1. find soapbox 2. stand on soapbox 3. point accusingly 4. get all shouty

[spatch]

I'm going to make a very obvious statement now and say that Hollywood is extremely myopic. Tomorrow I shall make some enlightening remarks about how water is wet, cows go moo and that if you push something hard enough, it will fall over [1].

Two events in the past week or so certainly help the obviousness of this statement. The first was the release of the study that Americans are increasingly preferring to watch their movies at home. If anybody is Shocked, I Say Shocked at this finding, they have obviously not (or they have obviously not seen anyone who has) plunked down nearly $50.00 for a family of four at the Mondo SuburbiaPlex 25 (and that's just for the tickets) for the privilege of sitting in a theater watching commercials, getting a nice faceful of Army propaganda, and enduring cellphones, chatty bitches and parents who insist on bringing their three-year-old to the 9:30 pm showing of a loud, violent, R-rated action/horror movie. (Said three-year-old will spend the majority of the movie shrieking in fear, but of course the child can't be removed from the theater as this sort of torment builds character or something.)

I admit that around Boston, we're pretty damn spoiled when it comes to film offerings presented in decent surroundings, even if we see the landscape here as sometimes bleak and on the verge of going the way of the buggy whip and the vinyl 45. We have more choices than just going to an Annoy-O-Plex: the Brattle, the Coolidge Corner, the Somerville, the Kendall and a host of other smaller, single or double screen indies all offer a better theater experience than the one you'll get from the theater chain that is able to continually start new screenings of "Shrek the Third" every fifteen minutes, just in case you missed the 7:15 show.

And spoiled we are, but the article at least mentions:

...our survey finds that people with more home movie viewing devices and services are also the ones most likely to watch a lot of movies - both in the theater as well as at home. Movie buffs, in short, tend to watch a lot of movies, no matter what the venue.

Truth.

But buffs aren't the audience Hollywood wants to go for, even if their money is just as green and often spent with far less reservation. (Still, we must band together and boldly support the small cinemas to stave off that buggywhip-going. C'mon, lads and lasses! To the balcony!)

The really bizarre part is that apparently it's not just enough to go to the theater to see the film anymore, either. You wanna know what's really getting execs' shorts all a-twisted this year?

It's not that nobody's showing up to see this summer's crop of blockbusters-with-'three'-in-them, no. That's not the problem. People are. It's just that they're not going back again and again.

Uh huh. I believe the phrase I need here is "cry more, noob."

The way I see it, you can either spoo with glee over the fact that you've broken Yet Another Opening Weekend Record (which happens every four months, given whichever holiday we're dealing with here) or you can blame home viewing, DVDs, piracy, the Internet, dogs, anything for what you perceive as lackluster business which is not turning enough of a profit. But you can't do both. Yet they do.

Some days I sure wish they'd bring back the studio system and benevolent despots such as Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer. They may have ruled with an iron fist, but at least they actually had a lick of business sense.

I'd sum up here by saying "Golly, they're blame everybody for the death of the theater experience except themselves" but then I'd have to file that Obvious Statement along with the others up at the top, as well as "clipper ships go fast" and "It goes in; it must come out." [2].

Though I do like the comments in the Jim Hill Media article that Pirates of the Caribbean 3 actually lends itself to repeat viewings, as you have to see it a few times in order to figure out what the hell's going on. Truth!




1. Fudd's First Law of Opposition.
2. Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's First Law.

Comments

[ungratefulninja.livejournal.com]

And, from the viewer side:

Why on Earth would I go back again and again to the theatre to watch the same movie? It's not going to change. The Titanic isn't going to make it this time. Unless the movie was pure (and this is important, kids) storytelling gold there's fuck-all to inspire me to go back and see it again while it's still in theatres. If you're lucky it might be worth watching once in a while once it's out on DVD and the incremental cost is effectively zilch.

Hollywood has been taken over by people who can show things happening but can't tell word one of a story. It's a fairly fine distinction, but it makes all the difference in the world. It's depressing, because the first round of a lot of the movies out this summer, I thought, were decently-told stories. Now they're being driven into the ground by rehashes that do nothing more than show More Stuff Happening.

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

I blame the energy crisis. All those special effects burn a lot of coal, and people are trying to conserve. That's why I don't plug in my Lite Brite, but rather hold it up to the sun.

Rantish

[resk.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen POTC 3 yet and am in no hurry to do so. I'll wait for it to come to the dollar show and then see it on Extry Bargain Tuesday for fiddy cent.

Why? I heard it sucks. And while I enjoyed the first 2, I'm not a big ole bandwagon opening weekender. I'm not waiting with bated breath to see what becomes of Dullando Bloom.

The studios can suck it. They're getting plenty of money from The Epics. But they pay the price. Literally. Well over $100 million for these action/adventure flicks.

Meanwhile, Judd Apatow is making movies for chump change and raking in huge profits. Will Hollywood learn from his success? Kinda. They'll try to copy what he's doing, but it won't have any depth. It'll be more gross-out comedy that appeals to the lowest common denominator viewers. And they'll make money. And churn out cookie-cutters. Until those hackneyed stories stop selling. And then they'll wonder where they went wrong.

They'll never get it.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Of COURSE I want to spend twenty bucks visiting a movie that I can own (as much as I can own physical property in my household, which is by turns a Blockbuster, Rent-a-Center, or The Home Depot tool rental department, only without the revenue stream) a few months later for fifteen. That just makes perfect sense.

[cloudscout.livejournal.com]

"if you push something hard enough, it will fall over"

In the spirit of sequels and pushing things until they fall over, perhaps it's time for PUTBAD 3.

totally off-topic, as is my wont

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

I feel like somewhere in the revelations of Fudd's and Teslacle's laws I have finally found the solution to PUTPBAD.

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

When I was much younger I remember vividly the joy of going to see Batman multiple times in the theater. (the Micheal Keaton version)
A lot of it was the "cool" factor of seeing the superhero in darkened theater. :) Admittedly it also helped that these were kid's tickets in Nebraska many years ago...not a huge expense.

The Jim Hill article is dead-on. If you want to see the movie on opening weekend, you're going to. So unless you have a sleeper hit, everybody's in and out those first three days.
The people who are in a really bad spot with this are the theaters, not the studios. The box office money is on a sliding scale, with most of the first week money going to the studios, and then the ratio shifts per week to more towards the theater.
Therefore you get the theater chains leaning more on their concessions and ads.

[archangelsk.livejournal.com]

...but of course the child can't be removed from the theater as this sort of torment builds character or something.

I imagine it's because the parent(s) can't be arsed to leave the theater. They couldn't find a babysitter, but by-goddamn that will not ruin their night, no sir. If your night is ruined as a result, well, that's just not their problem.

It may be worth noting, for anecdotal counterexample purposes, that the last shouting match I got into with talky assholes at a movie — and shouting is rather an understatement, though no one was ejected — was at the local university/indie-hip theater.

[dolphinsolo.livejournal.com]

And, even if you are an Opening!Weekend! person, you're not going to go to repeat showings because you have to save your money for the next big thing that's coming out the next weekend. I can't go see Spiderman 3 again if I wanted to, had to save for Pirates. Can't go see Pirates again, got Transformers right around the corner.

[ron_newman]

Any time a movie plays 30, 40, 50 weeks, people are going to see it over and over again. King of Hearts once played for four years at the Central Square Cinema in Cambridge, and Harold & Maude lasted a couple of years at the late Allston Cinema.

[cheezdanish.livejournal.com]

YES HELLO THEY DON'T GO SEE IT OVER AND OVER BECAUSE THEY ARE FULL OF THE SUCK AND LOSE

Forget Jack Warner, bring back Lew Wasserman.

[susskins.livejournal.com]

Look at the balls spin now!

[lediva.livejournal.com]

Insert rant here about how incredibly pissed I am at retailers/Hollywood/the government/whoever complaining about a drop in the rate of increase of something as if it means a net decline.

IF YOU MADE 1% MORE OVER LAST YEAR YOU STILL MADE MORE MONEY YOU RETARDED MONKEYS.

Growth can't increase indefinitely. Growth rate can't increase indefinitely, either.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I would have happily gone to see Grindhouse again in a theater. Unfortunately, it didn't stay in Memphis more than three weeks before being supplanted by something crappier, say, Delta Farce.

You'd think with 174 first-run screens in Memphis, that there would be some money to be made in counterprogramming.

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

-I caught Spidey 3, but haven't seen POTC 3 yet...hell, I still haven't watched 2.

-I've never been the type to see a movie in the theater more than once. (This is mostly due to laziness. Hell, it's amazing I even get there once.) The only two I recall are Sin City and Identity. My second viewing of Identity was on a first date, because no matter how much I liked the girl, there was no fucking way I was going to see Daddy Day Care.

-Random thought: recently I had an idea that I thought was pretty good, which probably means someone else is already doing it. Basically, it is this: the "movie bar." Basically, you fill up the place with couches and a huge screen, show movies and serve beer. I'll probably flesh out the full idea later...provided, of course, it doesn't already exist.

[giantfightbot.livejournal.com]

The only places I even think about going to go for theater anymore are Cinetopia and The Bagdad. The former is a way-upscale place with tapas and a wine list, the latter will give you beer and pizza and plays second-run movies.

The more you whine about not making enough money, the more you sound like the RIAA.

The theaters execs like to cry, "Piracy is killing us!" No, the fact you are OUT OF IDEAS is killing you. When 80% of your output this summer is a sequel or a remake, there's not much reason to go the first time, let alone a second time.