My CoronaVirus movie theater news:
Our local Alamo theater is doing buy one get one free tickets! Unheard of!

Going to see Back to the Future 2 tonight at the Alamo with my son (who has been begging me to see these movies). Saw the 1st one last week. About 30 people there. Mostly dads with their sons

Seeing the 3rd one next week. Sadly it's at the same time as their only showing of the original Superman with Chris Reeve, but I had to choose :-/

My Showcase multiplex has slashed its hours in half. I think they're closed Mondays-Wednesdays, open Thurs-Sunday, with the weekdays only from 4-8pm. They're running 50% off tickets on Thursdays for the few hours they are open I believe. Who knows. I thought they were open on Wednesdays but we drove past the other night after taking Theo to his swim lesson and the whole place was dark.

No content, though, equals no reason to go. And no signs that's going to change until the Fall, at the earliest.

Yeah, my Showcase has entered into "winter hours" recently, Thursday through Sunday, and I'm amazed it took this long. I'm glad the theater is still open at all, considering the Dedham Community arthouse place shut down over a month ago, as did the AMC in Boston. It's looking grim.

These numbers can't be good.

Sharing new data from Adtaxi’s annual Super Bowl Viewership and Consumer Streaming Trends survey. Of particular interest:

- After the pandemic, 61% of respondents plan on watching new movies via streaming services, rather than going to the theater.

- 49% say streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu have made movie theaters obsolete

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:41 am

- After the pandemic, 61% of respondents plan on watching new movies via streaming services, rather than going to the theater.

- 49% say streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu have made movie theaters obsolete

If and when the virus is controlled, and cinemas finally reopen for "regular business", I think people have just gotten out of the habit of going to the movies.

Plus, the pandemic has fostered a more insular mindset. Even if the risk is lessened, the paranoia remains in many people. They'll want to stay home where it's "safe".

And of course, all of these people -- including many who may not have been, or still are, tech savvy -- are now exposed to streaming and all the options it can provide. Surely those who may have been adverse to even trying it have done so by now.

We will see the damage next year, and if some theaters -- especially those outside densely populated areas -- don't reopen.

Paul MacLean wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 12:16 pm Plus, the pandemic has fostered a more insular mindset. Even if the risk is lessened, the paranoia remains in many people. They'll want to stay home where it's "safe".

...yet they'll come flooding back to bars, restaurants, sporting events and other public gatherings the second the virus is eradicated for good.

Well right -- because those are social experiences people can't get home staying home. With movies, they can now watch all this stuff without going anywhere.

I mean, again, theaters aren't ever going away completely -- you live near Boston, there are going to be theaters -- but even some modest adjustments will change the industry regardless. Smaller towns might lose exhibition venues I'd imagine so the amount of screens will decrease. Declining admissions before the pandemic, declining admissions after it -- their model will have to change. You can keep making James Bond and Marvel movies, but using the same model that necessitates they play on a set number of screens around the world and gobble up ticket admissions just to break even? Surely they're not going to be able to cost as much.

Salaries might decrease as a result too as part of the overall package, which is why these stars and directors are so adamant about "preserving the theatrical experience." They want to preserve their salaries along with it.

How much everything shifts is to be determined, but the longer things stay shut in this instance, the more people adjust to not going to a movie theater, and acclimate to watching at home instead -- I think it hurts them all the more in the long run. For me, again I don't blame the public for that if it pans out. That people may not miss it is the fault of movie exhibitors who have done little to nothing in the last couple of decades to improve the experience for everyone.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 1:52 pm Well right -- because those are social experiences people can't get home staying home. With movies, they can now watch all this stuff without going anywhere.

Going to the movies isn't a "social experience?"

Bull. Shite.

You can worship your particular faith via a Zoom call on Sunday mornings, yet you don't think people won't be PACKING churches once the virus is gone?

Movie theaters ARE my goddamn church, and the idea of people going "good riddance" and being happy with Netflix and Disney+ for all their movie needs makes me sick.

Different strokes for different folks.

And I'm not trying to be argumentative, but what do you particularly enjoy about going to a movie now? The content by and large blows. Watch any one of those Siskel & Ebert episodes I've posted from the 1980s/early 90s and every week there are 2-3 worthwhile movies much of the time -- different kinds of movies -- being released every Friday.

That's not the case now, hasn't been for years. It's mostly all the tentpole event crap. The variety of film has been diminished so much it's like going to McDonalds and having them only serve burgers to you at this point -- it's like what level of super-hero movie/fanboy-franchise remake are you getting this week. Meanwhile, audiences have become either totally passive or they're just obnoxious (reading their phone, talking on it, etc.). In the last 20 years I've seen probably a handful of movies that were fun BECAUSE of the people around me.

I get you like the process of going with people you know -- I'll still go once this thing is over, I'd imagine, every now and then -- but I definitely don't blame anyone for wanting to stay home and not fork over big money to see some mediocre franchise movie in an exhibition form that's past its prime for the majority of viewing public.

Hey MJ

I feel for you I really do, I was kicking around the film industry since the late 1950’s, then the “evil” was television and from that point on the cinema experience was changed forever. Yes, the studios brought in wide screen – fill the void on the stage area, then they brought in anamorphic (letter box) fill the stage from side to side, 3-D a “new dimension” & so on, but the audience was lost.

Then late 1970’s (early 80’s really) the video tape explosion took place & the cinema took its biggest hit of all time. Studios panicked and threw very good product into the churning tape mass and a lot of rubbish by the way, but if it did not explode at the box office, it was tape the next week! No messing about.

What was the cinema answer? Hold overs, if it did any money at all, week after week the same film in the cinema, meanwhile the video store had 25 to 100 releases per week! Good films, no not really, often very poor films but once the person went to the video store to get a film, they went back time & time again. Why it is very convenient, now it is more so.

I do not think you will see the “end” of the cinema but as Andy states, there will be less of them, there will also be less large budget film releases, simple mathematics, the money will never come back in direct sale to on line services, so budgets have to come down and everyone takes a pay cut in the process. In my day by the way proof of that was Zulu Dawn, despite the work we did the film tanked, the producers panicked and sold the film to television the same year it was released, get their money back and the film sat in distribution / producer hell for many years!

You are in a class of film lover that I used to just beg for, you love to see films in the best location and in the best format, large and I suspect loud or reasonable loud. Alas you are no longer the market and have not been since my final days (Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Rings), the product is literally being thrown away faster and faster, the public / average film goer (I do not think you are by the way) really do not care how they see it and often do not even pay attention when they are seeing the film, chatting and just about anything but watch the film, video tape encouraged this behaviour and it has only gotten worse.

Studios will always try to keep the biggest for the biggest screen and the biggest return, all they can do is hope the mass public cares to go, will they after the world-wide closures and virus, who knows, but in the year that has gone by, the public have been shown a new “craze” and why bother going back, just like television and tape before it. Cinemas survived, but converting the same space to multiple screens, then the purpose built multiplex and so on, but did they change? Not really, Dolby and DTS did their part, film became ones and zeros for digital exhibition but the seats and setting is the same, old trick new lights!

Your cinema will survive but less and less product and audience, finally it will pass on, but I suspect you have a few years left.
I truly love your posts and film enthusiasm and nephew night write ups, so keep your love of films and enjoy what does make it out.
Regards
Andy b

Great post, and insight, as always Andy. Your perspective is so appreciated. Thank you!

Even pre-Covid, I have been depressed at EVERYTHING I hold dear being slowly stripped away. No more shopping in brick & mortar STORES, more and more movies being imprisoned on streaming services, denying them any sort of physical media "hard copy" releases. Even when the virus is gone, what the phuck do I have to leave my apartment for NOW, aside from work? I have no friends, no girlfriend/wife, no kids, nothing but cold media to while away the hours, and if I don't have to actually leave my apartment to consume it, what's left? Just getting older and fatter and more miserable.

Monterey Jack wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 9:26 pm Even when the virus is gone, what the phuck do I have to leave my apartment for NOW, aside from work? I have no friends, no girlfriend/wife, no kids, nothing but cold media to while away the hours, and if I don't have to actually leave my apartment to consume it, what's left? Just getting older and fatter and more miserable.

Take heart, Jack. The pandemic isn't going to last forever. And as others have noted, cinemas are not going completely disappear.

As things begin to open-up, I'd suggest maybe joining a club, taking a class, etc. I did martial arts for five years -- it got me into shape and I made a number of good friends in the process.