this, but movie theaters no longer fill that gap for me.

I can only speak for myself. I used to enjoy going to the movies. At some point, how theaters are managed changed dramatically. If people were disrupting the movie, I could have the manager remove the person. This is no longer the case. Every manager I have interacted with in the last few years was passive and hands-off. I can't even get a refund if I have a bad experience. So my options are put up with the idiots, leave the theater, walk into a near-by theater playing the same film or risk a police incident if I remove the person. I have removed people and even had the manager thank me, but that is super risky and not my responsibility. Needless to say, movie theaters are no longer an immersive or enjoyable experience for me.

Or I can watch a movie at home, as many times as I wish without interruption. I have invite as many people as I wish. I can implement any sound system I desire. I don't have to wait for what might be a boring scene to use the restroom. It is a fully immersive and enjoyable experience. I just watched "Nobody" at home, twice. Great movie btw, highly recommended if you enjoyed John Wick but wished the fight scenes were a little more realistic in terms of the main character getting hurt in every fight. Some day I will get VR and make the movie even more immersive.

[goatlover]

And for some movies, the theater experience makes it special. Either because of the visual spectacle on a large screen, or the audience reaction. Avengers Endgame on opening weekend was a special experience.

[seanicus]

Honestly not the worst idea but I wouldn't be shocked if studios are heavily influencing prices. Disney recently started demanding 60% cut of tickets. Those ticket sales are probably somewhat of a backbone to the theater chains, but the real money that keeps the ship afloat is the concessions, which Disney does not demand a 60% cut of (yet).

I love, love, love going to the movies and do it as often as I can. That said I spend 75% of my mental energy anxious about shitty theater behavior. When my kid is old enough to drag along $20-30 for the latest Marvel movie at home is going to become an increasingly good deal.

We've got a great art-house/rep theater in my town that plays an astonishing variety of films, but even that is often filled up with idiot frat boys laughing at the serious parts and occasionally yelling things at the screen. I'm seeing the new Nic Cage movie, Pig, tonight and because he's in a lot of schlocky movies (apparently this one isn't) I'm dreading the crowd response.

[msh]

Well I love movies and 10-15 years ago used to go to the movies several times a month. I am not that price sensitive.

Now, even before corona, I almost never go.

The reasons for watching at home is better:

* Access, back then there was a huge delay in movies being available. * Quality, before DVD's and HD TV's the technical quality was much much higher than TV's with VHS tapes or cheaper home cinema projectors. * Not annoying people, very often the movie experience was disturbed by people who had to comment on the movies or talk constantly among themself. The cinemas did not seem to care.