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Movie theaters will look vastly different if they survive COVID-19:
thanks to mass closings and skyrocketing debt for theater franchises during COVID-19, the future of the businesses that offered me so much comfort as a teen is in peril. In uncertain times, one thing seems increasingly clear: The theater industry must change to survive. Here's how movie theaters might look in the future.
[...] Sure, companies like AMC hated the super cheap subscription-based app Moviepass, but the subscription model is an increasingly popular and time-tested method of ensuring revenue -- some theaters in the UK have been using such services for more than a decade.
[...] Drive-in theaters, which thrived in the '50s and early '60s, are already finding a second (or third) life amid the pandemic, thanks to the built-in social distancing and -- for the reason many of them still survived before COVID-19 -- nostalgia.
[...] How exactly this will look remains to be seen, but tech and streaming giants like Apple, Amazon and Netflix have either considered buying theaters or already committed to doing so. While wholesale corporate takeovers are probably a long shot, Silicon Valley has the capital to buy out floundering theater franchises and incorporate them into their existing integrative business models -- and doing so could dramatically reorient the movie theater landscape.
Or, more of them could serve food and beer like Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday June 19 2020, @09:31AM (37 children)
Not theaters or distributors, but the guys in-between, managing the infrastructure (you know, projectors, servers and such). I got out just before COVID-19 by an extraordinary coincidence, thank goodness.
Here's the truth: the cinema industry was dying before COVID-19. The virus will just hasten its downfall.
What's a theater at the end of the day: it's a place where you have to go to and share your personal space with others to watch a movie in conditions you can't enjoy at home. Kind of like trains and busses are transporation options you can use if you don't have a car, but a car is nicer.
Well guess what: with big TVs, high quality audio gear getting more and more affordable, people are quite content to buy a few thousand dollars worth of gear and stay at home.
Sure, hardcore fans will still go to the theater because the screenings are 8K, laser or LED (for those theaters that bothered upgrading, most big franchises still exploit the shit out of their old 2K and 4K projectors) and the audio installation is better if you know where to go. But most people will take the slightly lower home gear quality for the convenience of not driving there and paying through the nose for a showing at the theater.
Movie theaters need something compelling to get people out of their homes, and they have less and less appeal as time passes. One thing they had is that the distribution was guaranteed to be in theaters only for 3 months at least before appearing elsewhere. That was a totally artificial advantage, and it's slowly getting shorter and shorter - to the point where people are happy to wait until they can watch it elsewhere.
They had the better quality. That's going, if not gone already.
Some companies - including mine - tried to reinvent themselves and install VR gears in theaters. That didn't work: people can buy VR gear and play at home. The sales figures pre-COVID-19 for VR was beyond pathetic.
Some theaters started showing live events (theater plays, concerts, sports events... that sort of thing). That's not working out great either, but there's a tiny market I guess. Not enough to keep them afloat, that's for sure. In my company, we only had 3 guys doing support for live event for several countries, and that side of the business was losing money right and left. That should tell you how much of a market there is for live events...
The theater is a dying business model. It's being replaced by home entertainment. That's reality. There'll still be cinemas 30 years from now, but it'll become an aficionado / nostalgia kind of business, not a mainstream business.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday June 19 2020, @10:12AM (14 children)
Was just going to say that too. Let's see, given the choice of these two options, which would you take?
1. Bundle everyone into the car, drive 20 minutes to a movie theatre, pay more for the tickets than it would cost to buy the movie outright for home viewing, sit in uncomfortable seats while some asshole behind you noisily munches their way through a mega-giant bucket of popcorn while the girl in front of you talks on her cellphone, buy overpriced junk food at half time, then drive 20 minutes back again afterwards.
2. Sit on the couch, press Power On, press Play.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @10:36AM (13 children)
People still want to go on dates (despite Netflix and Chill), get out of the house, etc. Theater revenue wasn't terrible in 2019.
One problem is that you actually have option #2. Releases are going straight to home streaming, bypassing theaters. Losing that exclusivity is the real existential threat:
AMC Theatres Won’t Play Universal Movies in Wake of ‘Trolls World Tour’ Dispute [variety.com]
Regal Cinemas warns Universal over Trolls World Tour skipping theaters [theverge.com]
Some of the video on demand releases seem to be hitting $100 million or more. That might not be enough for studios (can a VOD hit $500m, $1bn, $2bn?) but it's better than zero.
It would be funny if drive-ins made a comeback [indiewire.com] (built new screens, reopened closed but not scrapped ones), but I doubt it.
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(Score: 2, Offtopic) by driverless on Friday June 19 2020, @10:52AM (8 children)
Yeah, but that leaves you with that awkward "your place or mine" afterwards while with watching from the couch the question is already answered. As is the location.
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @11:09AM (1 child)
Great for millennials. Just need a couch, somebody's streaming password, maybe some mac & cheese and a $4 wine.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday June 19 2020, @07:11PM
Teens go to theaters in order to do things that are the opposite of practicing proper social distancing.
I hope they have face masks on when they . . . well, I hope they use hand sanitizer when they hold hands.
Better idea than holding hands . . . use a meter stick (once called a yardstick). Each person holds one end of the stick, to keep distance, but it's like holding hands. And it doesn't look one bit ridiculous. Nope, not at all.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @11:36AM (5 children)
On second thought, millennials will need to downgrade following the pandemic [archive.is]. Mattress on the floor (no bed frame), illicit streaming site on a $50-$80 tablet or laptop, rice and beans, and bottom shelf vodka or grain alcohol mixed with $2/gallon apple juice. Permanent birth control should be used before the "chill" encounter, if applicable.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:23PM
Psh. I drink handcrafted artisan vodka you insensitive clod!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 19 2020, @12:47PM (3 children)
Man, you know how to show a girl a good time.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 19 2020, @12:48PM
:-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @12:57PM (1 child)
Stolen Wi-Fi, oatmeal, a rug on the floor, and heroin.
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(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 19 2020, @01:09PM
I'll see your Wi-Fi, oatmeal, rug, and heroin and raise you a can of Schlitz and a doorway in the rain.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:27PM (2 children)
I'm predicting another Asian import - "karaoke". Rent a room with enough space for a small gathering, with projectors, sound, etc. You're missing the exhibitionist aspects of a date at the theater, but it's an improvement for everyone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @03:27PM (1 child)
Disco.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @07:00PM
Disco is dead, man.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday June 19 2020, @12:58PM
I'd embrace and extend your remarks by reading people as mostly teens living with their parents.
Teen couples will need a place to make out. Where I live the weather in the park is unpredictable. By the late 80s security guards kicked most of the kids out of the mall, and malls are dying out with the WWII and boomer generations anyway.
My gut level guess is "teen date" locations are a good long term investment. "Rock climbing adventure" "roller skate" maybe the 50s style ice cream shops and even older under-21 dance halls will come back? I think teens are a bit too self conscious for indoor water parks or even gyms to be first date locations; later in the relationship, maybe.
Teens wanna make out while being mostly, but not entirely, unsupervised also without totally freaking out their parents (plausible deniability), and someone gonna make money off it.
I've been married a long time; do adults still go to movies on dates? I don't see many obvious dating couples in the rare event that I go to a theater, whereas when I was a kid thats where you went to make out so there were tons of couples.
I would imagine the rise of single parent households (like 80% for some races) and the death of 9-5 full time working hours means kids probably fool around in their homes. Kids have money, but not much, and why spend the money on tickets and $20 tubs of popcorn if mom is at work till '11 anyway?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @10:21AM (18 children)
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8547827/2019-global-box-office-revenue-hit-record-425b-despite-4-percent-dip-in-us [billboard.com]
There was a dip in U.S. revenues in 2019 but it didn't seem that dire. COVID-19 just creamed the entire industry and could accelerate streaming / home cinema trends by 5 years after the dust settles.
VR is still a bit too immature to take over virtual theater duties. Not enough people have the headsets. Resolution of low-end standalone headsets might need to be higher for better viewing of 4K content. But VR isn't strictly needed; people are content to watch streaming content on TVs, tablets, and even phones. OLED + High Dynamic Range on those devices would be great for killing the theater, but again, it's a bit early.
It's years early for home users to adopt laser projectors, which would be perfect. Projectors may be a niche in the first place but cheaper DLP/LCD/LED projectors dominate. Ultra short throw laser projectors could have some serious appeal if they were priced at $1,000 and below. Short throw is more convenient because viewers can move around without blocking the beam, you don't have to run wires across the room, etc. Picture size can be gigantic, and a lot cheaper than the equivalent TV sizes. Laser inherently permits great contrast and HDR.
COVID caught the world's pants down and came too soon for a lot of technologies, including driverless cars. Maybe movie theaters will be able to recover by 2021, if only because Americans don't seem to care about risking infection. But Winter is Coming and that might cause a wave of bankruptcies.
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(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday June 19 2020, @10:31AM (3 children)
No no, not VR for watching movies. I'm talking interactive VR. My company tried to install gaming rigs in theater lobbies - as in, you go there to play a virtual game with your buddies. That flopped spectacularly.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @11:06AM (1 child)
I was just considering the more likely interaction between theaters and VR: VR headsets allow a virtualized theater experience (for movies or plays) and people stop going to the real theaters. Pick any seat in the house, move your head around to see everything if you are up close. You could even do what driverless hates and simulate the noise and talking, by networking with friends or strangers for synced viewing, and positioning the audio streams based on locations in the virtual environment (don't forget a per-person mute feature, or maybe automatic filtering of annoying coughs).
Bringing VR into the real world is an interesting idea, although it's not happening during a pandemic. Companies like StarVR market their headsets for "high-end enterprise applications and location-based entertainment". But your movie theaters weren't going to succeed with "location-based entertainment". Instead, it should be the laser tag and paintball centers that have any chance of monetizing VR. Most people aren't going to have an Omni treadmill at home, and don't have a lot of space to move around in without hitting their head on the coffee table and dying [soylentnews.org]. Get a field or a warehouse, set up some cheap obstacles, rent out headsets and equipment. Maybe use some 5G "picocells" [5gradar.com] to send data to the headsets.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:33PM
Laser tag with good AR/VR would be amazing! With some standardized maps, you could have worldwide multiplayer competition.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Saturday June 20 2020, @12:19AM
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday June 19 2020, @01:08PM (3 children)
My wife veto'd this tech as it has certain requirements for interior design that she just wasn't willing to play along with.
Also the effect of latitude is weird. So where I live, in the winter, I can eat dinner in the dark which is great if you want to whip out the 1970s slides or the proposed 2020s projector after dinner. But in the summer, its twilight until bedtime. Maybe projectors will sell really well at low latitudes. Like if there's alligators living in your neighborhood ponds, then you probably own a projector, but if you've seen the northern lights from your backyard, then no projector.
I like the idea in theory, but if it would involve remodeling our house to implement, that's getting kinda extreme.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @01:36PM (2 children)
Yeah, it's not going to work out for everyone, but there's something to be said for having a nice blank wall or pull-down screen instead of a bulky entertainment center. You can put everything away and have a couple feet of extra room to work with when you need it.
On brightness, some of these projectors are bright enough to use with daylight coming into the room (but laser projectors are in a $2,500 to $12,000 price range [projectorreviews.com] for now). They need to be bright anyway to handle high brightness spots in HDR content. And you could also use... curtains.
In other news... outdoor QLED TVs! [theverge.com]
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(Score: 2) by EEMac on Friday June 19 2020, @06:20PM (1 child)
I've had both. I also remember when a 19" TV was huge. To me, 55" feels like a home movie screen, and that's lower-mid-range for TVs at this point.
Modern flat screens have tons of advantages over projectors:
1. Brighter image
2. Sharper image
3. Longer life
4. No expensive bulbs to replace
5. No warm-up time
6. Decent built-in speakers
Projectors:
1. Can make a bigger image
The only reason I'd recommend a projector at this point is if you can't get a flat screen TV that's big *enough*.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @06:46PM
I didn't advocate getting a bulb-based projector. I'm only interested in 4K+ ultra short throw laser projectors. Different animal. Probably none of those advantages apply outright, and you'd have to compare brightness/sharpness on a case by case basis.
For flat screens, I want to see MicroLED [wikipedia.org] replace everything. Basically OLED with none of the downsides, except cost for now.
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(Score: 2, Redundant) by VLM on Friday June 19 2020, @01:18PM (9 children)
Some long term data for ticket sales:
https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/top-movie-ticket-sellers-of-all-time/ [ultimatemovierankings.com]
Generally movies seem to be narrowcasting and getting more politically correct (all dying industries swing hard left on the way down). The long term trend is a majority of the country saw ET in a theater in 1982, turn of the century Disney pirate flicks got about 1 in 5 people to show up, and more recently cape-shit movies are lucky to get 1 in 10 people to show up.
You can still make money and still make increasing sales of an irrelevant industry; look at book stores. Just not going to have any cultural influence or impact unlike the old days, and its going to have the usual problems that tiny niche industries have. Theaters won't go out of business, they just won't matter anymore.
In the long run, the problem is going to be, why do we have all these theaters all over with hyper financially leveraged megacorporate owners, then they seemingly all go out of business at the same time because there's just too many and the "big NYC bankers" overextended. See also, indoor enclosed 80s style shopping malls, department stores, mortgage brokers pre '07, bowling alleys, pretty much any boom-bust fad. In a theoretical 2030 there might be 1 in 50 people who still want to go to old time movies, but once the big national chain(s) go out of business.... they can't. Kinda like 1 in 200 people might want to shop at Sears, and normally a store with 1 in 200 reach should be successful, but Sears Inc no longer extends their hospitality to shoppers nor even exists, so ...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by looorg on Friday June 19 2020, @01:40PM (8 children)
I used to go to the movie about 1-2 a week, when I was in my 20:s. Then the older I got I started to notice how the movies just got more and more stupid, or to put it in another way -- I was getting to old and I was no longer the target audience for the majority of movies they kept pushing out. So I started to go less and less and now I'm down to maybe I'll go and see like 1 movie per year, 1917 was probably the last movie I saw -- beginning of this year some time. I don't recall there being anything interesting in the movie pipeline for the rest of the year.
So if they keep doing movies that just target teenagers and such, with heavy leanings to "progressive" lefty agendas. Then yes it might not be so strange that people don't want to come and pay for the Hollywood-agenda to be pushed upon them. I want a good interesting story, not their political views or tales of absurd morality.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @01:57PM (1 child)
Even if you agree with the message, no one likes being subjected to morality lessons, and they especially don't like paying for it.
(Score: 2, Troll) by VLM on Friday June 19 2020, @11:03PM
Movies are kind of the left's Church.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 19 2020, @02:15PM (4 children)
Same here. In the 1980s, I watched lots of movies. No TV.
In the 1990s watched a few movies. Good stuff on cable TV. (Yes, there was some good stuff in the 1990s)
In the 2000s watched more DVDs and uses a TiVo extensively because cable TV had become "reality TV" reruns and marathons of reruns.
In the 2010s I cut the cord and use only subscription streaming. I lean heavily toward ad free content.
I sometimes find a movie every few years that I think is worth seeing in a theater. But wow are theaters ghost towns (and I mean even several years before covid-19).
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(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday June 19 2020, @02:27PM (3 children)
Very similar experience. I got rid of my TV in the early 2000:s. Then switched to just, lets call it, online content. Mostly I'll wait for a show or something to go for a season and then watch it when it comes out in a box and similar. With the subscription services this has somewhat started to be the new norm as they release an entire season on the same day and then you can binge or watch it in whatever fashion you prefer. I like that a lot more then the old "tune in on wednesday at 2015 for the next four months!".
By not having a TV anymore I guess I still have some kind of appreciation for the cinema screen and soundsystem as I just have none of it at home and no interesting in having one either. Several large monitors are quite enough for me. So it's still special in some way, there just isn't very much to see anymore as far as I'm concerned -- mainly due I guess to me no longer being their target audience as grumpy middle aged men just isn't a big demographic for producers these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @05:20PM (2 children)
Breaking News!
Man on the Internet announces he has no TV!
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday June 19 2020, @06:57PM
Unlike FoxNews, over at CNN they don't just make up stuff and call it "News".
CNN calls it BREAKING NEWS.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Saturday June 20 2020, @04:41AM
Is it really unusual anymore? And for those that have a TV, how many people actually use it as a TV?
I don't watch TV, but I guess I can't claim I don't have a TV, though I don't have a modern HDTV.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday June 19 2020, @02:27PM
PG or PG-13 films are usually more lucrative than R-rated films. So that has influenced a lot of the content.
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(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday June 19 2020, @02:58PM (1 child)
That's not really surprising: Why bother getting up out of your chair, driving to some building, and paying $15-20 to get in to see something, when you can sit at home and see the same film on a streaming service for under $5? I've been in some theaters that are very nice and comfortable, but still have the problem of having to actually get off your tuchas.
And of course the trend isn't really recent: 40 years ago, with the beginnings of widespread home video with VHS and Betamax, they knew they would one day be screwed. As usual, pr0n led the way, ending the industry of "adult" film theaters that were once found in places like Times Square.
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(Score: 2) by deadstick on Saturday June 20 2020, @12:38AM
Comfortable chair.
Clean bathroom twenty feet away, and a pause button for when I need it.
My feet don't stick to the floor.
No loudmouths.
Refreshments at grocery store prices -- and liquor store prices -- and pot dispensary prices.
If I hate the movie, I can turn my chair around and screw around on the computer without spoiling my wife's pleasure.
I didn't need a pandemic to figure that out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @04:05PM
This has always been a specter looming over movie theaters. Did you ever wonder why 4:3 aspect TV's (i.e. NTSC Analog) were designed as 4:3 aspect? Because at the time TV was being designed, movies were 4:3 aspect. When TV's started to become popular, the movie industry and the theaters started to offer "widescreen" movies to offer "something compelling to get people out of their homes".
But yes, your point is valid. Many people have a more than good enough setup at home now that there is less reason to go to a theater. And the advantage of remaining home is one does not get shafted for a $13 bucket of popcorn and a $6.50 soda that contains $0.25 worth of syrup, water, and ice.