There's been no end of hand wringing over this year's box office doldrums, as even the combo attack of Batman Begins, Bewitched, Herbie: Fully Loaded, and Land of the Dead weren't enough to reverse a slump that has seen domestic box office returns fall behind 2004 for the 18th straight week.
I had this lengthy screed devoted to the various reasons everyone gives for this (The Studios: "P2P and bootleggers are to blame, crucify them!" Moviegoers: "Can we go two weeks without another goddamn TV show remake?"), but...I got bored. There's no need for me to rehash what you've already read, so I'm just going to give you my scholarly opinion about why the domestic box office is slowly spiraling down the crapper:
Because going to the movies fucking sucks.
As I like to endlessly remind everyone, I see most mainstream Hollywood flicks at radio station promo or press screenings, and the few times I've paid for and seen a movie in the theater in the last year and a half have demonstrated to me that it's a wonder theaters aren't to the 2000s what post offices were to the 1980s. How do you guys go to the movies without killing everyone?
At most screenings I attend, one of the ushers (no, really) stands up beforehand to tell everyone:
1) No videotaping (duh)
2) Anyone talking on cell phones will be removed
3) Disruptive children and their parents will be removed
During the movie, there are actually people in the theater to enforce these rules. It's great to hear a cell phone go off and watch the offender pulled from the crowd and marched out. They're usually allowed to return, but no one ever sits in the theater yakking away.
Sure, I have to deal with "wacky" on-air radio personalities conducting "zany" contests before the show and giving away "kooky" prizes to people who get way to amped up about a free t-shirt, but I can usually tune that out and write, unlike with the ubiquitous "Twenty," which blares louder than a 1975 Who concert.
However, after the film rolls, the crowd is refreshingly silent. Not so your typical public screening, where you may experience any combination of the following delightful personalities: the Cell Phone Talker, the 'Tween Texter, the Crying Baby, the Wannabe Bangers, the Guy Who Takes Two Minutes to Open His Bag of M&Ms, the Seat Kicker, the Aisle Runners, the Kids Who Sit Up at the Front and Throw Shit at the Screen, the Questioner ("Who's that guy?" "Why did she do that?"), the Creepy Dude Who Keeps Looking at You, the Latecomers ("Is that seat taken? What about that one? That one?"), the Deaf Old People ("What'd he say?" repeated 50 times), the Angry Guy who Takes Offense When You Politely Request That He Stop Loudly Offering Advice to People on Screen and Do You Want to Take It Outside?
You get the point. Maybe if theaters maintained a security presence – and not even every screening, but just Friday and Saturday nights – and provided a pleasurable viewing experience for their clientele, audiences might come back.
And how about knocking a buck off the price of bottled water, while you’re at it?
How about projectionists who actually know how to focus and frame the film? These days it's often just a concession stand worker who runs up to start the film and never looks at it. Informing the staff of the problem (if you can find them) doesn't necessarily mean it gets fixed.
wow, austin moviegoers sound positively genteel compared to the riffraff in clutch city. maybe it's because i mostly go to the movies in westlake or the arboretum (hello, whitebread!) or the alamo drafthouse, but going to the movies here is actually not that bad.
despite the fact that i subscribe to netflix, i still go to the movies once a week, on average. sometimes more. hell, i even paid full price to see bewitched. alls i'm sayin is i'm doing my part to pay those assholes.
The same that happened to music a long time ago is finally happening to movies. Once technology catches up (and it's almost there) and watching your digital projection super dolby 200" homescreen becomes virtually the same visual experience as a theatre, then what's the motivation to go to a theatre? High prices? Jerks in the crowd? $4 for a Dasani water?
The movie theatre business will have to accept that in a few years, they will be about as relevant as the local kids museum's 'gramophone exhibit'.
I love the theater experience in full, but fuck spending $25 to go with the wife and share popcorn and a drink. I can buy the same piece of shit in two months on DVD for less than that from a rack next to check out at Walgreens. But then again, big and loud sure is fun. The bastards...
My roommate is a questioner. Drives me fucking nuts.
I worked at a second-run theater in high school as...wait for it...an usher. An actual usher. I had the power to not only confiscate contraband but throw people out pretty much at whim, a power I abused to no end. Good times.
--Chris
While I agree with the octopus that the crowds in the Austin theatres mentioned are actually quite well-behaved, I will observe that I got to witness a highly unusual form of audience disruption recently here. That would be the Parent Reading Subtitles To Child, at the Japanese-language screening of "Howl's Moving Castle".
I haven't been to more than three movies in a theater in almost five years now, precisely because of the phenomena you describe. 'Round here, the worst offenders are the ones (and they always make up at least 2/3 of any NYC urban moviegoing audience) who believe that they are on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and that I paid not to see the movie but to hear their audition for MadTV or Def Comedy Jam. Oh, hilarity ensues as No-Clu and posse keep a running dialogue going throughout the film, as if they were in fact the comic relief.
Between that and the "Oh no she dih-int" patter from the girlfriends, it's damn near impossible to see a movie around here in any kind of peace. If it looks that good, I'll buy the DVD or wait for it to come out on HBO.
I go to maybe 5-7 movies a year, and when I do it's at a time when the theatre's not going to be packed, so I don't have to deal with most of that stuff.
Part of the problem is, any movie that I want to see more than once, I'm going to buy the DVD, so why spend the money to see it in the theatre?
Rave Theatres: 15 minutes of pre-film crap, including (count 'em!) six ads and five previews.
Fuck that shit.
Sing it brother.