Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Is the movie theater doomed?

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Posted by Paul Goulet (Member # 297) on 08-05-2005, 07:35 PM:

I hope I posted this the correct way! [Smile]

Providence Journal,Providence, RI:

Bob Leddy: As Hollywood cranks out junk -- Is the movie theater doomed?

Friday, August 5, 2005

LET'S GO to the movies? Or perhaps it should be, "Let the movies come to us."

Ever since the first bulky Betamax video/recorders went on the market in the early 1980s, moviegoers have had a choice: to watch a film in a darkened theater or rent a movie on video and enjoy it in the comfort of home. Home video, amazingly in its third decade, does provide a tempting alternative to movie houses. No sticky floors. No tall guy blocking your view. No one coughing his head off in the row behind, or yapping over your shoulder.

Movie lovers -- and that's just about everyone in America -- can retire to their entertainment centers after dinner, pop in a DVD, flop into an easy chair and watch Tom Cruise save the world. Bathroom or snack call? You don't have to cross your legs or go hungry for fear of missing a key scene. Just hit the "STOP" button on your remote.

It's all so wonderful. But where does that leave the old-fashioned projected-in-a-theater movie? In a culture where computers, I-Pods and everyday television isolate us ever further from our fellow humans, is a night at the movies becoming as outdated as, say, writing a long letter to a friend?

Probably not. But video sales and rental figures are robust, while box-office numbers are sometimes anemic. Whether this is because of those aforementioned home-video perks, or to Hollywood's cranking out an endless line of junk, the folks over at the Motion Picture Association of America are keeping a wary eye on things. (For the record, there are a few American film makers -- Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and John Sayles, for example -- who continue to turn out quality pictures. Sadly, I can't name a single such director of the female gender -- at least none who works in this country).

Back on the video front, national rental houses like Netflix and Facets have thousands of titles to satiate every taste. Want more? Cable television offers "movies-on-demand" channels.

As for building that home video library, Borders and Blockbuster stores amply fill that need. Unlike the early days of home video, when the lag time from theatrical to video release was a year or more, today's movies can sometimes show up on video shelves six weeks after a theatrical run. And video prices have dropped dramatically. Where a new video once cost upwards of $100, today's DVDs sell for as little as $10.

Video also offers afficionados of old films something that mall cinemas can't, whether you're into Capra fluff or Bergman introspection. Because, unless you live in a large city, you're not likely to find Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Scenes from a Marriage on the big screen. You can, however, rent or own these movies on video.

Still, architecturally, today's shopping-mall multiplexes sure do lack the charm of their predecessors. Movie houses discarded their rococo elegance and went drab the minute they severed neighborhood ties to relocate in suburbia. I can remember when the local movie theater was as much a part of the community as Ray's Garage, the corner tap or the church bingo hall. Downtown Providence, meanwhile, boasted a half dozen first-run theaters: the Strand, RKO Albee, Majestic, Loew's State, Fay's and the Metropolitan. I can recall going to four or five movies a week in a time when most twin-bills switched every Wednesday.

On Saturdays, I'd cross the old Red Bridge into East Providence and head for the (now long-gone) Hollywood Theater. There, I'd watch two movies for the price of one, plus a Western or a serial short: Allan "Rocky" Lane or Commander Cody fighting the bad guys.

Now all of that is on video -- minus, unfortunately, the nameless excitement of the black-and-white gloom inside a popcorn-and-soda-scented movie house.

Movie theaters also offer something unique; they bring people together. For a couple of hours a diverse gathering of human beings share in an event. They react viscerally to that which the great French director Robert Bresson called "the combining of images and sounds of real things in an order that makes them effective. The camera sees everything."

As does the viewer, wherever the venue.

Bob Leddy is a film historian and frequent contributor to The Providence Journal.

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20050805_05led.1cbaa6c6.html

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 08-05-2005, 11:35 PM:

How appropriate that Chicken Little is coming out this year...

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-06-2005, 12:02 AM:

quote: Bob Leddy article
But video sales and rental figures are robust

As usual, misinformation. Video sales and rentals are actually having a flat year, as well. It's the movies, stupid!

quote: Bob Leddy article
today's movies can sometimes show up on video shelves six weeks after a theatrical run.

More crap. BOMB movies show up that fast, yes. HIT movies still take four or five months, sometimes more, on average.

If these doom and gloomers are going to keep insisting on writing this crap, I wish they would at least get their facts straight.

[ 08-06-2005, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Mike Blakesley ]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-06-2005, 12:06 AM:

Y'know, a lot of people arguing the "home video is better" angle is better or "home video is killing theaters" business are kind of missing some market-driven points of current events.

Yes, home video is a giant leap better than it has been in the past. I was enthusiastic when I wired up my DVD-driven 5.1 channel surround home theater system several years ago. It was great! And I was buying DVDs as if they were some kind of addictive drug.

But lately, I haven't been buying very many at all. There has to be some parallel to this and those really low prices on DVDs these days. There's lots of new releases hitting the shelves at $15 and dropping to around $10 or less a few months after release. They're basically half the price or as little as a third of the price of DVD releases in the late 1990s.

My argument is quality of product -the movies themselves- has dropped to dangerously low levels. I see better script writing quality on TV. The anti-creative corporate nature of major movie studios these days has made current movies more derivative than ever in history.

At the same time, we have lots of other choices for entertainment. 500 channels of satellite TV, the Internet, X-Box, Playstation2, iPod, XM, etc. The movie industry has lots of competition from elsewhere and is doing very little to step up to the challenge.

From that standpoint, I think the American public has been doing the movie industry a giant favor for providing movie theaters the attendance they have been getting lately. The average quality of product sure doesn't warrant it.

Still, these dumbell reporters on TV (like the latest example on CNN's Showbiz Tonight on this Friday evening) just blame movie theater box office slumps on rude patrons, sticky floors, cell phones and other stuff like that. None of those folks talk about the quality of movies themselves. One fellow on that segment from Exhibitor Relations tried to make the point that if the quality of product is there the audiences will come to the show. But the chick hosting the program just went back to the rude patrons angle as if that was the source of the problem -that problem has always been there!!!

IMHO, the way Pixar's stock has been downgraded lately is a good clue to the real problem. Honestly, I can't figure out why DVD sales of "The Incredibles" haven't been that great (I thought the show was fantastic). But it seems like a symptom of a greater problem. DVD has been out long enough for die hard movie fans to build up their libraries to fair levels of completion. Now the market is saturated. And to paraphrase Christian Volpi on the quality of most any new movie: "it's crap."

If a movie is crappy, it's going to be just as crappy on the small screen as it is on the big screen.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 08-06-2005, 10:14 AM:

The real question is: If last years movies came out this year, would attendence be up, down, or about the same as last years attendence?

I think it would be about the same. - Matt

Posted by Paul Goulet (Member # 297) on 08-06-2005, 10:42 AM:

quote: Paul Goulet

quote: Paul Goulet

Just for the record, I didn't say that, the guy that wrote the article said it! I just posted it!

Posted by Bevan Wright (Member # 1884) on 08-06-2005, 10:56 AM:

Summer trails record '04, but 2nd-best take

By Brian Fuson

All summer, the drums of doom have provided a steady backbeat while Hollywood's boxoffice returns have rolled in. For 19 consecutive weeks, reaching back to March, weekend boxoffice receipts were below those of the comparable weekends last year.

Then this month, with the July 8 opening of "Fantastic Four," the boxoffice rallied, improving on the comparable 2004 weekend. It held steady through the July 15 debut of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factor" before slumping again last weekend.

In fact, as far as the boxoffice goes, this summer has been neither the best of times nor the worst of times. It still lags significantly behind the record-breaking summer of 2004. But in terms of boxoffice dollars and thanks to ticket inflation, it's still the second-best summer in history, even if estimated admissions are only the fourth best on record.

Using the Memorial Day weekend as the traditional starting gate of the 15-week season, this summer's collective boxoffice at just past the halfway mark stands at $1.89 billion, down 11% from the previous year's torrid pace of $2.13 billion. Estimated admissions have fallen even more, down nearly 13% from summer 2004.

One factor that has put a damper on this summer's returns is that the biggest hits are just not as big as last summer's. In 2004, a trio of sequels led the way, with DreamWorks Pictures' "Shrek 2" ($429.4 million), Sony Pictures' "Spider-Man 2" ($328.5 million) and Warner Bros. Pictures' "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" ($241.8 million) generating significant returns by midseason. In contrast, the leading films this summer include 20th Century Fox's "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" ($375.9 million), Paramount Pictures' "War of the Worlds" ($208.4 million) and Warners' "Batman Begins" ($191.1 million).

Granted, summer 2004 always was going to be a hard act to follow. At this same point, the season was running an impressive 15% ahead of 2003, the previous record holder.

Also, 2004 was front-loaded with surefire hits at the beginning of the season. Out of the first eight weeks, seven were record-breakers. It was the first time in history that the $300 million mark had been exceeded in one week (Friday-Thursday) during the summer -- and it happened twice in summer 2004. In comparison, no week has registered $300 million this summer, and none of the remaining weeks looks to reach that rarefied boxoffice strata.

This summer, as far as weekly aggregate grosses go, there was only one bright spot: the week that Warners' "Charlie" and New Line Cinema's "Wedding Crashers" opened. It was the only week this summer that reached a record high, besting the comparable eighth week of all previous summer sessions.

The summer's shortfall can't be attributed to the number of films released. In terms of wide releases -- films released in more than 1,000 theaters -- the first eight weeks of this summer saw the same number of wide releases as last summer: 20.

The number of theaters in operation also doesn't appear to be a factor because the pipeline capacity has expanded slightly. The building of new theaters and screens has outpaced the closing of older theaters, with this year's screen count in the area of 36,850 -- up about 650 from the comparable period a year ago.

This season's slowdown has left the industry searching for explanations. Some point to the narrowing of theatrical windows and the encroaching threat of DVD. Others blame audience disaffection with the theatrical experience; even though playing times are more plentiful than ever before, eliminating long boxoffice lines, once inside theaters, moviegoers must contend with expensive concessions, an onslaught of onscreen advertising and, sometimes, unruly audiences.

But the most obvious explanation is that this summer's movies just haven't captured the popular imagination the way last summer's did.

Riding the strength of George Lucas' Force in its sixth and final incarnation, Fox is summer's market-share leader among the major studios with more than $500 million already in the coffers. The distributor has three films -- "Sith," "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and "Fantastic Four" -- that have grossed more than $100 million each. And that should guarantee that Fox will wear the summer market-share crown for the second consecutive year.

Paramount is sitting in the second spot at this point in the season, a far cry from its seventh-place finish during summer 2004 and its highest market-share ranking in years. "War" and "The Longest Yard" are the films largely responsible for the distributor's rise, with "War" topping $200 million and "Yard" surpassing $150 million.

Warners is nipping at Paramount's heels in the third spot, boosted by the strong returns from "Batman Begins" and more recently "Charlie" ($114.1 million).

As far as the summer's top films go -- this year, the bill has been heavy on remakes versus last year, when sequels ruled -- eight pictures have grossed more than $100 million each, the same number as last year. Once again, though, the difference is that this year's $100 million titles haven't equaled the drawing power of last summer's board leaders.

The aggregate gross for this year's top eight films at this stage of the summer is $1.53 billion, averaging $191.1 million per film. In summer 2004, that total was $1.65 billion, equaling a per-film average of $206.1 million.

As far as the prospects of the rest of the summer go, if the boxoffice for the remaining seven weeks equals the corresponding periods in 2004, this summer will finish with an estimated $3.22 billion -- down nearly 7% from the record $3.45 billion racked up a year ago. If so, it will rank as the third-biggest summer boxoffice total on record.

Estimated admissions likewise would end on a down note, tallying about 510 million ticket units, a drop of nearly 9% from the record heights of summer 2004, when 557.4 million admissions were tabulated. If estimated summer admissions are 510 million this year, it will be the eighth-best ticket unit count in the past 22 years, but that will be nothing to celebrate.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-06-2005, 11:57 AM:

quote: Paul Goulet
I didn't say that, the guy that wrote the article said it! I just posted it!

Paul - sorry about that, I have edited my above post to clarify.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 08-06-2005, 12:30 PM:

The movies being aweful is the biggest reason for the attendance slump. My girlfriend and I go to movies all the time. We never wait for DVD. If we like something, we'll get the DVD when it comes out but we don't wait for it. Recently, there have been many times when we WANT to go see a movie, but can't. We look through everything playing and can't find anything that we haven't seen that we are the least bit interested in. We won't see them on DVD either.

I remember even a few years ago, at least one watchable movie would be out every week. They weren't all that good but at least they weren't totally stupid and aweful making you want to walk out.

While movies will never do the kind of attendance per film that they did in the 1930's before TV and other competing entertainment, if Hollywood would start putting out decent movies, attendance would be just fine!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-06-2005, 01:05 PM:

Show quality is the most important thing. I've lost track of how many times I've seen the trailer for some show and thought, "yeah, that'll be a wait for the video title." Lots of people do weigh the difference between seeing a show on the big screen versus waiting for the DVD or avoiding the show altogether. Honestly, the only factor in that decision is the quality of the movie. I think the negative aspects of movie going (ringing cellphones, noisy patrons, crying babies, film done wrong) factor into the equation more on marginal titles. If people aren't sure if a show is worth paying $7+ per ticket, they might think about those other factors. It isn't going to be as much of an issue for a big event movie they have to see right now.

Additionally, it is very rare for me to buy a DVD of a movie I haven't seen. If the show has only medium to passing interest, I'll just rent the title -or even wait for it to show up on HBO, if I even see it at all. To buy a movie sight unseen, the show would be required to have a reputation for being really good. Few movies qualify in that regard. And if the show was just damned great, I probably would have checked it out at the theater already.

I think this is the area where movie theater attendance can be hurt. With shortened release windows between theatrical release and DVD release combined with a glut of highly derivate content, there's a lot of "wait for the video" or lesser quality titles out there.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-06-2005, 02:20 PM:

I don't think I have never seen a movie on video that I didn't see in the theatre first, except maybe oldies like "Wizard of Oz" and "Ten Commandments."

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 08-06-2005, 03:48 PM:

I don't like the shortened windows on DVD either, but as long as the studios keepintg blowing out wide openings with lots of prints, I think its an overstated problem. Except some dollar houses, who doesn't get to play a hit movie before the DVD release?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-06-2005, 04:40 PM:

Simply playing a movie "before the DVD release" is not good enough in a small situation. You need to play the movie "long enough before" the DVD release. Two or four weeks before is not long enough, because by that time all the posters are in the DVD stores.

People in small towns are just as eager to see hot new movies as the big city folks are -- we see the same TV ads, after all.

In general, these days if we don't play a movie on the break, we skip it if we can't get to it within four or five weeks of release.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 08-06-2005, 05:02 PM:

Mike-

I'm in a small town too (pop 6000), and people here want to see stuff ASAP as well. I guess I didn't make myself clear. I read one of your posts where you said that it used to take months and months to get a picture at your place. Now you can get one on the break or soon after. So can I.

That change in the print release pattern is keeping small town theatres in business. If they still made fewer prints, then we would be stuck playing against the DVD and most likely out of business.

By the way, did you open Dukes on the break? Awful movie, but it's doing great here.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-06-2005, 06:26 PM:

We didn't open Dukes, because we were hoping to get Wedding Crashers this week and didn't want to have to wait two more weeks for it. As it turned out though, we can't get WC until next week. But we'll probably play Dukes right after WC.

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 08-08-2005, 12:48 PM:

I used to believe that all the films I watched as a projectionist were getting so bad because I had seen too many. I am glad to see that others agree that it wasn't a saturation of my mind with films that made them seem bad, but that the films themselves are in fact bad. I don't think Hollywood has turned out an originally written script in a long time.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Honestly, I can't figure out why DVD sales of "The Incredibles" haven't been that great

I can tell you why......It Was Crap! Just like every other movie that came out last year.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-08-2005, 06:40 PM:

I wouldn't say "Incredibles" was "crap," but it was the least memorable movie to come out of Pixar yet. "Finding Nemo" was 10X better.

There is another "why movie attendance is down" article in Entertainment Weekly this week. In 4 pages they basically tell us.... everything we already know. It's the movies, it's the rude people, it's the ads, it's the ticket price, it's the DVD window. Translation: Another slow news week.

Posted by Joseph L. Kleiman (Member # 3097) on 08-08-2005, 07:28 PM:

NATO President John Fithian in the July issue of In-Focus:

quote:
Let’s first consider the past few months. Are DVDs killing the movie theatre, or have the movies just plain stunk? During the 14-week period, there were seven fewer wide releases in 2005 than in 2004. In other words, we have had less product to attract patrons to theatres. Second, among the wide releases we’ve had, there have been a couple real dogs (I’ll cite no titles here; I like my job too much). Third, in 2004 we had a little surprise in a picture called “The Passion of the Christ.” We thought some film-buyers were too optimistic when they predicted a $100 million for that picture. It came in at more than $370 million. In other words, take out one dog, put in Jesus, and 2005 would be way ahead of 2004.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 08-08-2005, 08:06 PM:

Wow, the old "take the Passion of Christ out and we're ok moneywise" justification! [sleep]