I never fully (fully) realised that the American word for cinema is theater, the SAME word used for actual theatre. I mean I did know of course but it never sunk in.
I think the lost mushy middle framework applies particularly to entertainment and other optional goods and your point that most people who can afford cinema tickets can (or soon will be) able to afford home cinema kit. Isn't this whole thing partially what drives the 3D craziness?
Also, I will maintain forever that food in cinema (apart from something quiet and odourless, PERHAPS) is barbaric but I get that I'm a weirdo snob. WINGS????? Cmon.....
I think this is where the 3D thing comes in. My television can't compete with that. What I'm interested to see is how VR/AR technology improves. It's been a bit of a bust but the Apple Vision Pro has been nearly universally praised for its movie experience. Which is a technology geared towards the exact disposable income people the current theater experience is priced for.
I saw "The Fall Guy" in a theater during the second weekend of its release. A couple days later, the movie was available on VOD — for the same price my husband & I paid for our two Sunday matinee tickets. (If we'd gone to an evening showing, VOD would have been considerably cheaper.) Honestly, why bother seeing anything in the theater if it may be available to stream mere days later?
Great article. Your argument reminds me of a comment a friend made many years ago, about the ice cream parlor where he worked. The parlor made homemade ice cream that was delicious, but also just ridiculously expensive, much more so than the homemade ice cream in a couple of stores nearby. Plus, the owners required that one CD—Tangerine Dream—be playing constantly. So people would go once and then never again. My friend said, “I don’t think the owners understand the concept of supply and demand.” Absent a truly pressing need (for example appendectomies), when people don’t enjoy an experience, they won’t pay for it! The experience of seeing movies in theaters has become increasingly unpleasant—I’ll see your commercials and raise you the deafening volume movies are shown at, and don’t even get me started on movies in Europe, which break in the middle to shill for their concession stand—and people are choosing not to go. It’s not a mystery!
I was reading Temporary Kings by Anthony Powell (set in the 1950s) last week and a character, a composer, remembering the 1930s (wistfully) says that nostalgia will be the death of him. Then he passes out and soon dies.
I never fully (fully) realised that the American word for cinema is theater, the SAME word used for actual theatre. I mean I did know of course but it never sunk in.
I think the lost mushy middle framework applies particularly to entertainment and other optional goods and your point that most people who can afford cinema tickets can (or soon will be) able to afford home cinema kit. Isn't this whole thing partially what drives the 3D craziness?
Also, I will maintain forever that food in cinema (apart from something quiet and odourless, PERHAPS) is barbaric but I get that I'm a weirdo snob. WINGS????? Cmon.....
Agree totally on the food (other than popcorn).
I think this is where the 3D thing comes in. My television can't compete with that. What I'm interested to see is how VR/AR technology improves. It's been a bit of a bust but the Apple Vision Pro has been nearly universally praised for its movie experience. Which is a technology geared towards the exact disposable income people the current theater experience is priced for.
I saw "The Fall Guy" in a theater during the second weekend of its release. A couple days later, the movie was available on VOD — for the same price my husband & I paid for our two Sunday matinee tickets. (If we'd gone to an evening showing, VOD would have been considerably cheaper.) Honestly, why bother seeing anything in the theater if it may be available to stream mere days later?
That's ridiculous. I know I'm disincentivized to go when I think it'll be a couple months. A few days is amazing.
Great article. Your argument reminds me of a comment a friend made many years ago, about the ice cream parlor where he worked. The parlor made homemade ice cream that was delicious, but also just ridiculously expensive, much more so than the homemade ice cream in a couple of stores nearby. Plus, the owners required that one CD—Tangerine Dream—be playing constantly. So people would go once and then never again. My friend said, “I don’t think the owners understand the concept of supply and demand.” Absent a truly pressing need (for example appendectomies), when people don’t enjoy an experience, they won’t pay for it! The experience of seeing movies in theaters has become increasingly unpleasant—I’ll see your commercials and raise you the deafening volume movies are shown at, and don’t even get me started on movies in Europe, which break in the middle to shill for their concession stand—and people are choosing not to go. It’s not a mystery!
I was reading Temporary Kings by Anthony Powell (set in the 1950s) last week and a character, a composer, remembering the 1930s (wistfully) says that nostalgia will be the death of him. Then he passes out and soon dies.