Movie theaters

[Kyberwulf]

So as I sit here in my double feature thursday,Thursday, am hit with a wave of nostalgic wonder. This is the place were I watched 2 out of three of the prequels and the Harry Potter movies. Watched the quest of Frodo bringing the ring to the place. Bilbo on his journey. So many movies. Not to mention the jurassic park and their struggles. And the birth of the Marvel universe. Does anyone else have a movie place they seem to gravitate to to watch history?

[Ramza00]

Was reminded Jurassic Park turned 30 this week. I never been there, but it premiered two days earlier than wide release in a Washington DC single screen theatre Uptown Theater, open since 1936, closed during the first month of Covid in 2020. Yet it was closed not due to COVID but because AMC lease was ending and the value was the prestige not the money it rarely brought in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptown_Theater_(Washington,_D.C.)

Since that time it has been made a DC local historical preservation thingee and there has been talks to reopen it.

[Palanan]

By odd coincidence, I was just thinking a little earlier how I’ve almost completely stopped watching movies in theaters. I wish it was different.

I have a local theater I’ve been going to for years, in which I saw most of the MCU through Endgame and a few other recent highlights. It’s where I saw the first How to Train Your Dragon movie, which was genuinely magical, and where I’ve seen all the Star Wars movies since 2015.

But Way of Water was the last movie I’ve seen in this theater, and it’ll probably be that way for a while. Much of this is due to the expense. For years I’ve been able to catch matinees at a decent price, but now those same matinees are more than twice as expensive.

And unfortunately most of the movies I’ve seen in the theater over the past couple of years have been terrible, or at least very much not worth the effort and expense of going to the theater. Time and again recent movies have ended up confirming my hunch that it would be better to wait and see them on Disney+. Pretty much all of the recent MCU films have been mediocre to awful, and I haven’t been motivated to see much else.

The one glorious exception has been Way of Water. I’m deeply glad I saw that in the theater, because it was magnificent and truly spectacular in the best sense of the word. But whereas before I might have gone back to see it again in the theater, the price kept me from a repeat viewing. Meanwhile, just a couple weeks ago I rented the new Dungeons & Dragons movie, and I enjoyed it so much I watched it again a day later. Can’t do that in theaters.

Offhand I can’t think of anything else I’m even mildly interested in seeing on the big screen. Most of the movies currently out either don’t interest me (Elemental, Fast X, Transformers, Blackening) or are strictly wait-to-rent at best (Flash, Guardians 3). Only Across the Spider-Verse beckons, but school’s out and I don’t want to deal with screaming children and teenagers who deserve to be Force-choked into oblivion.

Add to this that even though I’ve been going to “my” theater for ten years and more, it never feels welcoming; it never feels like home. By contrast, home feels like home; the food and drink I want, volume and lighting I can control, and a cat on the lap while I watch.

So even though I’ve seen a dozen years of movies at my local theater, I can’t say I’ll miss it. I know it won’t miss me. And that feels like a profoundly sad way to leave things.

[Ionathus]

The last few movies I've seen in theaters have definitely enhanced the experience. In no particular order:

Nope
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
Avengers: Endgame
Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
Us
Cats (2019)

I think "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies" was the only one on that list that I wasn't glad to be in a theater for, and that's only because I just plain didn't like the movie. I was even glad to see Cats in theaters, because it was a midnight showing where everyone was attending specifically to hate-watch it. Gleeful disaster all around, and way better than watching it at home by myself or with 2-4 friends.

I do love going to the movies. I love feeling like I'm watching a movie with people. Especially when you're all laughing, cheering, enraptured at the same moment - it's an awesome feeling. And especially when the movie is at least partially about the spectacle, like Nope or Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, then it adds another layer to the experience.

But convenience and cost factor heavily into my decision-making. I'm busy, I've got loads of projects going on right now, I recently got married and more recently moved, lots of weeknight and weekend commitments. And my friends are all likewise busy, often on other nights, so the overlap kills our ability to go "out to the movies" as a group.

Also also, if my friends and I have a free night, we're playing D&D instead. :smallbiggrin:

[Peelee]

Way back when, I'm talking decades at this point, I worked at a movie theater. Got up to projection, then projection supervisor (refused move to assistant manager; piddly pay increase for radically different work and more crap than i wanted to put up with). Anyway, there was a hallway upstairs between some of the projectors, just a blank wall on one side and a window overlooking the lobby on the other (hard to tell from the lobby if you didn't know it was there, kinda neat). Anyway, I spent a lot of time up in the booth so I wanted to spruce it up a bit. Got three poster frames for cheap off Amazon, and three movie posters - prints of the originals for Star Wars, Back to the Future, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hung 'em up along that empty hallway because I knew management wouldn't say anything to me about it. When I ended up leaving a couple years later, I didn't bother to take them with me.

Turns out a friend has a cousin who works there now. I asked, because I was curious. They're still up. This made me happy.

[tomandtish]

Back in the 90s and 00s one of my favorite things to do was go to a theater and buy a ticket for whatever movie was starting next. No choosing, just literally the next starting movie. Saw some pretty good things that way. Of course, also saw Last Airbender that way.... :smallmad:

These days movies are so expensive that I really limit what I see in theater. My criteria:


How much do i want to see it?

Might I regret delaying due to spoilers, etc.

Is a significant part of the experience going to be seeing it on a big screen?

[Imbalance]

I still get a kick out of the theater experience from time to time, but when surround sound and big TV sets became more affordable, we all but stopped spending money on tickets, stale popcorn, and sticky floors. I'm not sure about hard numbers, but roughly estimating, I'd call it a wash over 20 years between the cost of the living room setup vs. the rate at which we were going to the theater per year prior to that. That's without factoring in the upcharge for snacks at the movie house, gas to drive there and back, or the spare change that seems to always fall out of my pocket in those seats that I refuse to recover. Nor have I considered in depth the usage cost for the electricity we consumed at home. It still feels like breaking even.

There's also really no comparison when it comes to comfort. I can make my own snacks, pause and hit the head, burp as loud as I want to, and nobody gets upset if I take off my pants. I can also immediately watch another movie, something that requires a great deal of stealth to avoid risk of prosecution at the theater.

As far as history? No, I don't really have that love for any one theater. I only have a handful of memories that are great because of the venue, but almost zero instances where my fondness for a specific film is tied to the place where I saw it.

[Batcathat]

I love feeling like I'm watching a movie with people. Especially when you're all laughing, cheering, enraptured at the same moment - it's an awesome feeling. And especially when the movie is at least partially about the spectacle, like Nope or Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, then it adds another layer to the experience.

Funnily enough, this is pretty much what I don't like about movie theaters. When I watch a movie (at least when it's a movie I genuinely enjoy and not just a bad movie I'm watching to make fun of it), I want to immerse myself as much as possible, meaning that any sound not from the movie is bad. I can imagine dozens of ways people can make my experience worse and not a single one they can make it better.

As for the original question, while I have a lot of strong movie memories, I don't think they're emotionally tied to any specific theater, even if a lot of them took place in one or two specific theaters.

[GloatingSwine]

There's also really no comparison when it comes to comfort. I can make my own snacks, pause and hit the head, burp as loud as I want to, and nobody gets upset if I take off my pants. I can also immediately watch another movie, something that requires a great deal of stealth to avoid risk of prosecution at the theater.

Do they not do subscription passes where you are? I pay £14.99 a month for unlimited tickets, basically the same as a 4k netflix sub. Go even once a month and it pays off.

Also most cinemas here have reimagined themselves as luxury experiences, so all big wide reclining seats rather than packing them in like sardines. The one I go to (because it's a convenient 15 minute walk from work so I can bus it in and go afterwards then wander over to my usual pub and catch the band on a saturday night) is all leather electric recliners.

And sure, I have a good home setup too but it's still not as big as a cinema screen and there's too many squirrels. The occasional urge to strangle someone for getting their mobile out is worth the chance to settle in and really watch.

[Rynjin]

Never really liked theaters, even as a kid. I went to one for the first time in like...10 years to watch the Shin Kamen Rider movie with my brother and yeah, I definitely wasn't missing out on anything.

Turns out watching movies on a screen grainer than my home tv, with the sound turned way too loud, in a room with 30 other people doesn't enhance the experience.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Do they not do subscription passes where you are? I pay £14.99 a month for unlimited tickets, basically the same as a 4k netflix sub. Go even once a month and it pays off.

My local theater’s subscription is ‘one free movie ticket a month’ not unlimited, but it still works out as a net gain price-wise…or it would if there were more good movies to see. :smallannoyed: That’s the sticking point for me; they do roll over but I lose them if I end my subscription. I enjoy seeing movies at the theater as a reason to get out of the house if nothing else, but if I manage to burn through my credits before the next sub renewal date I think I’ll cancel it and just pay a little extra on the occasions I want to go.

[Ionathus]

Funnily enough, this is pretty much what I don't like about movie theaters. When I watch a movie (at least when it's a movie I genuinely enjoy and not just a bad movie I'm watching to make fun of it), I want to immerse myself as much as possible, meaning that any sound not from the movie is bad. I can imagine dozens of ways people can make my experience worse and not a single one they can make it better.

Interesting. It's the reverse for me!

If I watch a movie at home, there's a significant chance I'll be thinking about other stuff or maybe even stop the movie to go do something else.

When I'm at a movie theater, though, it consumes my entire schedule for that chunk of time. It's not like I'm going to go wash dishes or play a videogame in the middle of the theater. So as far as my attention and brainspace, theaters help me focus on the movie!

It also helps that I can count on one hand the number of times a fellow patron has disturbed my watching experience. Maybe I just go to the polite theaters or maybe my tolerance is high.

[Batcathat]

When I'm at a movie theater, though, it consumes my entire schedule for that chunk of time. It's not like I'm going to go wash dishes or play a videogame in the middle of the theater. So as far as my attention and brainspace, theaters help me focus on the movie!

Yeah, I suppose that's true. I think the ideal immersion for me would be to watch it in a theater that was either completely empty aside from me or had ninjas on staff to swiftly and silently get rid of anyone who makes a sound (Yes, this would presumably mean I couldn't have a snack without getting thrown out, but I'd trade movie snacks for movie silence any day of the week).

[Imbalance]

Do they not do subscription passes where you are? I pay £14.99 a month for unlimited tickets, basically the same as a 4k netflix sub. Go even once a month and it pays off.

Also most cinemas here have reimagined themselves as luxury experiences, so all big wide reclining seats rather than packing them in like sardines. The one I go to (because it's a convenient 15 minute walk from work so I can bus it in and go afterwards then wander over to my usual pub and catch the band on a saturday night) is all leather electric recliners.

And sure, I have a good home setup too but it's still not as big as a cinema screen and there's too many squirrels. The occasional urge to strangle someone for getting their mobile out is worth the chance to settle in and really watch.

Heh, no. The nearest multiplex has a points program to earn discounts on concessions. They did upgrade some seating a while back, but only the closest rows to the screen have large reclining seats - this only earns me a trip to the chiropractor and messes up the surrounding audio as all but the center channel speakers are behind you. The nearest luxury experience like you describe is over an hour away.

There's also a drive-in, which has its charms and frequently shows double features. For less than a theater ticket I get to watch most of two movies, portions washed out by headlights, audio interrupted for 5-10 minutes to announce when concessions are closing, and probably fall asleep before the end only to be awakened by a tap at the window from the guy in the next car asking if I have jumper cables.

No squirrels at home, but a rabbit who is usually pretty chill until the subwoofers kick in.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Yeah, I suppose that's true. I think the ideal immersion for me would be to watch it in a theater that was either completely empty aside from me or had ninjas on staff to swiftly and silently get rid of anyone who makes a sound (Yes, this would presumably mean I couldn't have a snack without getting thrown out, but I'd trade movie snacks for movie silence any day of the week).

Go to early showings (~10 AM) and where possible go a few weeks after the movie is first released. I’ve found that cuts down on the people.

[Batcathat]

Go to early showings (~10 AM) and where possible go a few weeks after the movie is first released. I’ve found that cuts down on the people.

Yeah, that's what I usually do. It helps, but usually not completely.

Though the last few years, I haven't gone much to theaters. I think it's partially losing the habit during the pandemic and partially that I bought a pretty good home movie system a while back. The screen isn't quite as big, but the room is completely free of people. I've also started usually working out while watching something, which sounds like it'd be distracting but I think it kinda helps keep me focused.

[Peelee]

Go to early showings (~10 AM) and where possible go a few weeks after the movie is first released. I’ve found that cuts down on the people.

Weekdays alos helps. On luxury theaters, you can see online how many other seats are sold as well. On regular theaters, box can say how many seats have been sold.

[Batcathat]

Weekdays alos helps. On luxury theaters, you can see online how many other seats are sold as well. On regular theaters, box can say how many seats have been sold.

That's a luxury thing in the US? I think I would see even less movies if I couldn't easily see what seats had been sold at what showing. (Though I must admit I have several times gotten confused about which side of the illustration is the screen and ended up booking the wrong seat, but that's more on me than the theater. :smalltongue: )

[Peelee]

That's a luxury thing in the US? I think I would see even less movies if I couldn't easily see what seats had been sold at what showing. (Though I must admit I have several times gotten confused about which side of the illustration is the screen and ended up booking the wrong seat, but that's more on me than the theater. :smalltongue: )

Standard theater have seats as first come, first serve. Luxury theaters have assigned seating where you can choose youe seats, either online or at a kiosk.

[Ramza00]

Never really liked theaters, even as a kid. I went to one for the first time in like...10 years to watch the Shin Kamen Rider movie with my brother and yeah, I definitely wasn't missing out on anything.

Turns out watching movies on a screen grainer than my home tv, with the sound turned way too loud, in a room with 30 other people doesn't enhance the experience.
I disagree, but to each their own.

That small amount of shake and lack of control while still keeping it in control helps me focus. But this is something I am mindful with my ADHD,

And I am not saying all ADHD people are like this, some it actually ruins the experience for them. It is just attention is not a singular thing with multiple feedback systems to create a system of control and a system of maintaining immersion. Absence / presence. Sometimes surrendering control where it is now a ritual and you can not pause or rewind, or look on your phone, different rules to a game may actually help your mind remain in the game.

I went on to long, but my point here is that attention is a Goldilocks zone (yerkes dodson law is the fancy term for it) and sometimes different people need the meal to be hotter or colder, or more sweet or some hot sauce.

[Kyberwulf]

Oh yeah, its a sad state of affairs. Fir most movies... I am alone in the theater except for like.. 1 or 2 groups. About 5 people max Including me. I usually go either the Tuesday after its released cause it 5 dollar day or something. But the only movies that get a huge crowded are the kid ones... that are super popular.

[Easy e]

I have moved around a bit, so I do not have a "familiar" theatre anymore.

However, there are three that stick-out to me:

1. The first "Modern" cineplex that was built in my local, rural area about 25 minutes away when I was in HS. That was THE place to go see movies. This was around the early 2000s.

2. A drive-in that would play 3 movies a night for about the cost of 1. You could also bring in whatever you wanted, so we would bring in pizza or have picnics before the films. They started around 9 and ended at 3 AM or so. Then we drove home. I recall watching "A Perfect Storm" during an actual storm, and Independence Day when the ship went over the earth with a natural starfield just beyond the screen.

Now it is a Fething Wal-mart. Pah!

3. The locally owned two screen theatre where the family works the place and lives just above the theatre. It is snuggled in out historic downtown. It is straight out of the 90's for seating and frills, with a ticket window like the 40's. However, they have a modern sound system and projection system. Sometimes, you can hear the big blockbuster movie next door to your quieter drama film, but I still love it. Movies are there for about 1 to two weeks only, so if you want to see it; do not wait around.

[Psyren]

My personal favorite was a cinebistro in the heart of the uptown area. It had underground parking, fantastic food (not just standard concession fare like popcorn and pizza, actual apps and entrées), alcoholic drinks, reserved seating, heated recliners, and lots of surrounding attractions/nightlife. I saw the entire Infinity Saga there save 2-3 entries.

It did not survive the pandemic, likely due to prohibitive real estate costs once the foot traffic dwindled. I've found other cinema-bistros since, but none that were able to match everything this one had.

[Peelee]

My personal favorite was a cinebistro in the heart of the uptown area. It had underground parking, fantastic food (not just standard concession fare like popcorn and pizza, actual apps and entrées), alcoholic drinks, reserved seating, heated recliners, and lots of surrounding attractions/nightlife. I saw the entire Infinity Saga there save 2-3 entries.

It did not survive the pandemic, likely due to prohibitive real estate costs once the foot traffic dwindled. I've found other cinema-bistros since, but none that were able to match everything this one had.

Really? That's like half the theaters near me.

[Psyren]

Really? That's like half the theaters near me.

I've found several that have come pretty close but not in terms of the food. No coconut shrimp, no steak bites, no cheesecake etc :smallsmile:

Also, most of the ones I go to that deliver stop at the entrance now instead of coming all the way to your seat with refills - though in retrospect I suppose that's a double-edged sword :smalltongue:

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Peelee
Standard theater have seats as first come, first serve. Luxury theaters have assigned seating where you can choose youe seats, either online or at a kiosk.

My local theater has been a “standard” theater for most of the fifteen years I’ve been going there—but during the past year they’ve switched to a choose-your-seat format, in which you select a designated seat at the register.

Supposedly you’re locked into that one seat, but the showings I attend are usually sparsely populated and no one seems to care. So it’s hoity-toity at the register, but open seating in practice.



As for the “cinebistro,” I’ve never seen that word before. If there’s one in my area I’ve never seen it either, and I’m really not sure how that would work. Are you eating at a table, or with a side tray in a recliner? Do the staff bring your food, or do you shlep it all down the aisle yourself?

I may be an outlier in that I never eat anything in movie theaters, so to me the “cinebistro” seems like the uncanny valley of the cinematic experience. If I’m going to have a full meal while watching a movie, I might as well just have it at home.

[Batcathat]

I've never tried one of those theaters with food service (I feel like they might be less common here in Sweden, but maybe I've just never happened to visit one). On one hand, it sounds kinda nice. On the other, as I've already mentioned I kinda hate any sound from the people around me in a movie theater, so I suspect I would be full of murderous rage before the trailers were over.

[Peelee]

I've found several that have come pretty close but not in terms of the food. No coconut shrimp, no steak bites, no cheesecake etc :smallsmile:

Also, most of the ones I go to that deliver stop at the entrance now instead of coming all the way to your seat with refills - though in retrospect I suppose that's a double-edged sword :smalltongue:


I've never tried one of those theaters with food service (I feel like they might be less common here in Sweden, but maybe I've just never happened to visit one). On one hand, it sounds kinda nice. On the other, as I've already mentioned I kinda hate any sound from the people around me in a movie theater, so I suspect I would be full of murderous rage before the trailers were over.

It's nice but overpriced, because its still movie theater concessions. However the one my wife and i favor has gotten pretty good about the amount they give you. We couldn't finish the food last time we went.

Also i hear the one down in Alabaster (south Greater Birmingham Area) recently remodeled into luxury theater so we may check that one out for Spider-Verse.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Batcathat
…as I've already mentioned I kinda hate any sound from the people around me in a movie theater….

Right there with you. On rare occasions the audience reaction has really added something to the experience, but for the most part I want to hear the movie and not everyone watching it.


The best example was a long-ago screening of a Julia Roberts movie about an abused wife escaping her husband. In the dramatic finale, her maddened ex-husband breaks into her new house, and her new boyfriend charges in to defend her—and in short order gets completely stomped.

The audience was dead silent until someone piped up, “Hey, man, he tried,” at which the entire crowd exploded into laughter.

Conversely, at a showing of the first Matrix, everyone was cheering when Neo and Trinity went through the mooks in the lobby shootout—until they got into the elevator, at which point someone in the crowd shushed everyone else for complete silence, the better to hear the little “clink” as a bit of panel drops to the floor.

[KorvinStarmast]

These days movies are so expensive that I really limit what I see in theater. My wife and I feel similarly. We also go to matinee shows and grab that senior discount to get a break on the price. There are very few movies she wants to see, but we both enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick, Big George Foreman and Dog. Our theater has been remodeled (it's the one where we took the kids to all three LotR movies and the first Iron Man) to have big recliners, select your seat before you enter, and they concession stand now serves beer. We still don't go very often.

Go to early showings (~10 AM) and where possible go a few weeks after the movie is first released. I’ve found that cuts down on the people. We have found that also.

[Psyren]

As for the “cinebistro,” I’ve never seen that word before. If there’s one in my area I’ve never seen it either, and I’m really not sure how that would work. Are you eating at a table, or with a side tray in a recliner? Do the staff bring your food, or do you shlep it all down the aisle yourself?

The one I'm describing had retractable trays (and portable trays the food comes on that sat on those), cupholders built into the seats, and the staff brought it all the way to you. You can pay via an app or they can bring you the check during the credits as well, which since most of us were sitting all the way through the credits anyway for the stingers at the end came in handy. The ones I've found since have been somewhat similar, minus the seat delivery and food quality.


I may be an outlier in that I never eat anything in movie theaters, so to me the “cinebistro” seems like the uncanny valley of the cinematic experience. If I’m going to have a full meal while watching a movie, I might as well just have it at home.

It was useful if you didn't want to wait for home rentals to be available (keep in mind MCU Phase 2-3 were very spoiler-heavy due to memes and online discourse) and also didn't want to work around a big dinner on your movie night, you knock out both at once and either stay out or get back home sooner. When we would go it tended to be in fairly large groups (8+ people) and jawing about the movie or theorizing in the parking deck afterwards was as much a part of the experience as the movie itself. Again, the idea of a cinematic universe (well, Marvel's anyway) was still fairly novel so we had a lot more fun predicting which plot points would show up later, who guessed right previously, oh-my-gosh-did-you-see-that-cameo etc.


I've never tried one of those theaters with food service (I feel like they might be less common here in Sweden, but maybe I've just never happened to visit one). On one hand, it sounds kinda nice. On the other, as I've already mentioned I kinda hate any sound from the people around me in a movie theater, so I suspect I would be full of murderous rage before the trailers were over.

Honestly I'd say the fact that it was nicer food also helped with the sound. Flatbreads, steak and grilled chicken crunch a lot less than popcorn and nachos!

With that said:


It's nice but overpriced, because its still movie theater concessions. However the one my wife and i favor has gotten pretty good about the amount they give you. We couldn't finish the food last time we went.

Also i hear the one down in Alabaster (south Greater Birmingham Area) recently remodeled into luxury theater so we may check that one out for Spider-Verse.

^ As Peelee correctly states it was pretty overpriced. Again though, we were paying for the convenience as much as the food - being able to have a reasonably nice dinner during the movie was worth a lot more to most of us than two separate outings in one evening, especially since you could kinda stay parked there if you had other things you wanted to do/see uptown where parking is at a premium. They also validated said parking so you were essentially getting that at a heavily discounted rate (or outright free if you left quickly enough), offsetting the concession markup.

Again though, this is all pre-pandemic when there was a lot more stuff to do uptown.

[Peelee]

Apparently i forgot to actually comment on this, so let's try again.

Also, most of the ones I go to that deliver stop at the entrance now instead of coming all the way to your seat with refills - though in retrospect I suppose that's a double-edged sword :smalltongue:
Have you tried revolting?

[Psyren]

Apparently i forgot to actually comment on this, so let's try again.

Have you tried revolting?

Ha! I more idly miss it than anything serious. I usually get aisle seats so getting up without walking in front of a bunch of strangers isn't too difficult if I REALLY need another White Claw or Chardonnay to get me through a rough outing :smallbiggrin:

[Peelee]

Ha! I more idly miss it than anything serious. I usually get aisle seats so getting up without walking in front of a bunch of strangers isn't too difficult if I REALLY need another White Claw or Chardonnay to get me through a rough outing :smallbiggrin:

Sure, but it's so nice to not have to. But fine, if you insist on being all reasonable about it.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I may be an outlier in that I never eat anything in movie theaters, so to me the “cinebistro” seems like the uncanny valley of the cinematic experience. If I’m going to have a full meal while watching a movie, I might as well just have it at home.

If you are then we both are; I’ve found that if the movie is good I’m not going to pay attention to my food, and if the movie is bad snacks won’t save it.

I eat before I go to the theater instead. Saves money that way too.

[Ionathus]

Do they not do subscription passes where you are? I pay £14.99 a month for unlimited tickets, basically the same as a 4k netflix sub. Go even once a month and it pays off.

All I can think of is the MoviePass debacle. I have some relatives in the indie film world, and there was a big concern that MoviePass was going to eviscerate traditional cinema and become an entertainment giant. That did not happen, because their business model was horribly designed -- as Brennan Lee Mulligan puts it in CollegeHumor's parody of the whole situation: "Who knew that people would see...so many movies!"

People took the unlimited tickets and ran with it, making MoviePass pay for wayyy more tickets than they expected to. MoviePass kept pivoting to try to keep costs down, restricting the times you could use your MoviePass, restricting which movies you could go to, and on at least one occasion, intentionally resetting tens of thousands of user passwords to delay those account holders from...using their account benefits.

(That CollegeHumor parody is on YouTube and is a delight, though the language is a little too NSFW to link here)

So here in the states, at least among everyone I've talked to, the subscription theatregoing model is dead on arrival -- that well is thoroughly poisoned. So I'm intensely curious how the businesses in your country have managed subscription passes! Maybe they get better terms between subscription service and theater?

[Kyberwulf]

Who knows.. maybe because of targeted advertisements or algorithms, it just decided you wouldn't want to see DC movie ads?

[tomandtish]

Standard theater have seats as first come, first serve. Luxury theaters have assigned seating where you can choose youe seats, either online or at a kiosk.

May be based on area, but in my area almost every theater offers the assigned seating now. It's the norm.

[Tyndmyr]

All I can think of is the MoviePass debacle. I have some relatives in the indie film world, and there was a big concern that MoviePass was going to eviscerate traditional cinema and become an entertainment giant. That did not happen, because their business model was horribly designed -- as Brennan Lee Mulligan puts it in CollegeHumor's parody of the whole situation: "Who knew that people would see...so many movies!"

Literally anyone with a basic understanding of economics. People consume more free stuff. I do love the parody, and was, at the time, bewildered by the idea that it was a real business plan...but I signed up and gleefully cashed in while it lasted. I see a *lot* of movies, and it was obviously quite worthwhile to me. Never touched the stock, though.


So here in the states, at least among everyone I've talked to, the subscription theatregoing model is dead on arrival -- that well is thoroughly poisoned. So I'm intensely curious how the businesses in your country have managed subscription passes! Maybe they get better terms between subscription service and theater?

You're not going to believe this, but MoviePass has relaunched. Again. This is iteration #3, as attempt #2 also crashed and burned.

Economics being kind of immutable, the results are hilariously predictable, but hey, it's amusing at least. The more reliable movie services are theater specific. Cinemark does a moviepass sort of subscription that gives you discounted snacks and 1 movie ticket a month at a reduced rate. If you go to the theater that much, it is worthwhile. If not, well, not so much. AMC and Regal both have various programs as well, if memory serves. All are aimed at more frequent moviegoers, and it makes more sense for the theater to do promotions.

After all, the theater discounting to get more people in for this or that makes a great deal more sense than a third party buying tickets full price and selling them at a discount.

[Ionathus]

Literally anyone with a basic understanding of economics. People consume more free stuff. I do love the parody, and was, at the time, bewildered by the idea that it was a real business plan...but I signed up and gleefully cashed in while it lasted. I see a *lot* of movies, and it was obviously quite worthwhile to me. Never touched the stock, though.

I guess I can see how the logic went. After all, people pay similar prices for a monthly streaming service, and that lets them watch dozens of movies per month if they so choose! There are months where I haven't gotten any "value" out of my Netflix subscription and that's where streaming services are intended to make their money. I can see how they thought a similar mechanism would happen here.

However, (I'm assuming) the math was against them from the start when it comes to physical theaters and new releases, which are at their most valuable and therefore cost way more.


You're not going to believe this, but MoviePass has relaunched. Again. This is iteration #3, as attempt #2 also crashed and burned.

Economics being kind of immutable, the results are hilariously predictable, but hey, it's amusing at least. The more reliable movie services are theater specific. Cinemark does a moviepass sort of subscription that gives you discounted snacks and 1 movie ticket a month at a reduced rate. If you go to the theater that much, it is worthwhile. If not, well, not so much. AMC and Regal both have various programs as well, if memory serves. All are aimed at more frequent moviegoers, and it makes more sense for the theater to do promotions.

After all, the theater discounting to get more people in for this or that makes a great deal more sense than a third party buying tickets full price and selling them at a discount.

That's freaking amazing. I love to see it.

[GloatingSwine]

So here in the states, at least among everyone I've talked to, the subscription theatregoing model is dead on arrival -- that well is thoroughly poisoned. So I'm intensely curious how the businesses in your country have managed subscription passes! Maybe they get better terms between subscription service and theater?

They're not seperate. Cinemas here are almost all national chains bar the ones that cater to the art-movie crowd. The subscription is to the chain and only works in their cinemas.

I have an Odeon Limitless card, that gets me into Odeon cinemas free but won't get me into Cineworld or The Light.

Which means that, even if you use the pass to basically live in the cinema you're 99.9% of the time just sitting in a seat that would have been empty anyway and if you make any sort of mess that needs to be cleaned up it'll be with food or drink they sold you at a ridiculous markup.

[Ionathus]

They're not seperate. Cinemas here are almost all national chains bar the ones that cater to the art-movie crowd. The subscription is to the chain and only works in their cinemas.

I have an Odeon Limitless card, that gets me into Odeon cinemas free but won't get me into Cineworld or The Light.

Which means that, even if you use the pass to basically live in the cinema you're 99.9% of the time just sitting in a seat that would have been empty anyway and if you make any sort of mess that needs to be cleaned up it'll be with food or drink they sold you at a ridiculous markup.

Yeah, IIRC one of the (many) problems for MoviePass's model was that they had no agreement with the theaters -- they were just paying full price on every customer's behalf.

A similar model where customers pay $10/month and every time they get a ticket it costs MoviePass some discounted rate like $2 or $4 (pre-negotiated ahead of time) would have made the whole thing a little less ridiculous in concept.

[Peelee]

Yeah, IIRC one of the (many) problems for MoviePass's model was that they had no agreement with the theaters -- they were just paying full price on every customer's behalf.

A similar model where customers pay $10/month and every time they get a ticket it costs MoviePass some discounted rate like $2 or $4 (pre-negotiated ahead of time) would have made the whole thing a little less ridiculous in concept.

Five bucks says the business model was "rely on the vast majority of people forgetting about the subscription and most of the rest using it once a month".

[Tyndmyr]

Five bucks says the business model was "rely on the vast majority of people forgetting about the subscription and most of the rest using it once a month".

There was a slightly redeeming plan in that they believed if they got big enough, they would be able to pressure the theaters into giving them deals. Thus the emphasis on rapid growth, even at a loss. It ended up playing hilariously close to the OOTS "making it up in volume" comic.

That never really materialized, though. Theaters did not feel pressured by lots of people coming in to watch movies and being paid full price for tickets, because why would they? It was a great situation for them. Also a great situation for moviegoers. Just....not the company.

Popularity first, monetization later is something a few big businesses do, and sometimes it can work if someone later thinks up something clever, but in this case, Moviepass wasn't offering anything unique outside of...the money it was spending. For the life of me, I can't understand why they keep resurrecting the company for another round of crashing and burning.

[gbaji]

I've never tried one of those theaters with food service (I feel like they might be less common here in Sweden, but maybe I've just never happened to visit one). On one hand, it sounds kinda nice. On the other, as I've already mentioned I kinda hate any sound from the people around me in a movie theater, so I suspect I would be full of murderous rage before the trailers were over.

I have one of those luxury theaters near me (maybe a half mile away). To me, they are a huge plus/minus. On the plus side, they cost more. Which may seem like a minus, but also keeps the riff raff out (loudly yelling teenagers mostly). Even pre-covid, I found that I'd rather pay $20 for a ticket for a film where I got a predetermined seat (didn't have to stand in line for an hour hoping to get a good seat), and had big reclining seat, unobstructed view of the screen, fewer loud patrons, etc. And if you went to a matinee, they were a little cheaper (I think $16?), but given that at the time, a full price ticket at a "normal" theater was creeping up into the $10-12 range anyway, it was well worth it.

The food is also a plus. Kinda. It's much better than normal movie theater snack stuff. Like Grilled Chicken fingers, steak fries, wraps, flatbreads, etc. Not quite full on restaurant food, but pretty close. High end pub-food maybe?

The one thing that annoyed me about the food was that they went through this odd and annoying progression. The idea is that you can order, recieve, and pay all at your seat. Which is great. Push a call button. Someone comes and takes your order and comes along later to deliver your food. You could either pay right when you ordered, or when you received the food, or you could open a tab and then settle up at the end of the film (but they've got your card number and will charge you for what you got anyway). Great concept, and it worked well the first couple times I tried it. But things went downhill from there.

I'm not sure if it was a staffing issue, or just what they decided people wanted. But within a year or two of opening this theater, I noticed a longer delay between both when I'd call for someone and they arrived *and* between giving the order and when I'd recieve my order. Even if I got there like 20-30 minutes ahead of time, they'd take my order sometime later, and *always* be delivering my food when the freaking actual feature had already started. Um... I don't want to deal with the interruption during the film. I want to order my food and drinks, have them delivered and completely paid/settled, and then sit back, eat, drink, and enjoy the film without someone walking up to me and asking me questions, pulling out a payment device, etc. I tried a variety of methods to make the "order and recieve food while in the actual theater and get it all done before the feature starts" work, but it never seemed to. It was almost like they would deliberately wait until the feature started to start delivering the food. And when there's 80 someodd people in the theater with you, and even half of them are ordering something, you'd find yourself with someone walking up to your chair sometime in the first 20-30 minutes of the film you are watching. Every. Single. Time.

Got so annoying that I just got in the habit of going to the bar ahead of time and ordering and paying for my food and drink there. Then pick it up in the lobby, and carry it into the theater. Any other method never worked. Even if you ordered in the lobby, if you made the mistake of telling them you were going into a theater, they'd want to take your ticket information and bring it to you. And magically, no matter how far ahead of time I actually ordered, the food would arrive sometime after the feature started. Sigh...

Basically had to lie to the staff and tell them I was just hanging out in the lobby, wasn't seeing any film there at all, but really liked their food and just wanted to eat it there (which btw, you could totally do, since the lobby is basically like a sports bar, with screens showing various sporting events going on as well). It was the only way around their somewhat absurd system. And the only way to avoid having the actual reason I was there (to see the feature) interrupted. But yeah. They really really really wanted to deliver your food to you at your seat, and they really seemed to think the ideal time to do this was after the feature started. I dunno. Maybe they thought people really loved the idea of "look. I'm getting food delivered while watching the film. Isnt' this great!". Um... No. It's not.

But yeah. From a general "comfort while watching a film" it's a great concept. Just wish they'd get their act together on the food/drink delivery portion of it. And even though the food is expensive, if you think of it in terms of an occasional "night out" kind of thing, it's worth it (it's about what you'd have paid for in a restaurant for the same food anyway).

Um... Post covid, I've only been a couple times. Honestly, with so many of the feature films coming out pretty quickly on various streaming services anyway, it's always a tough question as to when to watch. I pretty much only watch things if I've got a few friends who really want to go take a night out and watch a movie together. And that maybe happens once or thrice a year. Maybe. I used to occasionally just decide to watch a film by myself on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon back in the day. Load up the site/app, pick and pay for my seat, then drive the 5 minutes to get there. Done. Haven't done that since covid though.


Economics being kind of immutable, the results are hilariously predictable, but hey, it's amusing at least. The more reliable movie services are theater specific. Cinemark does a moviepass sort of subscription that gives you discounted snacks and 1 movie ticket a month at a reduced rate. If you go to the theater that much, it is worthwhile. If not, well, not so much. AMC and Regal both have various programs as well, if memory serves. All are aimed at more frequent moviegoers, and it makes more sense for the theater to do promotions.

After all, the theater discounting to get more people in for this or that makes a great deal more sense than a third party buying tickets full price and selling them at a discount.

Yeah. Never understood that. Now, if they were getting some kind of kick-back from the theater/chain for the tickets, that would make a lot of sense. Theaters make most of their money on concessions, not tickets. Butts in seats, regardless of price, makes them money.

I can only assume they believed enough folks would sign up for the service, but not use it enough, to make up for the "frequent flyers". I mean, it's basically the same logic credit cards operate on. Well, except that credit cards count on people being lazy and greedy (I want more than I can afford to buy, and I also want to delay paying for it), so they can collect interest and late charges. The moviepass concept? Counts on a significant number of people *not* being greedy and "gaming the system to their advantage". And also that a large number will forget that they could get a free ticket or something. People tend to forget or delay when it costs them something (in the short term, even if it costs more in the long run). They tend to be incredibly aware when there's something free/good for them in that same short term though.


So yeah. Bad business model IMO. It could work if it's tied in to the theater/chain itself (and I've seen some that do offer these sorts of things directly). But as a third party? Paying full cost for the tickets and just kind hoping a large percentage of people will pay more for their service than they would have for tickets directly from the box office? Hmm...

[Ionathus]

There was a slightly redeeming plan in that they believed if they got big enough, they would be able to pressure the theaters into giving them deals. Thus the emphasis on rapid growth, even at a loss. It ended up playing hilariously close to the OOTS "making it up in volume" comic.

I literally thought of that OOTS comic while watching one of the MoviePass founder interviews! He was trying to pitch the "volume" angle to a news anchor, who just kept asking "...but, you're losing money on every ticket."


That never really materialized, though. Theaters did not feel pressured by lots of people coming in to watch movies and being paid full price for tickets, because why would they? It was a great situation for them. Also a great situation for moviegoers. Just....not the company.

Popularity first, monetization later is something a few big businesses do, and sometimes it can work if someone later thinks up something clever, but in this case, Moviepass wasn't offering anything unique outside of...the money it was spending. For the life of me, I can't understand why they keep resurrecting the company for another round of crashing and burning.

Yep. I didn't learn this until doing research on whatever the heck was going on with Uber (and why in the last 5 years it's gone from "insane discount revolutionizing the industry" to "exactly as expensive as a taxi"), but a lot of startups aren't profitable for years while they build their offerings and customer base. As a kid I always just assumed that you had to be making money right out of the gate...but impress enough investors, and you can get by unprofitably for quite a while at the start. It's rare for the cash to dry up both as quickly and as publicly as it did for MoviePass, I think

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah. Never understood that. Now, if they were getting some kind of kick-back from the theater/chain for the tickets, that would make a lot of sense. Theaters make most of their money on concessions, not tickets. Butts in seats, regardless of price, makes them money.

I can only assume they believed enough folks would sign up for the service, but not use it enough, to make up for the "frequent flyers". I mean, it's basically the same logic credit cards operate on. Well, except that credit cards count on people being lazy and greedy (I want more than I can afford to buy, and I also want to delay paying for it), so they can collect interest and late charges.

A majority of credit card earnings come from the fees they collect on transaction. It's generally only a couple of percent, but it's on....every purchase made with a credit card, so the totals are quite immense. It's kind of close to the kick-back model, so yeah, that totally could have worked, if they'd arranged that in advance.


The moviepass concept? Counts on a significant number of people *not* being greedy and "gaming the system to their advantage". And also that a large number will forget that they could get a free ticket or something. People tend to forget or delay when it costs them something (in the short term, even if it costs more in the long run). They tend to be incredibly aware when there's something free/good for them in that same short term though.

Yup. And you're not going to get a perfectly even distribution of customers. People like me who watch many movies are inherently more likely to sign up than people who don't. That's going to skew the numbers really hard against you.

I never exploited it to the point of some people, who literally would chill by movie theater kiosks and buy tickets for others for a portion of the ticket prices as a cash kickback, but that happened too. Some people signed up for many subscriptions(you could only get one ticket for a given showing off one subscription) and made a dubious side hustle out of that. Like reverse scalping, I guess.



Yep. I didn't learn this until doing research on whatever the heck was going on with Uber (and why in the last 5 years it's gone from "insane discount revolutionizing the industry" to "exactly as expensive as a taxi"), but a lot of startups aren't profitable for years while they build their offerings and customer base. As a kid I always just assumed that you had to be making money right out of the gate...but impress enough investors, and you can get by unprofitably for quite a while at the start. It's rare for the cash to dry up both as quickly and as publicly as it did for MoviePass, I think

Yeah, taking a risk for a while and building a base can make sense. Moviepass had a really, really high burn rate for cash, though, so they went through investors at an insane rate, horribly burned their stock by having many, many releases of additional shares, causing crazy share dilution, and had no actual plan to transition over to making money.

The share price was so volatile that for a time, people were collecting 50% premiums on options, which is borderline insane, but ultimately most of the people playing in that extremely risky pool got burned badly.


I don't have one of those fancy restaurant/theaters near me so far as I know. Kind of a shame, I would love to hit one up. Many of the local chain places reduced their offerings greatly during Covid. The local Cinemark tore out its ice cream counter and coffee bar, and set up some kind of phone ahead system for popcorn. You can order through your app, and the popcorn will be sitting on a shelf waiting for you. IMO, this is a significant downgrade. The menu of options was badly decreased, and the current longer lines for the few remaining options/having snacks get cold on a shelf is a poor substitute. I do quite like theaters, especially nice ones, but the theater experience as a whole took some hits over covid, and hasn't really recovered everywhere.

[Ionathus]

The MoviePass "as many movies as you want" thing has got me thinking about just staying and watching multiple movies back-to-back.

Sounds like a fun way to spend a Saturday at your local discount "replay" theater: just go and watch 2-3 movies, whatever sounds good, when you've finished one just buy a ticket for whatever's got the next start time. Especially if you can get cheap tickets, it would be a fun way to get a variety of experiences.

I miss impromptu trips to the movies. I feel like I only ever plan them out wayyy in advance these days.

[Peelee]

The MoviePass "as many movies as you want" thing has got me thinking about just staying and watching multiple movies back-to-back.

Sounds like a fun way to spend a Saturday at your local discount "replay" theater: just go and watch 2-3 movies, whatever sounds good, when you've finished one just buy a ticket for whatever's got the next start time. Especially if you can get cheap tickets, it would be a fun way to get a variety of experiences.

I miss impromptu trips to the movies. I feel like I only ever plan them out wayyy in advance these days.

One of my friends did this when I worked at a theater. She also worked there, we all got to see anything for free, so she just can't in one morning for the first show, got a large popcorn and large drink (free results on the larges) and just affluent the day watching stuff.

[gbaji]

Yep. I didn't learn this until doing research on whatever the heck was going on with Uber (and why in the last 5 years it's gone from "insane discount revolutionizing the industry" to "exactly as expensive as a taxi"), but a lot of startups aren't profitable for years while they build their offerings and customer base. As a kid I always just assumed that you had to be making money right out of the gate...but impress enough investors, and you can get by unprofitably for quite a while at the start. It's rare for the cash to dry up both as quickly and as publicly as it did for MoviePass, I think

Yup. A good chunk is the old standby "fake it till you make it" concept. But some of it's also the result of legal pushback from Taxi companies (no one likes their business threatened), and some legal reactions to the issues with the actual drivers themselves in terms of pay schedules. The original pay method used by Uber was "odd" to say the least. Clearly designed to incentivize drivers to get out there and drive. Very easy to hit specific payment level goals. But very hard/slow to go much beyond that (which meant doing this made a nice bit of side cash, but not great to try to live off of).

I think both reflect changes in how people buy and do things in a broadly avaialble information age (suppose we could lump food/item delivery sevices in there as well). And I think a lot of businesses are still in flux and trying to "figure things out". I suspect we'll continue to see new ideas come and go for the foreeable future.


A majority of credit card earnings come from the fees they collect on transaction. It's generally only a couple of percent, but it's on....every purchase made with a credit card, so the totals are quite immense. It's kind of close to the kick-back model, so yeah, that totally could have worked, if they'd arranged that in advance.

Not specifically relevant to the topic at hand, but also not true (the first part anyway). The largest earnings by credit card companies are from interest payments. That's their bread and butter. They count on people carrying balances and paying interest every month, and that dwarfs anything else.

Interchange fees (which is what I think you were referring to), despite getting a lot of attention, actually represent a very small portion of the total revenue stream related to credit cards.

But yeah. The general point stands. The absense of the equivalent in charges somewhere in their system basically meant that they could not possibly make money on this. Their only route to profit is assuming people would sign up for and pay for their service, but then not actually use it often enough to make up for what they paid. Which seems... silly.



Yup. And you're not going to get a perfectly even distribution of customers. People like me who watch many movies are inherently more likely to sign up than people who don't. That's going to skew the numbers really hard against you.

That's a great point as well. The target customer base is "people who like to watch as many movies as they can". I mean, that's literally their stated selling point. Why be confused when most of your customers actually do exactly what you sold it to them to do?


Yeah, taking a risk for a while and building a base can make sense. Moviepass had a really, really high burn rate for cash, though, so they went through investors at an insane rate, horribly burned their stock by having many, many releases of additional shares, causing crazy share dilution, and had no actual plan to transition over to making money.

And I don't know if they had any business plan that could make up for this though. I could speculate as to a few different reasons to structure it this way though. I've seen enough businesses (pre online-business models even) in which the entire business plan was "collect an executive salary off the investors for as long as possible". Add in the whole "we're going to issue stock as well", and the whole thing can get quite a bit questionable.


I don't have one of those fancy restaurant/theaters near me so far as I know. Kind of a shame, I would love to hit one up. Many of the local chain places reduced their offerings greatly during Covid. The local Cinemark tore out its ice cream counter and coffee bar, and set up some kind of phone ahead system for popcorn. You can order through your app, and the popcorn will be sitting on a shelf waiting for you. IMO, this is a significant downgrade. The menu of options was badly decreased, and the current longer lines for the few remaining options/having snacks get cold on a shelf is a poor substitute. I do quite like theaters, especially nice ones, but the theater experience as a whole took some hits over covid, and hasn't really recovered everywhere.

Yeah. It's interesting. I think that the "luxury theaters" have more or less come back. But their model is "folks willing to pay a premium for a premium experience". Which, frankly, is about the only draw to get one into a theater rather than watching at home. You're paying for the experience at this point, and not a lot more. Even before Covid, it seemed like the quality of the standard theater model was going downhill rapidly. I actually saw a lot of theaters either close, or convert to luxury (ish) models during that time period because of this.

Which is kinda sad. I did like the old days when you'd just stop at a theater with a group of friends on a whim, see what was playing, and just buy tickets and go in. Used to do that all the time. But as the ability to view content at home has improved dramaticaly over the last 20 years or so, the draw of the theater has decreased. Heck. We saw the first wave of this back in the 80s and 90s with the rise of the video rental. Theaters had to compete with that, runs got shorter, theaters got smaller, etc. But once stuff went online? Things have really racheted up since then.

[Bartmanhomer]

I mostly go to AMC movie theater every Saturday for so many years even when my mother was alive. We go to the movies together and I keep on the legacy. :smile:

[Tyndmyr]

Not specifically relevant to the topic at hand, but also not true (the first part anyway). The largest earnings by credit card companies are from interest payments. That's their bread and butter. They count on people carrying balances and paying interest every month, and that dwarfs anything else.

Interchange fees (which is what I think you were referring to), despite getting a lot of attention, actually represent a very small portion of the total revenue stream related to credit cards.

"Transaction Function" is the term for all transaction fees, but it's an obscure term that few use outside of the Federal Reserve and such. Interchange fees make up the largest portion of these transaction costs, but there are more beyond that.

Transaction costs are significant, but many accounting structures count reward programs against them, and if you do so, they don't provide much income. In fairness, though, you could consider the reward programs as relevant to any part of the fees they charge, including interest. Inducing people to make purchases is surely a large part of how you get people to carry balances.

But yeah, my info was out of date. Apparently interest has massively spiked up in the last couple years, which I suppose makes sense given what has happened to interest rates in general.


And I don't know if they had any business plan that could make up for this though. I could speculate as to a few different reasons to structure it this way though. I've seen enough businesses (pre online-business models even) in which the entire business plan was "collect an executive salary off the investors for as long as possible". Add in the whole "we're going to issue stock as well", and the whole thing can get quite a bit questionable.

At a bare minimum, their late-game strategy of diluting the stock excessively seemed highly exploitive of investors. They cratered the price pretty hard with this move, so the eventual outcome became quite certain, but at that point, it seemed they were simply desperate to keep the arrangement going as long as they could, with no attention paid to actual viability. When they swapped over to that view, or if they ever had another strategy, well...no idea, really. We can speculate, but they are hardly going to admit to intentionally scamming folks.


Yeah. It's interesting. I think that the "luxury theaters" have more or less come back. But their model is "folks willing to pay a premium for a premium experience". Which, frankly, is about the only draw to get one into a theater rather than watching at home. You're paying for the experience at this point, and not a lot more. Even before Covid, it seemed like the quality of the standard theater model was going downhill rapidly. I actually saw a lot of theaters either close, or convert to luxury (ish) models during that time period because of this.

Which is kinda sad. I did like the old days when you'd just stop at a theater with a group of friends on a whim, see what was playing, and just buy tickets and go in. Used to do that all the time. But as the ability to view content at home has improved dramaticaly over the last 20 years or so, the draw of the theater has decreased. Heck. We saw the first wave of this back in the 80s and 90s with the rise of the video rental. Theaters had to compete with that, runs got shorter, theaters got smaller, etc. But once stuff went online? Things have really racheted up since then.

Part of it's also cost, I think. My local theater charges about $15.75 for a regular ticket, and a lot of the theaters are "D-Box" which doesn't seem like a vast advantage technically, but bumps the baseline price to $23.75. A small popcorn and a drink would add a further $10.45, and most of the snacks cost a good deal more. Heck, regular snack sized bags of chips cost about $5.

Not so long ago, it used to be $6-7 per ticket, and perhaps $3 per snack item. Popcorn used to be free refills, and that's gone too. I think this has priced a lot of people out, at least for family or dates as a regular thing. They might do so for a special occasion, but just showing up to the theater and doing a doubleheader isn't priced like it once was.

[Joran]

The most magical theater experience I had was a release date midnight showing of Star Trek: First Contact. Theater was packed with fans and people started cheering loudly through the opening credits. It was like going to a sporting event, but a movie. It was loud and everybody had a great time.

We have a local premium movie theater with food and premium seats; it's a great experience and the tickets aren't absurdly expensive. It's $16 for a regular ticket, $7 for Tuesday tickets. However, I also have a very nice home theater. I occasionally go to the theater for the most recent MCU film (last one I saw was Love and Thunder), but movies seem to come to streaming so quickly that I don't feel the need to go. I'd rather just stay in my house, sit on my comfy couch, and watch in the comfort of my home.

The odd thing about premium theaters is that they're more similar to my home set-up in terms of comfort and lack of crowd. I'm pretty separated from the other patrons, the theater holds at most 42 people and so it's pretty quiet.

It is annoying to be packed into a large theater, in an uncomfortable chair with a sticky floor, but it was also magical when the atmosphere was right. There's also a nostalgia factor with it being an excuse to get out of the house and spend some time with my friends when I was a teenager.

[Bartmanhomer]

It's a good thing, I'm an AMC Stubs A-Lister. I get all my movie tickets for free. :smile:

[tomandtish]

It's a good thing, I'm an AMC Stubs A-Lister. I get all my movie tickets for free. :smile:

Point of order. You're not seeing your movies for free. You're paying $20-$24 a month to see unlimited movies. If you're seeing more than 2 movies a month it is probably worthwhile, but it isn't free.

[Bartmanhomer]

Point of order. You're not seeing your movies for free. You're paying $20-$24 a month to see unlimited movies. If you're seeing more than 2 movies a month it is probably worthwhile, but it isn't free.

That's the point. I pay $25 a month to get free reservation for movie tickets which save me a lot much money. So to me, it's worth it. :smile:

[gbaji]

That's the point. I pay $25 a month to get free reservation for movie tickets which save me a lot much money. So to me, it's worth it. :smile:

Did you spend $300/year watching movies in the theater before getting the subscription?

[Bartmanhomer]

Did you spend $300/year watching movies in the theater before getting the subscription?

Yes. :smile:

[Rynjin]

Did you spend $300/year watching movies in the theater before getting the subscription?

He said he went to the movies every Saturday, so 4-5 movies a month. Even at the cheapest ticket price (~$12 for a matinee) that's ~$48-60 a month, or upwards of $600 a year.

So he's getting his movies roughly half off year round; again assuming he was always going for the cheapest ticket, which may not be the case.

[Bartmanhomer]

He said he went to the movies every Saturday, so 4-5 movies a month. Even at the cheapest ticket price (~$12 for a matinee) that's ~$48-60 a month, or upwards of $600 a year.

So he's getting his movies roughly half off year-round; again assuming he was always going for the cheapest ticket, which may not be the case.

That's right. I go to the movies every Saturday morning because I'm a morning person to get the matinee. :biggrin:

[Peelee]

He said he went to the movies every Saturday, so 4-5 movies a month. Even at the cheapest ticket price (~$12 for a matinee) that's ~$48-60 a month, or upwards of $600 a year.

We can simplify to 52 weeks a year, at $624/yr for the $12/ticket example price.

[Bartmanhomer]

Well depending on what type of movie format that I go to it varies for me. I go to the regular screen movie format, IMAX and Dolby with the surround sound and the recliners. :smile:

[Rynjin]

We can simplify to 52 weeks a year, at $624/yr for the $12/ticket example price.

Aka, "upwards of $600". =p

[Bartmanhomer]

Aka, "upwards of $600". =p

Movie ticket prices have always been expensive and please don't get me started on the prices for food and drinks at the movie theater. :sigh:

[gbaji]

Hah. Ok. Was just boggling at the volume of film watching involved. I think even when I used to go to the theater semi-regularly, I doubt if I ever watched more than maybe 6-8 films in the theater in a year. There's just not that many films I'm interested in seeing, pretty much at any price.

But sure. If that's your hobby/habit/thing-you-like-to-do, then that makes total sense.

[Bartmanhomer]

Hah. Ok. Was just boggling at the volume of film watching involved. I think even when I used to go to the theater semi-regularly, I doubt if I ever watched more than maybe 6-8 films in the theater in a year. There's just not that many films I'm interested in seeing, pretty much at any price.

But sure. If that's your hobby/habit/thing-you-like-to-do, then that makes total sense.

Well like I said before, I'm a movie buff and I go to the movie theater every Saturday morning.