Corona Movie Theater Thread: 49% Say Movie Theaters Are Now "Obsolete"

[Monterey Jack]

Does anyone care about THE WAY BACK, THE HUNT and THE INVISIBLE MAN at this point?

All of those films can be bought on Blu for less than the price of a ticket right now (well, not now-now, as theaters will be offering bargain tickets for a while to entice people back). The only thing that'd get me to a theater right now are either classic films I'd like to see large (E.T., Raiders and the like) or else new product like Tenet, Mulan (well, sort of new ) and Bill & Ted Face The Music. Pre-shutdown leftovers from four months ago aren't going to cut it for most people.

I've heard tales from those who have ventured out about how employees have swarmed in during the credits to start cleaning and sterilizing the seats and various surfaces, which is an encouraging sign they're taking things seriously, because no theater can afford to open up, only to be shut down again a few weeks later because a spike in infections can be traced directly to them. This is the closest theaters have come to shutting down permanently, and owners who want to stay in the business are gonna be very strict in keeping things organized and neat, so I have no real worries that I'd get sick if I went out.

[AndyDursin]

I'm not worried about getting sick, I just don't have much incentive to go out and see movies I have at home, unless it's in a huge theater and I can see it on the largest screen possible.

The way things are continuing to go, there's not going to be much new in 2020. I believe CONJURING 3 was already pushed back to next June (or is about to be if there's another delay with TENET/WONDER WOMAN).

https://www.slashfilm.com/warner-bros-w ... ift-again/

The real problem here is studios want to maximize profits, understandably, so launching movies in a "crippled marketplace" where a fraction/segment of the audience doesn't want to go to theaters is a difficult wire to walk. Sooner or later they will have to test the waters -- but likely not at the expense of some "preordained blockbuster" that has the potential to hit a billion dollars. Unless some studio is willing to be adventurous and take a risk, they'll likely hang onto those until "THE CURE" is found

[AndyDursin]

Unless and until a major new release happens, articles like this are going to become commonplace. Someone has to go first and try it, or else they're DOA.

One other sobering element for Hollywood that's referenced in this article: they could get away with producing trash before that would make all its money in its opening weekend before dying. In this new reality where they won't be seeing opening weekend numbers swelling any longer, they'll have a harder time getting away with that. Movies that suck won't be playing for weeks and months on end, audiences are going to be a lot more discriminating than before.

Movie theaters face ‘existential’ threat from COVID-19: ‘Without new movies, it’s over’

Illinois-based Classic Cinemas opened its 13 locations in the state on June 26 with a lineup of retro screenings. Ticket sales popped the first week, but attendance quickly fell. CEO Chris Johnson decided to close the theaters again on Thursday.

“The older movies just didn’t necessarily cut it,” Johnson said. “You can only have so many showings of ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Harry Potter.’ At the end of the day, our livelihood is new movies. We’re going to make sure the new releases are set in stone before we get excited.”

...Studio executives, however, are confident that new movies will be able to turn profits once they hit cinemas, though they’ll have to say goodbye to the $100-million opening weekends that summer blockbusters used to generate. Studios hope that a lack of competition lets such films as “Tenet” and “Mulan” play well into the fall. That would mark a sharp contrast to the pattern for summer movies, which normally do most of their business in the first couple of weeks.

“When there are fewer movies in the marketplace, you can go for a much longer period of time,” Goldstein said. “It’s not about the first day, the first weekend, or the first week. It’s about taking a really long view of it.”

Gross, the analyst, is skeptical about that argument.

“I’m concerned about how deep the audience is,” Gross said. “I don’t think anyone’s ready to let go of 15% to 20% of the audiences.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... -new-films

[Monterey Jack]

Just release Tenet already.

[AndyDursin]

TENET's done -- I have no idea how theaters are going to survive this.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/tene ... 234699068/

Warner Bros. has removed “Tenet” from its release calendar, delivering a big blow on the exhibition industry at a time when movie theaters had hoped to peg their re-opening to the late summer debut of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller.

Though necessary given the mass uncertainty over when cinemas across the globe can safely reopen, the decision further complicates Hollywood’s already bumpy plan to revive moviegoing. “Tenet” was originally scheduled to debut on July 17 but was pushed back twice until Aug. 12. It’s unclear when it will now welcome audiences, but the studio plans to share a new release date “imminently.”

“We will share a new 2020 release date imminently for Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s wholly original and mind-blowing feature,” said Warner Bros. chairman Toby Emmerich in a statement. “We are not treating Tenet like a traditional global day-and-date release, and our upcoming marketing and distribution plans will reflect that.”

The studio also announced that “The Conjuring 3” has been postponed to June 4, 2021. The eighth entry in Warner Bros.’ horror franchise was schedule to debut in theaters on Sept. 11. However, “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” was supposed to have additional shoots scheduled for April. Since production across the globe hasn’t been able to resume, it wouldn’t be ready in time for its target release date.

Sources at Warner Bros. stress that they will have to be flexible with its plans to release “Tenet,” which means it will not have a traditional theatrical rollout. Movie theaters overseas have already started to reopen, so there’s a chance it could launch internationally prior to a domestic release. That would be welcome news for exhibitors in Europe and Asia, two robust moviegoing markets that haven’t had a new Hollywood movie to entice audiences in months. In their plans to reopen, movie theater owners recently expressed concern to Variety that the global box office has all but been “forgotten” by U.S. studios. Previous films from “Nolan” have earned more than 50% of box office revenues from theaters overseas.

While most studios have postponed their major movies into late 2020 or 2021 and beyond, Nolan has high hopes that “Tenet” can usher audiences back to theaters, which have been closed since March to help stop the spread of coronavirus. For that reason, Warner Bros. had previously decided to incrementally move “Tenet” back weeks at a time, rather than postpone it to a significant degree until cinemas across the country are able to safety reopen. Now, insiders at Warner Bros. say they could more forward in select U.S. cities where public health and government officials deem it safe.

Global exhibitors call this a "catastrophe" in the making for the industry:

One U.K. senior exhibitor laments, “If the exhibition community doesn’t have any new movies in the next few months, there will not be an exhibition community. For most, if not all big studio movies, between 70%-80% of all box office is offshore, and it feels like that’s been forgotten.”

U.K. cinemas were allowed to open on July 4, but major chains such as Vue and Cineworld, which had initially set July 10 reopening dates for their venues, pushed back their timelines after “Tenet” and “Mulan” were delayed in late June. Both chains will now open on July 31, but that could change if the release dates shift again this week, as expected.

“We are waiting to see what happens with the release dates before making any final decision, because it’s different if one movie moves versus several moving,” says Tim Richards, CEO of Vue Intl., which operates 91 U.K. venues.

The exhibition giant has roughly 81 cinemas currently operating across continental Europe, in markets including Germany, Denmark, Holland, Lithuania, Poland and Italy. All have stayed open thanks to a steady diet of rereleases, but Richards notes that this isn’t “a long-term, sustainable business model.”

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/tene ... 234710870/

[Monterey Jack]

[AndyDursin]

It was raining, it was only $5, so we took Theo to see JURASSIC PARK in a theater.

Since I've gone basically nowhere except a grocery store since March, it did feel good, and it was fun to see him react to the movie in a theater -- even if the center channel kept cutting out, especially whenever Richard Attenborough was speaking.

[Monterey Jack]

Only my third movie since theaters re-opened, and who walks in just as the trailers were starting...? A couple pushing a babbling infant in a stroller. This for an R-rated thriller.

Talk about feeling Unhinged.

[BobaMike]

Andy, how did your son do with Jurassic Park? Our local Alamo is showing it this week, and I'm tempted to take my 8yo. I remember being very scared when I saw it at at age 12, but I was a bigger wuss than he is, movie-wise. I'm trying to convince my wife to let him go

It was raining, it was only $5, so we took Theo to see JURASSIC PARK in a theater.

Since I've gone basically nowhere except a grocery store since March, it did feel good, and it was fun to see him react to the movie in a theater -- even if the center channel kept cutting out, especially whenever Richard Attenborough was speaking.

[AndyDursin]

Ha! I think your son can do it. Theo did fine, and he's 6... admittedly, he's also seen it already, so he knew what was coming. And when I say he's "seen it", we showed him bits and pieces off Youtube before, so when we DID show it all to him, he knew what was going to happen. Really though, it's just a few sequences of intensity that are likely to get kids rattled. Theo's bigger problem was the sound, he covers his ears when it's either too loud or too intense for him Though it depends on the child, I think 8 is probably fine unless they are a little sensitive.

I remember the first time I saw it, some young kid in the row in front of us was so scared he jerked his chair into my friend's lap next to me, lol

[BobaMike]

I think what made JP so scary for me was all the incredible publicity it had...our newspaper in Pittsburgh had tons of articles on it (a whole section just about John Williams' score!), and all the commercials, previews made it seem so scary. And I had the soundtrack before seeing the movie, so imagining all the terrible things as I listened to the music made it worse.

Same thing happened to me with Jaws. Before seeing it, I borrowed the LP from the library, and was so scared listening to the main theme!

[AndyDursin]

Lol!

Somehow or other my parents started taking me to select R rated movies I wanted to see when I was in grade school (provided they weren't filled with sex and horrific violence), and one of the first was when I saw ALIENS on opening day when I was 11.

Let me tell you I am not sure if I ever moved a muscle during it, I was so terrified!! Not just during the movie but for days afterwards too lol

[BobaMike]

Decided to take my son to see Jurassic Park...counting the two of us, there were 4 total in the theater!

He liked it, said it was scary, but he was scared at things I would not have thought. The whole car in the tree sequence he watched through his fingers...but the big t-rex attack in the rain he was fine with!

I did preface the movie by saying that it was the first movie with realistic dinosaurs/creatures, and it wasn't wall to wall dinosaurs. That helped (he's seen enough Ray Harrybausen to understand the FX), and we had a talk afterwards about what he thought was CG and what was animatronic. I know he liked the movie, because he came right home and decided to build a Jurassic Park out of legos.

Things I noticed (this was the first time seeing it since 93 on a big screen)...whatever screen format Spielgberg shot it in, it is the perfect format...it completely filled the screen...no unused area! I'd rather have that than widescreen that, due to the theater size, isn't that large.

The FX still hold up...most shots still look better than anything coming out today. no flash camera moves, everything seems like it could really be photographed with a real camera.

John Williams' last really old-school score (imho), before rapid cutting and overblown sfx.

and most importantly, Laura Dern's ass in shorts still looks as good as I remember as a young teenager.

[AndyDursin]

Glad he liked it! Yes I know what you mean by the framing -- when you're in a smaller multiplex theater, it's actually a larger screen when it's exhibited 1.85 than 2.35 widescreen, which ends up being smaller in that sized theater. Plus -- I agree here also -- when you want to show the size and height of the dinosaurs, 1.85 compositionally is taller and makes more sense as well, so it was a smart move by Spielberg to use that aspect ratio.

A few things I noticed again this time around:

-Casting is one of the movie's biggest drawbacks for me. Why is Laura Dern laughing during that whole first scene in the desert? Her expressions in that sequence and reactions are just odd. She looks good but doesn't exactly come off like a scientist, and it's one of several ineffective or at least "could've been better" performances in the film (Neill being likewise mediocre. He just looks uncomfortable, and/or constipated). Goldblum is so natural by comparison with the two of them.

-Wayne Knight is AWFUL. The mugging and broadness of his performance are almost hard to watch. Martin Ferraro is nearly as broad and unbelievable as the lawyer who gets consumed by T Rex.

-Williams' score is grand when it's called upon, but a lot of it is mickey-mouse "suspense music" and doesn't have the thematic richness of his Spielberg classics. It's probably why I've never listened to the album a whole lot over the years outside of a couple of tracks (and I had no interest in LLL's expansion; the original album was hard to get through as it was).

-The last scene is one of Spielberg's best. Williams' music, the images of the birds, the shots of Neill with the kids -- it works beautifully. The more I see the movie, I just wish there were a few more "magic moments" like that in the film.

I still contend JP is a good movie, with a couple of classic set-pieces, and groundbreaking FX, but it's definitely not on the level of JAWS or CE3K or RAIDERS. It's clear Spielberg's mind was on Schindler's List (don't forget he handed post-production chores, including the scoring, over to George Lucas to supervise, evidenced by his "Special Thanks" credit) and the attention to detail, and especially the performances, just isn't there to the same degree as it is in his best films.

Of course I'll still rewatch it another dozen times in the next few years probably LOL.

[Monterey Jack]

and most importantly, Laura Dern's ass in shorts still looks as good as I remember as a young teenager.

OH yeah...



That's kind of an odd moment coming from Spielberg, a filmmaker who has always had a sheepish, adolescent mindset when it comes to S-E-X. Hell, he didn't even use his camera to ogle his future wife Kate Capshaw all that much in Temple Of Doom. Even in a film like Catch Me If You Can, the scene with DiCaprio boffing the hot stewardess is treated mainly as slapstick (and got one of the biggest laughs when I saw the film in theaters), and the "passionate" love affair between Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss in Always is a total fizzle (not helped by the fact Dreyfuss looks old enough to be playing Hunter's father). One of the only 'big sex scenes" in a Spielberg movie I can think of was in Munich, and it's the most awkward moment in an otherwise superb movie.