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Movie Theaters Will Look Vastly Different if They Survive COVID-19

posted by martyb on Friday June 19 2020, @07:31AM   
from the netflix-n-chill dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:I used to work in the cinema industry Re:I used to work in the cinema industry (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday June 19 2020, @02:58PM (1 child)

  by Thexalon (636) on Friday June 19 2020, @02:58PM (#1010063)

  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.

  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.

  --
  The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.

  Parent

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• Re:I used to work in the cinema industry (Score: 2) by deadstick on Saturday June 20 2020, @12:38AM

  by deadstick (5110) on Saturday June 20 2020, @12:38AM (#1010213)

  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.

  Parent