SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(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.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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?