[WorldMaker]

Hah, yeah, my local AMC is a ghost town as people moved to newer and/or better maintained theaters. (Not entirely AMC's fault, they bought a decades old theater that was sort of on its last legs after four other companies controlled it in as many decades.) Most of the screenings I attend are empty or nearly so. I almost need an app to find the full AMC screenings. (I know it is at least as much a factor of which nights of the week I attend. I could attend busier nights. But even then this theater's busiest nights now are not what they were way back when I was in school.) I do sometimes miss seeing something with a large audience.

[tracker1]

There was a Harkin's location a few blocks from me kind of like that... it was old, but still really busy... the only difference is the land became so valuable they wound up selling anyways. The next nearest Harkins and AMC have much worse parking, even if newer/larger theaters, because they're sharing in strip-malls.

[WorldMaker]

Yeah, the dynamics and shifts in trends of where the newer theaters get built and which theaters become the busiest theaters is fascinating to me, and especially how much nostalgia influences which theater I want to spend the most time at.

I lost my favorite theater in the early 2020s and then its sibling, and last locally-owned and operated theater, to a landlord screwing with rents to try to attract an inner-city Publix. (A deal which still may not actually happen.)

That leaves the AMC as the last regularly attended theater of my high school and college days still standing.

A newer, more popular Cinemark is in the city's biggest mall. I still remember when mall theaters were the worst/cheapest/smallest places. This has flipped now that most of what's left of the malls are the new theater/Dave & Busters at the one mall or the Top Golf/Puttshack at the other mall with the rest of the malls seeming now just weird appendixes to the new attractions. Meanwhile, I don't want to deal with Mall Traffic, which is still a thing in these flipped malls, I don't entirely know why.

Most of the rest of the most popular theaters all wound up in the Exurbs, two beltways away from the city's downtown, presumably due to cheaper land, and I don't want to commute that far to regularly watch movies.

[tracker1]

Haven't even considered the theater from when I was a kid... I was in a smaller town, and until I was about 13yo, there was a single theater with two screens. I remember waiting about 3 hours in line across two showings to see Return of The Jedi opening weekend. Aside, I also remember when you could get the movie, a small popcorn and a small drink for $5, and not being able to convince my dad to fork over the extra when the theater raised its prices... that's when my friends and I would stop at Walgreens on the way and buy candy there instead of at the theater.

Yeah, mall theaters are just kind of hellish... mostly because of the parking/organization... I know why they're laid out how they are, just really wish they'd switch it up to make the theater easier to access if that's all you want.

[WorldMaker]

The new mall one is facing the parking lot like a classic "anchor" department store and doesn't even have a door connecting to the mall, you have to leave the theater to visit the mall. It leaves for me a lot of questions about what the point of having built it attached to the mall was. (Same thing with the Top Golf at the other mall. At least the Putt Shack has a window wall inside that mall. I don't remember if it has a door, though.)