The last movie we attended people were incredibly disruptive throughout the film, to the point that it was difficult to focus on the film. Some people enjoy screaming, laughing, and talking as part of the experience, but it's apparently been normalized beyond my tolerance threshold. Add in the cost and overall movie quality decrease of Hollywood productions, and it's difficult to justify.
Presently, we watch foreign movies at home 95% of the time and maybe a Hollywood production when they manage to find their roots and create something worth watching.
With current TV setups or projector technology I basically have cinema in my living room.
As a kid who grew up in 90’s I would say it is easily better than what cinema had back then.
I don’t have that high expectations of sound/video as many people will point out that streaming kills the quality but for all its worth still much better than what I need to enjoy a movie.
One of the criteria for me to go to the theater was the big screen and big sound would really add to the experience. The last film I saw in the theater was was so loud that it physically hurt and ruined the experience.
As you say with the image quality being as high at home now plus a decent surround system really makes the theater experience at home very enjoyable.
If you are in an urban area and are not a millionaire, you probably live in some kind of apartment or studio. And yes, you can stick up a projector and a good surround system... but it might be that the builder cut corners on the floors and your neighbors already come knocking when you are talking, much less turn up the audio system to a tenth of the sound pressure a good cinema sound system provides.
I do live in an apartment and I am far from a millionaire.
I don't have any of the problem - but I don't have "cinema sound system" as I mentioned whatever I have must have just clear sound and clear doesn't mean loud. I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie.
> I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie.
Unfortunately, most cinema movies are not properly remastered in their audio tracks, but keep the original cinema mix. That results in very silent dialogue (which is not a problem in a cinema, at least as long as people behave and don't yap around all the time) and very loud sequences particularly in action shots.
When you now give such a movie to your usual home theater setup, you have to turn up the volume enough so you can understand the dialogue and either constantly turn it down whenever it gets heated or live with neighbors complaining.
Straight-to-streaming releases usually don't suffer from that problem, because they are made and mixed for normal users streaming on their laptops with shitty speakers. Note I said usually, because Disney's Star Wars series are still mastered for decent setups with dynamic range.
There's a debate to be had about the impact of that on storytelling, as straight-to-streaming these days is produced with the movie/episode on a side screen while people are doing something else, so everything that you would normally see on a screen is verbally described by actors, but that's another debate entirely.
Thanks for clarifying that. I always thinking it was due to my bad hearing or lack of fluency! English is my second language, and without subtitles, I'm having trouble to understand the dialogues without increasing the volume until I reach a level where I also got disturbed from the sound effects, bg music etc. It's a bigger issue with movies, not only due to what you explained about sound mixing, but also error correction of my brain works worse without the context, unlike series where I know the plot and the characters.
Watch out for any show with Christopher Nolan as director. He is notorious for terrible audio mixing, and having actor mumble and otherwise dictate horribly.
As an american and English as my only human language, even I need subtitles.
And the movie "Tenet" was so bad that I ragequit 30 minutes in. Horrible horrible audio.
Back pre digital I was once lucky enough to see Aliens on one of the private cinemas at Fox, and it was astounding. I think people underestimate how poorly operated most normal cinemas used to be, combined with maybe not the best prints etc.
I remember seeing In the Mood for Love on the big screen in my local arthouse cinema back around 2000. It was shot with analogue film and projected as such, and the sheer details of the textures were astounding. It's not a bad film on my 4k monitor, but I don't feel the same awe.
IIRC in the film era there was one "master" of the movie, it was duplicated multiple times to make negative versions of the film, then those negatives are used to make the positive copies that are sent to theaters. So you're watching something that has been copied at least twice.
Commercial theaters are all digital now. They don't even have film projectors anymore. Some independent or "revival" cinemas might still have them.
As a huge film buff, I sadly agree. And theaters in my area aren’t doing a good job keeping their projection technology current. When we went to see “Wicked”, my wife leaned over and whispered that it would probably look better on our 77” OLED, and she was absolutely right. The theater image was dark and lacked vibrant color.
Sort of off topic, but almost the same can be said for music concerts. During slower or softer songs, people can be heard talking and laughing loudly. I get it, they paid their money, same as us, but we didn't pay to hear them.
People call the classical music audience prudish for demanding quiet during performances, but IMO when you go to a concert it should be ok to shush people who talk during the quiet parts.
A couple of years ago, I went to see Echo & The Bunnymen open for Violent Femmes. I had seen the Femmes multiple times, but was really excited to see Echo. These two old biddies that sat in front of us talked the entire show. In between bands, one of them dropped their purse without noticing. I picked it up and offered in exchange for the purse if they wouldn't mind talking through the next act. They were shocked at the nerve and said they didn't talk that much. I then told them all about their kids and their school work and other nonsense that I had to endure. The looked at each other like "oops". To my luck, the show was not sold out, and we moved down our row to get away from them. I obviously gave the purse back
I went with my daughter to see Taylor Swift in Tokyo. It was an amazing experiences. Swift fans prefer recording Tokyo performances because fangs don’t sing along to the music or talk during the performance.
Just went to a very small show, 200 tickets but lots of no shows. Maybe 100 people there total. The folks at the bar were so rude to the talent just loudly talking over them. I just don’t get it.
There's a middle ground. I go for the laughter and reaction of the audience. I don't go to hear the 2 people behind me have a conversation during the movie. Nor do I go to have people critiquing the movie out loud as we're watching it. I certainly don't go to watch people pop out their phones and scroll through social media or check their messages.
One of my better cinema experiences was watching Austin Powers 3 at the theater in some random late-morning screening where there were only three friends and me in the hall, plus two elderly ladies in their 70s. They were laughing so hard that the movie became even funnier for us, because you somehow wouldn’t expect them to find it that hilarious.
Also, growing up in a small town in Yugoslavia in the 80s definitely didn’t guarantee a top-tier cinema experience, to put it mildly. But the feeling I had watching the James Bond opening credits from a damaged film reel, with frayed subtitles projected from a decades-old projector, is something I can never quite recreate when watching on a 4K screen from a perfect source. So there's that.
The midnight showing of movies like Rocky Horror Picture show are fun when everyone knows that audience participation is the entire reason of going, but that's the only time I want audience participation.
This is why I strongly endorse buying a projector if the space allows for one. Changed the home experience. I thought I might be making a mistake when I bought my first (720p) years ago but I'd never go back to a traditional television.
Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets.
So the theatres stay alive by selling concessions.
I'd wager everyone here complaining about prices would also wax poetic about how theatres don't "pay a living wage" to the kids scooping popcorn and would immediately drive home in their $100k Rivians or Teslas so they can give a one star review on Yelp or complain on Reddit about the bathrooms or floors being dirty or sticky.
These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.
> These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.
This seems weirdly condescending, especially since I think these two things are very related.
There are two types of $14 food truck grilled cheese in my experience:
The first type is usually found at farmer’s markets or free city events where the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients.
The second type is where there’s a captive audience, like a music festival or a brewery patio. This is no free market: you are hungry, and you’re about to be exploited.
I find American society increasingly reflected in the second type of $14 grilled cheese. Movie theaters, sporting events, music events, video games, tipping culture, hidden fees, etc. etc. Exploitative business practices to extract profit at the expense of the customer. It’s like walking around being shown the middle finger at all times. And people complain about the breakdown of the social contract…
> the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients.
Simple ingredients should be cheap. It’s fucking cheese and bread, stop trying to normalize $15 for it. The raw ingredients are milk and wheat, both of which are incredible cheap.
You’re disregarding training, labor, and the intangibles of culture and tradition. Those things should be cheaper, but in America we’ve basically all but destroyed bakery artisanship at the altar of capitalist efficiency, so its rarity has now made its products more expensive. Cheese is in a slightly better position, but only barely, and very regionally-dependent (Wisconsin and Oregon, for example).
So yeah, I don’t disagree, it should be about half the price if we had better artisan programs in the US. But I don’t think wonder bread and Kraft singles should set the bar for grilled cheese pricing.
The reasoning doesn't particularly matter to me, honestly. Whether or not it they need to charge a second mortgage to cover the cost of the theater isn't really my problem; these are for-profit companies, I don't need to do them any favor.
Popcorn cost basically nothing to make at home, especially if you buy the raw kernels and pop them yourself, and I can rent a 4k version of a movie for like three dollars on Amazon. My 85" 8k TV cost me $1200 (refurbished, but still). For the cost of going to the theater with my wife 15 times, I can buy that TV to watch movies but also use that same TV for many other things.
Even cheap shitty TVs are pretty ok nowadays, certainly better than the stuff when I was a kid, and after I have to question the point of going to an expensive physical theater where there's a risk of some teenagers talking over the movie and I can't pause if I need to use the bathroom. The theaters might not like it, but regardless of whether its fair, they are competing with TVs now.
I am with you on everything but the TV speakers. They are awful because TVs are so thin. They are running into pure physics. Get a nice soundbar, and it's a huge upgrade. Get one with separate rear speakers and a sub, and it's pretty great.
But the experience is way better than when we were kids. Watching Jurassic Park on a 19-inch CRT with mono audio was nothing like going to the theater. The delta between home and cinema was massive. Now I have a 77-inch OLED with 4K HDR and an Atmos sound setup. I'd take my home setup over a generic cinema screen. Only the premium large format is a noticeable upgrade. It's hard to justify shelling out a ton of money for the movie and snacks for similar audio/visual quality to home, and the risk that the person next to me is checking their phone the entire time (happened a year ago, and it's super distracting in a dark theater).
I buy popcorn kernels in bulk at my local grocery store, and we go through a lot of popcorn. It might cost $10 a year in kernels to regularly eat popcorn at home when you pop it yourself.
Everyone I know with an Espresso machine still goes to coffee shops. Beer is cheaper from a super market but everyone I know prefers pubs.
For some reason this does not hold with cinemas. I way prefer the escapism of the cinema to sitting in my house surrounded by my usual ambient domestic Todo list. Sure I have a very good oled, amazing surround sound, but I'd take the cinema every time. But I can't due to kids.
However, I'm the outlier, none of my friends prefer the cinema. No idea why.
I would generally agree with you except for three points: 1) the price of going to the cinema has surged so much that you have to budget for it in a way you didn't before. 2) I can pause a movie at any time and go to the bathroom or get a new drink. The lack of intermission during longer movies at the theater is rough. 3) The behavior of moviegoers continues to decline. In particular, people with untreated ADHD constantly checking their phones is really distracting. A phone screen really pops in a dark movie theater. And when I watch these people check their phones, they aren't doing anything other than habitually dicking around.
I can go to the movie and there is a decent chance people will talk through the movie or will be on their phones, etc. Or I could watch at home and be guaranteed a great experience.
Movie theaters have to upgrade the experience. They need to police patrons like they used to. They need to sell better food and drinks. And they need to get the pricing model under control.
> Beer is cheaper from a super market but everyone I know prefers pubs.
It's a pretty frequent complaint that drinks at pubs, bars, and restaurants have become extortionately expensive, to the point that a lot of younger people are drinking less for that reason.
I avoid "bars" where the bar tenders only pour beers. I much prefer the higher end places where every drink is hand made in front of you where the quality of the bartender is everything. I recognize the skill and accept that the price of the cocktail will be set accordingly. There are places that make cocktails with the same ice they use for soft drinks from premade cocktails charging the same price. I do not go back to those ever again after I slog down the one drink. Luckily, I'm a freak where I didn't actually start drinking until I was in my 30s so I didn't have to suffer being broke at a bar.
Even outside of pubs and restaurants. Six packs and cases in the grocery store are all hugely inflated. Since I like beer, I got an old freezer and built a kegerator out of it and now buy my beer by the keg. (For now) keg prices are barely reasonable. $10 for a glass of beer at a restaurant?? Fuck right off with that.
I don't drink alcohol or coffee, so I can't really relate to the others.
I will admit to having good experiences going to the theater with friends and/or family, but I don't really enjoy watching a movie with strangers. Nowadays if I want to watch a movie with friends, I will simply invite them over and we'll watch it together.
More power to you if you like going to a theater, I'm not trying to convince you to stop, just that I don't feel the value-add is worth it to me anymore. Decent TVs have gotten so cheap that I just prefer to watch movies at home.
My ideal movie experience is to go during the day towards the end of a run when there's a fair chance the theatre will either be empty or almost empty.
But I haven't even done that for a while.
If it's going to be crowded - no thanks.
Tangentially, because my gf works in opera I've been to some productions, and real theatre - a real stage, with real people, and real stage effects - can have a presence and magic that cinema can't touch.
So I'd much rather spend money on that now. It's physically less comfortable because of the seats, but as an experience it's so much more hands-on, hand-made, and satisfying, and creatively it leaves so much more space for atmosphere and implication.
I've had the same thoughts, also I sure don't miss the theater experience of having your shoes sticky with soda. God forbid you drop something on the floor like your phone, and have to feel around for it in the dark.
The last time I went to a theater, I went to the first showing of the movie for the day. We were the only people in the theater. 30 minutes into the movie, the projection suddenly shut off and all the lights turned on. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, we went out to talk to a staff member about it, and they told us that the computer said there was no one in the theater so they should shut it off. Long story short, they did not end up turning it back on, and referred us to the customer support hotline to try and get our money back. And this might be a little ageist, but there's something infuriating about a condescending teenager acting like this is somehow our fault. Yeah, no thank you.
Wow, that’s really a never again experience. Regardless of whether you got your money back or not, your anecdote makes clear that the movie theater business is on autopilot with extraction set to high. Last time for me the pre movie high volume advertising shower totally put me off from ever set foot in a movie theater again. The volume was so cranked up that it was distorting the sound so badly it was all unintelligible. There was nobody in charge to turn that down and it went on like that for 10 minutes. That was to me a never again experience.
I remember when I was watching Kick-Ass in the theater, there were some teenagers trying to be funny the entire time.
I initially very politely asked them if they could stop talking because we're trying to watch the movie, but they didn't take that very seriously.
After another ten minutes of their commentary I yell very loudly "SHUT THE FUCK UP!". Extremely loud, I suspect everyone in the theater heard me pretty clearly. I'm a pretty big guy and I have a very loud and deep voice, and of course the theater is dark, so they might have assumed I was more threatening than I actually am. The teenagers shut up for the rest of the movie.
The thing is, though, it kind of ruined the rest of the movie for me. The entire time I'm sitting there, kind of worked up and annoyed that I had to yell at some kids and ruin their Friday night.
I've certainly had good times in theaters too, I like movies, but I've grown a bit tired of it. Now generally the only time I go to the theater is the live showings of The Room.
When my wife and I first started dating, we went to one of those cheap second-run theaters.
I liked that theater because it was super cheap (like seriously $1.50 for a ticket because it showed out of date movies). One time when she and I were watching The Purge, I hear this kind of squishy noise from right behind me.
I turn around, and a guy is getting a handjob. I motion to my wife that we need to move a few seats over.
You know, The Purge isn't the worst movie ever but I gotta admit that it's not a movie that ever really turned me on either. To each their own, I suppose.
From that point forward we always called that the Handjob Theater.
I complain about movie costs while I watch movies at home, drive a VW that was under $40k new, live in a state with a minimum wage over $17 an hour, and refuse to pay $14 plus tip to a food truck that doesn't provide seating when I can pay $12 and no tip at a fast food restaurant that does provide dine-in eating.
Some of us live our principles, we're not all just whinging hypocrites.
If all of those things are true, then the conclusion is that theaters can’t operate in a way that wins my business. That would be unfortunate, but it’s not contradictory. It also seems to be that pretty much true, as I see a movie in a theater maybe once a year.
Actually, yes, I do think that netflix could do their job much cheaper. I use putflix, which uses put.io for $0.99 per month. Better quality streaming than netflix, no forced ads, and they can make it work for $1. Maybe it's the model where my monthly subscription pays for their entire catalog that's broken. Maybe it should just be a la carte licensing.
Either way, until the industry lets me pay directly to the org that literally made the movie, I'll just pirate.
I do want to pay the artists that make the films. I think the most viable way to do this is via cryptocurrency associated with social media accounts, and then validate ownership by having owners post a magic validation link. This way I can send artists money and it's on them to go get it if they want it.
putflix is criminal theft. They pay nothing to people who make movies. You can drive the cost to zero by downloading torrents directly from pirate bay.
If you did want to pay the artists then you would pay for netflix of rent/buy from a number of places (amazon video, youtube, apple).
Your cryptocurrency fantasy is just a way to rationalize stealing.
I believe they wrote that it is consistent to find sufficient utility from a $14 grilled cheese sandwich and also find insufficient utility from a whatever price movie theater experience.
It isn’t written out, but when people complain about the price of anything, they are complaining the price to utility ratio. Not exactly profound stuff, but that is basically what it is, most people don’t get a sufficiently better experience in theaters in today’s world.
The extension of my logic to Netflix would be, if I think their prices are too high and that causes me not to subscribe, and their prices are so high because they need to pay very high salaries, then there’s just no way that Netflix can exist in a form that I would subscribe to.
> the conclusion is that theaters can’t operate in a way that wins my business
They can, if studios gave them a better deal: "Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets."
That is not a fact of nature, but the studio's whim. If they want to drive theaters out of business and send all their customers to the pirate bay, they are more than welcome to.
Where is that? Tickets here are only $7-10 each (except maybe some IMAX or similar showings) and two drinks and popcorn would be $15-25 for two people (size dependent). This is in Colorado.
EDIT: I was going off of memory, but matinee/child/senior pricing is apparently $9.75 at the theater I usually go to, evening is $13.25 (I never go in the evening, had forgotten what that price was). They have a two drink and popcorn combo for $22.10. So the worst case of evening prices (again, not considering IMAX, just regular screens and seats) for two with that combo is $48.60. That's not cheap, but it's not $86 either. And if you're willing to share the drink and go to a matinee you can cut the price to $34.80. This is a Cinemark, a pretty big theater chain.
I thought tickets had more standard pricing across markets. For a standard ticket here in SF -- (I know we're comparing probably the highest end to the lowset end here) -- its $22. For IMAX its about $30, at your standard AMC. Indie theatres are not cheaper and are often more expensive.
7 dollar tickets I haven't seen since elementary school
Other side of the pond here (western Europe), but I pay 6 in an indie cinema, 12 if I went to IMAX and similar (which I never do because most of those are dubbed).
Popcorn and drinks is usually roughly the same price as the ticket, though the smaller ones frequently forbid it - they claim for the experience, I wonder if it's that or not wanting to clean between passes.
Go on a Tuesday or Wednesday and tickets are 50% off at AMC (and maybe other theaters). While still not cheap, that gets you down to $16.49 for an imax showing at the metreon AMC and $9.49 for a standard screen.
IMAX opening week is a lot, $25-35. After a while it can drop to $20 or so. Regular is more like $20-25 opening week and drops to $12-15.
I don't bother with popcorn and soda, it's grossly over priced. Like $10 for a small popcorn the size of a pint. I buy a 0.5L bottle at the grocery store next to the cinema and some M (our M&Ms), maybe $10.
Though lately I've been going a lot to the local cinemateque. Not only are tickets around $7 regardless, they mostly show classic movies so seldom worse than the new stuff. They show popular movies too, recently saw Heat there, first time I saw it at the big screen since the premiere. Still packed a punch.
I thought that you're being a little too critical. Others should know that Norway is a country with relatively high costs of living.
The minimum wage for a cleaner is 46k per year ($23\h). And your boss better not try any shenanigans, because you're most likely unionized and shouldn't really be messed with.
I've found $18 ticket for opening week for Hail Mary in my city. Most of them were at $23, but that's for the premium sall, with shaking seats or other fancy stuff.
So a person with a job looked down upon in most other countries can still get one ticket for an hour of work.
Reason I've felt compelled to reply was because cinema tickets always felt cheap to me in Norway, compared to more like 2h of work for minimum wage worker in Poland where I originally come from. Compared to any other prices like $15 for a beer at a bar or $30+ for a bottle of vodka in the alcohol shop* they just always felt like a steal. YMMV OFC.
*Interesting trivia: The alcohol shop is called Vinmonopolet and it really is a monopoly. The only company allowed to sell alcohol above 4.7% is run by the state. They have shops in towns, and if you live far from one (like most of northern Norway past the polar circle) you're most likely getting your alcohol from homebrew mafia instead.
I wasn't trying to be critical actually, as for non-opening weeks I agree, it's not bad at all. I mainly just wanted to provide a point of comparison.
IMAX opening week is a bit more but are comparable to mid-range concert tickets. And it really is a big screen, so can definitely be worth it.
The snacks and drinks at the cinema is wild though I think. As a comparison the M's they sell are twice the price and half the size of that from the grocery store. I get that they want to make some money on it, but 4x the price is just too much for me.
Here in DC is pretty similar - I just checked the Silver Spring Regal and it’d be $82 plus tax for an 8pm showing tonight. I think part of this is the push to promo/membership programs — if you’re price sensitive, you’re not paying $9.54 for a medium soda (not making that up) so they make their margin on the people who just pay and everyone else gets some kind of discount program which gives the company data mining / ad revenue opportunity.
Then I guess you aren't familiar with the 20 minutes of trailers, 1 minute of Cocacola ad and 2 minutes of other completely irrelevant content before the movie actually begins.
And worse, it's not even consistent, they show different amounts of trailers based on the movie/showing! If you show up 20 minutes late, you might miss the start for some movies and yet still have another 15 minutes of trailers for others.
Well at least it's not Amazon prime where they now interrupt the movie for the same ad/trailer 3 for weeks unless you pay extra again.
Fwiw I always enjoyed the trailers at the movies, no the other ads I could very much do away with (and I used to purposefully come late to shows to miss the ads).
As a customer, though, I don't really care about the theater's pricing structure. If I'm paying for a pricey ticket, I don't expect to be advertised to. If the theater experience is lousy, I won't go to the theater.
Not a conventional theater, but I recently went to Vidiots in Los Angeles and enjoyed myself so much I went back a week later. The location I went to has two theaters—37 seat and 270 seat, both with comfortable seating and an excellent picture/sound. Most people who go are kind of movie nerds, so everyone was super respectful. And they don't really play blockbusters, so you don't get that kind of crowd. They seem to be doing well, and I really hope the model works and is reproducible.
Oh, and it was $11 for one of the tickets, $13 for another. I don't remember how much a beer cost, but it was on par with (and maybe less than) local bars.
This seems key, the more comments I read here about cinema theatres and their crowds. Maybe the local (indie) cinematheque is the best movie theatre for money/quality ratio.
Where do you live? I'm in a HCOL area and just checked that same combo for a Friday night premiere and it's more like ~$70.
The markup on concessions has always been a thing but it really is just insane to think the unit economics on 2 sodas and a popcorn must be like 50 cents and selling it from $26 (in my area). Clearly they must make the most money this way but it is just crazy that anyone outside of significant disposable income even considers buying concessions. It's priced in such a way where anyone outside of the top 5% income brackets should just laugh at the price and view it as an extreme luxury good and not ever even consider buying anything.
In the millennial suburbs some people have converted their garages into small indie move theaters with good sound systems and people from around the neighborhood show up to watch obscure movies together and eat barbecued food.
Is this actually a broad trend, or more just your personal experience? There is very little that could get me to move back to the suburbs, but this kind of thing is compelling.
This isn't why Hollywood is dying. Hollywood is dying because it's cheaper to make movies elsewhere. We're (probably) still going to have movies for a long time. In the same way that we still have cars long after Detroit "died".
I wouldn’t even say that. It’s dying because people are spending a lot of time watching YouTube, instagram and TikTok. A lot of people now just don’t watch a lot of long form content.
What theater is that at? Sounds like a mega chain like AMC or Regal. The local indie theater we go to in one of the 5 largest American cities has never been over $15 per ticket and adding popcorn and a drink is maybe $10 more on top.
Do they get first-run releases? Around here AMC has some sort of exclusive on that. And their theatres are disgusting. Sticky floors, dirty seats, just gross.
I haven't been to a movie in a theater in at least 10 years.
Here in Finland this would cost about 50 euro, which is still a lot, but for me the main reason to never go to a movie theater again is that even after paying all of this money, the first 15 minutes is filled with advertisement, then 15 more minutes of movie trailers, then some "IMAX" or whatever intro video. By the time the movie starts, I feel like I've been watching tiktok for a day.
Movie theaters around me (even the high end ones) have 30 minutes of commercials and previews before the movie, so I typically arrive 25 minutes after showtime, no problem.
However it is still frustrating that they expect you to tolerate 30 minutes of commercials after paying so much money.
I still go to arthouse movies regularly, mostly because it forces me to give them undivided attention
Although, I’ll admit I go way less often than two years ago when I was full time WFH. Which begs the question if I just went for a reason to leave the house
I don't know where people get these crazy prices. Try to find a little hole-in-the-wall theater. I like the local Landmark Cinema. It is about $8 a ticket and I skip on the junk food.
There is another theater on the other side of town that does midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Those kinds of places are also cheap.
I think it's more relevant to talk about theaters showing current new movies because that's kind of what Hollywood is focused on. I'm in a more expensive city where a weeknight non-matinee will run $20 a pop for a current release. Comfort is average but food is pretty solid. Not Alamo, but similar service level. Not unusual for a couple to leave paying more like 80 after concessions.
Alamo food and service have absolutely tanked over the last year. They no longer prohibit phones during the film. In fact, now they require one to order food. They have completely undermined their entire value proposition. Alamo Drafthouse is a walking corpse.
Where I go it's about $33 for two tickets bought online and probably $20 for those snacks, though we usually share a drink and a popcorn. The theater is still usually empty.
The market-clearing price is nearly zero except for some new releases. Oppenheimer was sold out in its first weekend, for example.
Anyone who went to movies before about 1999 remembers them being a lot more popular.
For a long time now I've felt that there's only situation where it makes sense. That's movies where it is something about it would make it much more enjoyable on IMAX or similar with a professional sound system. So something in the visual spectacle category.
For any normal movie I'd rather just watch it from my couch. But for the once in a while, over the top, blockbuster I'll still go to a theater.
I enjoyed each one in the theater but I tried watching Avatar: The Way of Water at home and despite having an entire media room devoted to good sound, proper lighting well calibrated projector and such it was not all that great. The movie fell a little flat without the theater experience to go with it.
I saw the limited run in advance to the 3rd one coming out in theaters again and it was good in that setting, as a reference point for my experience
Exactly, Avatar was literally what I was picturing when I wrote that. They're not good movies. But damn they're fun to watch in 3D, on a giant screen, and with great sound.
That's not to say that all movies in this category are *only* worth watching in the theater like Avatar is. For instance I would have still enjoyed the recent Dune movies either way but they were a lot better with all the pomp & circumstance.
At that point what you are describing is a theme park ride. It only works a handful of times though before people get bored of it and want something else.
Tent-pole black movies? Basically anything Ryan Coogler or Jordan Peele are involved in. They're a case where the unfortunate stereotype might work out in your favor, if you're looking for a group experience that heightens with shared energy and a visual-and-sonic spectacle. (Well, assuming it's true.)
Or maybe it's just a horror/Marvel thing. Weapons and Endgame had a similar audience feel to Sinners and Black Panther.
Definitely not during Chris Nolan films. It's hard enough to hear his dialogue when it's dead silent.
> 2 tickets, 2 sodas, 1 popcorn.
> $86 dollars.
> Don't know if I'll ever go to a conventional movie theater again.
We almost never go to regular theaters anymore. IMAX feels worth it for something like F1 or Top Gun where it’s all about the visual spectacle, otherwise meh.
We go to Alamo Drafthouse a lot tho. A little pricey but the experience of watching a movie in comfy seats over a fairly decent restaurant dinner is fantastic for certain kinds of movies. Peaky Blinders was the most recent. Tommy Shelby paired with a good cocktail or two, fantastic.
Also I don’t know how Alamo achieves this, but people there are really good about noise and other bullshit. I think it’s because they do in fact kick people out for being annoying.
They no longer prohibit phones during the film. In fact, now they require one to place an order. This has just started and is rolling out to every market. It completely undermined their entire value proposition. Alamo Drafthouse is a walking corpse.
The people going to movies regularly are playing a different game.
The prices you see upfront like this are for "suckers". People who come in, don't think about price, and just pay whatever the cost is. McDonald's is like this now too.
People who are concerned about price though - they use the app, they get deals, and so forth. I've gone to movies and done the same thing - two tickets, two drinks, 1 popcorn and it was $30. This is because these movie theaters run "deals" all the time for this stuff.
You'll have to get used to this paradigm as it's the main way everything is priced now. There's not going to be a "one price for everyone" thing anymore. It's going to be dynamic and different pricing for everything.
Our local AMC theater would be $13 a ticket, $8 a drink, and $11 for popcorn (rounding up and assuming the largest sizes, although the prices are in a narrow band so the price difference between the least and most is under a dollar).
So, we’re looking at $53. Which is $33 less than wherever you’re at.
I also don’t know how standardized prices are across all AMC venues. So while Pokopia costs $70 everywhere, the same may not be true of theater tickets and concessions.
But yeah, it’s typically why we try to avoid theater concessions, because they’ve always been overpriced
It's not even price for me - I'm happy to pay for an experience. I'm more annoyed that the theater is basically the worst place to watch a movie now.
The silver screen has a contrast ratio in the hundreds. A $300 consumer TV now looks significantly better than the blurry, muted, and muddled projector image.
Then the audio at theaters is always totally blown out and overly bassy and siblant. Fine for action, I guess, but it makes listening to dialogue exhausting.
And unless you get your favorite seat, you have to watch the movie skewed. God forbid you get a seat in the front and have to crane your neck the whole hour.
Meanwhile I can stay home, not deal with driving 20 minutes and interacting with the public, pay less, eat better food, get blitzed with friends, talk with my wife, have better visuals and audio, etc. Other than nostalgia, there's just no reason at all to go to a movie theater. It's become kind of outdated in an era of modern TVs to me.
I enjoy going to the theater to hear the guy next to me eating popcorn with his mouth open and maximum mandibular crunch. Also, I do enjoy the woman behind me that with her constant non-stop vocal reactions to everything onscreen (anything mildly sad --> "awww"; anything vaguely surprising --> "oooh"; ...).
Other highlights include the super bright EXIT signs flanking both sides of the screen -- helps me get immersed in the scene. The occasional loud bass rumble from the action movie playing one theater over also helps.
Cheapest tickets are £2.50 where I am in London. Maybe £4.50 at a stretch. £10 worse care scenario.
Granted, I don't know about sodas and popcorn, as we always bring or eat beforehand.
Having said that, home theatre is hard to beat but I'd still check a cinema every so often just to experience the group vibe. Nothing beats the collective vibe around a great movie - and worth the risk of shitty neighbours. Maybe I just love cinema.
It’s a communal thing. It’s more than just the sport it’s also about being out with other fans, showing support and usually friendly ribbing of the opposing teams fans from time to time.
That is how it was explained to me when I said something similar
It is surprising that such a large number of people continue to fall victim to fraud at the cinema. High-quality televisions and sound systems are now available at a reasonable price. It has been 12 years since I last attended a movie screening. All content will be available on-demand within a month of the theatrical release. Popcorn maker at home and drinks.
Unless you have a private theater room its not quite the same thing as watching first run movie in a darkend crowded theater - and even that misses the social aspect for an anticipated picture
The communal experience is special
On top of that most people don't have the attention span to sit through a film without opening their phones - film is supposed to be about capturing your attention not just entertainment
The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the room: gaming. The article doesn't mention it. The market for video games in 2024 was around $225B, compared to movies at around $33B. Hollywood has worked very hard not to realize that their industry has become niche and have succeeded.
My last week may be an indicator. I've watched zero TV or movies but have spent about 40 hours helping a small colony of scrappy hard working beavers survive on post apocalyptic earth. Steam got my money, Hollywood didn't.
The biggest competition for movies is actually from Youtube.
While the streaming business led to a growth of the movie industry, pre Covid and pre strikes at least, it's difficult to compete when millions of people can produce good content for low prices.
On top of that, it doesn't help that movies stopped innovating, 2025 box office was entirely dominated by prequels and sequels.
I don't care about avengers, I really don't, the first bored me enough.
Maybe one could reasonably blame on-line video and or video games if this were a global phenomenon.
But it isn't. China and India are going gangbusters. Japan is thriving and doing strong work. Nigerian cinema is projected to hit 3 million ticket sales for the first time this year. The UK--is at least stealing work from Hollywood with tax breaks. Korea had a rough patch, which they turned around by doing more mid-market films.
The US studios problems are unique, which at least suggests that the answer lies in the failures of their leadership. Perhaps their long project of abandoning original mid-market films to push bloated huge special effects heavy franchises was ill-advised. It's almost Like having a portfolio of 10-20 reasonable original bets is better than investing everything in a single expensive "sure-thing" sequel it increasingly seems like no one actually wants to see.
So I agree that Hollywood has stopped innovating, but am dubious that any other problems has much to do with Youtube (as much as I enjoy YouTube).
To be honest, a lot of the YouTube content creators, especially the most successful ones, actually moved to LA and Hollywood already, suggesting that its not Hollywood itself, as a place for developing fresh ideas, that is dying, but its more established institutions. I would say that if you are in LA right now, there is no end to the amount of young people ready and willing to work on some creative entertainment project, but the market is YouTube, and the biggest studio is MrBeast's (among others).
Everytime I see a trailer for an american film I feel like it's the same crap just re-hashed with different actors and the same plots over and over again. Give me something original. Something from Japan, Turkey, India, someone with a new idea.
The Koreans? Yup, they push the boundaries of story telling. For example the School Nurse Files, that was either one of the best or the worse series I've ever seen. I'm still trying to figure it out. No way a Hollywood studio would take a risk like TSNF.
It's funny that you mention Japan, because I live here and I swear 90% of Japanese movies/dramas/animes are just rehashes of the same ideas over and over again. I guess only the good stuff gets exported.
I remember Joel Spoksky talking at a conference when YouTube was new, and media companies were suing it for pirated content, and Joel said that media companies were afraid of users sharing media content, but what they should be afraid of is users sharing their own content and everyone liking that better. Which has steadily come to pass.
Of note here too: There's been a lot of (social media at least) backlash against AAA studios lately. Anecdote: 2025 had a number of great (High quality, popular, award winners/nominees etc), and they weren't from big studios. There seems to be a niche middle-budget level that produces wonders. Just to limit scope to 2025: KCD2, Expedition 33, and Blue Prince were all incredible games. Expedition 33 has my favorite sound track (Or album in general?) of all time. Death Stranding 2 is another great one. By a big studio, but let a creative person run wild with it.
I suspect the problem with AAA games is the same one movie studios face; mass-market appeal and profit-driven-design degrades the experience.
There's definitely been an enslopification of both. Endless sequels. "Franchises" with meaningless stories and common tropes. Maybe it's survivor bias when I think back on older works, but nothing just seems that exciting these days.
The difference between games and movies is how easy it is for entrants comparatively.
Indie / small studios have an infinitely easier time going to market than one would with making a film or especially a TV series.
You just make an account on a platform, sometimes submitting some additional information and paying a small fee, and that’s it. You may not even need actors like for text based games (Shovel Knight, Balatro etc)
Movies is so much more. And the cost of production is higher.
Also, the other big thing to realize is by far what games many people play is dominated by a handful of highly successful live service games. I have friends who only play Fortnite and have for a long time. They don’t play much else other than a few casual games when they take small breaks from Fortnite.
It’s not universal but there is a reason they’re always top of charts for revenue. Millions play every day.
The one other thing I’ll say is that seemingly unlike other media there is enough sufficient customer diversity that one business model doesn’t completely choke off all other types. Look at Expedition 33 for example
I also suspect this is the core reason. There are plenty of bad books, video games etc, including some for the same reasons we have bad movies. But the lower barrier-to-entry allows great ones to exist too!
I don't game at all but watch at least one movie a day as my relaxing time: criterion collection, mubi etc. I go to an indie cinema about once a month, often to see older movies as much as new ones. The cinema is rarely full but they have a good café and affordable subscriptions and I'm guessing some municipal funding, they won't ever run out of films to show. Though the day A24 goes out of business will be my sad day.
I don't watch a movie a day, but I'm at my friendly local indie theater at least once a month. It's got a more comftorable audience, more consistently interesting films, and it costs less than the big theater. If I went just a bit more often, I'd for sure get a subscription. There's already so many good films, and so many good indie films being made, I just don't need the big cinemas.
That’s because Hollywood makes movies, not videogames. You also spent a few hours driving but Hollywood hasn’t done anything about it because they are not in the business of making cars.
They're entertainment, yes, but really not the same. I'll look for a specific game to play, I'll look for a specific movie to watch, and I won't play a game when I want to watch a movie.
Yes, and yet by the counts, Westerners watch more televised content than ever.
If anything the substitute has been TV. Gaming is big, sure, but that doesn't appear to crowd out time reserved for watching media. I expect that the marathoner gamer who plays for hours daily is a comparatively smaller demographic.
It’s funny in tech it’s generally understood that that attention economy apps are in competition even though they ostensibly are not direct competitors. But when it comes to entertainment (the original attention economy) we don’t think of it in the same way.
NFL and related sport are, at least putatively, unscripted.
Which might be raised in relation to gaming as well, but I'd argue that gaming elements share much more in common with cinema, particularly in the contexts of world design, character development, backstory, and of course, CGI.
> That’s because Hollywood makes movies, not videogames
Not true. Most media conglomerates own both video game and movie production. The big players like Disney, Sony, Comcast, Universal, etc all have ownership stakes in video game companies and most TMT funds invest in both as a same bucket.
Yes. Those conglomerates also do TV. But Hollywood makes movies, and not talk shows. Many of those conglomerates also have internet access businesses. But Hollywood doesn’t lay fibre.
"Hollywood" is a metonym/catch-all term for the media industry just like how "Silicon Valley" is for the tech industry and "Wall Street" is for finance.
As more high-tech companies were established across San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the Bay Area's two other major cities, San Francisco and Oakland, the term "Silicon Valley" came to have two definitions: a narrower geographic one, referring to Santa Clara County and southeastern San Mateo County, and a metonymical definition referring to high-tech businesses in the entire Bay Area.[citation needed] The name also became a global synonym for leading high-tech research and enterprises, and thus inspired similarly named locations, as well as research parks and technology centers with comparable structures all around the world.
The time I used to spend watching movies is now spent on YouTube.
With the high quality cameras and drones at approachable prices, it's amazing to watch individuals create videos at such high quality but also has a bit of that DIY vibe that makes it more relatable and enjoyable.
My current fav is watching 4X4 overlanding videos of people driving along some stunning landscapes.
They're trying to avoid thinking (or at least talking) about it because they don't control it. They're hoping that the next downturn (which will almost certainly include a partial collapse of the game industry as we know it) will present an opportunity to scoop up incumbents. At that point, they'll be open about their relationship to, and ambitions, for gaming. Until then, the most you'll hear is A24 stuff, Kojima stuff, and tut-tutting about Ubisoft (almost certainly their first target).
As I wrote elsewhere, I think TV is what is actually consuming cinema's lunch. The average hours spent watching TV have only gone up over the years, but the same is not true of film. Gaming as a "primary" hobby is also quite male-coded (women tend to play on their phones, but they spend by far the most amount of time watching trash tv and Bridgerton or whatever).
Didn't The Game Awards receive more viewers than the Super Bowl? It used to be referred to as, like, "the Oscars for video games", but now it's immensely more popular than the Oscars.
There's no cite for the 171 million, which is a bit hard to believe. There are cites (which I didn't check) for these claims. Maybe they are counting people watching clips on Twitter?
According to Streams Charts, the ceremony peaked at 4.4 million concurrent viewers—the most in its history and a 9% increase from 2024—including 1.4 million viewers on the official YouTube broadcast (an 8% increase) and 1.8 million on Twitch. On YouTube, the ceremony peaked at 2.4 million total concurrent viewers (a 9% increase), including a record 8,600 co-streams.[6] More than 16,500 creators co-streamed on Twitch—a record for the show, representing a 50% yearly increase—with total unique viewers and hours watched each increasing 5% from 2024.[6][114] On Twitter, posts about the show increased by 12%, with more than 1.79 million posts from December 10–12, while the broadcast and related videos received over 60 million views.[6]
They do show the Super Bowl internationally however. I had a client in Brisbane who talked to me about it, as he had been watching it. The international audiences don't have to be fans of American football to take an interest in it for social reasons (the same way people watch sports they don't care about during the Olympics)
OK, but how many markets are Games Awards actively televised in? I believe they have been watched more on YouTube, when I hear watched more than NFL in context of TV discussion I don't think YouTube is the distribution channel, however I followed the wikipedia link and it says "streams" which OK, not how I thought it was being ranked.
If we are ranking on streams however, does this take into account streams of parts of each media? For example streams of Bad Bunny's halftime show, streams of important plays, versus streams of individual awards being presented?
I don't actually care either way, much, since I don't like American football, don't generally like team sports, and don't spend time gaming, but somehow I think the comparison between the two in online streams throws the metrics off.
> The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the room: gaming
Partially, but a massive issue has been the offshoring of Hollywood [0].
UK, Canada, EU states like Ireland and Poland, and others match dollar-for-dollar in subsidizes to incentivize local production, and factoring in lower salaries are able to outcompete even Georgia.
After COVID and the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, production completely left Hollywood.
Film production is high risk and expensive, so margins really matter, so the double whammy of the COVID shutdowns and then fhe WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike became existential.
California has been trying to reincentivize onshoring [1], but it's too little too late. Hollywood even lobbied the Trump admin [2] for a 100% tariff on foreign produced films [3] which more diversified media companies pushed back.
The cultural relevance of movies, and American made movies isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but I think the economics of streaming is finally playing out in the loss of the geographical concentration of power in Hollywood and California.
This is the endgame of the feedback loop of streamers causing industry consolidation... the direct connection of dollars people spend to sit in a theatre seat was slowly declining, but now I think it's gotten so small that it no longer matters- and once the whole box-office feedback loop disappears a lot of the economics of how films are produced are being forced to change.
One of the reasons that people have loved to make fun of Hollywood for literally it's entire existence (besides the fact that the meta talk is self-indulgent artist stuff) is that making movies with so much money and waste is fundamentally ridiculous.
The optimistic viewpoint is that maybe new AI production tools will trigger a re-democratization of creative movies in the next wave, like in the 70s and the 90s indies.
I think the issue is that content creation and distribution has already been fully democratized. How many hours do people spend watching videos shot by individuals on their phones in their apartments?
Combined with streaming, there's just an overabundance of "good enough" content at everyone's fingertips. The moat that protected big-budget feature films is gone. You don't see a trailer for a movie and salivate and wait for it to come out, it just blends in to the stream of 5000 other things you can watch right now.
Like I said elsewhere, I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that are compelling. This is a broad category that I think people still want that's differentiated from 30sec vertical video, and that should exist in the cultural conversation.
It doesn't feel fully democratized because if it was, you'd see more indie things in this same format competing with "big budget" movies on the same playing field.
Creating a good story, getting good actors and getting it all to come together is hard and still costs millions. At the end you may also not get your money back
Take 'I Swear', a very good recent film. It's well worth a watch.
It's made 8.3M. Has it made the money back?
It's not going to compete with 'The Mandalorian and Sidekick'.
That's likely to make several hundred million and still be fairly poor.
> I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that are compelling
Might be an anecdote, but I've noticed several friends and family unable to focus on a movie and lately even on a tv show without pulling their phones every few minutes.
> I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that are compelling.
I mean, "want to" is one thing, but the numbers show what they end up doing. Instagram and TikTok, like video games as someone else mentioned, have taken a significant share of the "entertainment hours" budget. I feel like the impact of the low-to-no-budget content creator is undeniable (this traces back to ebaumsworld and early YouTube, it was just internet dorks then, now it's been industrialized. Gen Z probably wholeheartedly prefers this type of content).
My point was that content creation has been democratized -- unfunded individuals can now compete -- not that making traditional Hollywood-style movies has been. It's gone so far they've been phased out, the entire premise is largely untenable at this point. That specific sector was actually somewhat more democratized in the late stages of the heyday, when a Hollywood movie called Dude, Where's My Car was made, and indie films did flourish because the industry was healthy enough to support them.
True but I think a lot of them would be in the "I totally want to watch feature films" camp. By wholeheartedly I meant that the kids don't even have that pretense.
Cultural relevance of movies is already greatly diminished. Maybe these AI tools will trigger a reversion of movies to the days of the nickelodeons where plot, story, and character are irrelevant and people just shell out money (attention) as long as the moving image looks cool.
A lot of the best Marvel movies are really other genres wearing a marvel skin
Look at Captain America: The First Avenger. It's a pulpy world war 2 film, really. If you took Captain America out it would still be a fun film. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a spy thriller
Ant Man is a heist movie, like Oceans 11. Guardians is a sci fi comedy.
After a while they started to all just become "Marvel Movies" and that's the point they stopped being nearly as fun imo
A lot of them are only "Marvel Movies" in their final act, which still leaves a lot of room for fun genre-surfing and -bending, before they have to get back to the business of, "This is part of a franchise." But even on that note, I don't think they get enough credit. Phases 1-3, Marvel et al. managed to wrangle a dozen films of varying genres, working through the stories of just as many main characters, into a single series with a coherent, overarching narrative. It was the biggest spectacle ever created in the Spectacle Industry, yet with a handful of examples of genuine cinematic sublimity (if not entire films, at least a few scenes), to boot.
And people would rather hate than just ride the wave.
Right, most of the context of who the original characters were and represented in the comic books are washed away in the movie versions- it's just a marketing thing that draws people in.
Batman and the different actors and directors over the different versions of the franchise is another example.
There will be some creative people that can now tell stories they couldn't before with AI, but I think by and large the major use case is to create short form video clips to get attention on the internet (advertising). I don't foresee a "movie" (meaning narrative story told via visuals and sounds in 1-3 hours) renaissance happening, in part because I think the form is fully mature and there's not really much more that can be done with it. It's essentially gonna be where Jazz music is today in 40 years, it will have its fans, and there will be talented practitioners, but every year it will be more and more culturally irrelevant.
It could be "film" as a medium is dead- but most likely 1+ hour video fictional story telling as a medium is just a very broad category and will probably continue to exist as a format that people enjoy.
It could be that in 20 years the Oscars are like the Jazz awards (the Grammys? - I listen to Jazz but I can't name a single Jazz Grammy winner)
As much as I support unions and labour rights, the last SAG-AFTRA strike mostly just helped the big studios realize they could do more with less.
Hollywood is a factory town at the end of the day, and we all know what happened to most factory towns in America. This one is just getting there a few decades after the others.
This is definitely another case where a union could either understand where the bigger economic forces are headed (in this case globalization, IP licensing, residuals that no longer make sense, attention economy fracturing the marketplace etc) and adapt to how people will consume content in the future, or double down on an economic model that is one generation behind.
In theory the union is the only org capable of standing up to the streamers' buying power, but it has to make sense within a business model where consumers pay one monthly fee for content. I'm not even sure what that really looks like in the end.
Maybe it's also that the FTC allowed all this monopolization to happen, and turns out that having three media companies in the US is bad.
How will unions help stand up to streamers? Many of the “Netflix originals” are already just co financed or licensed foreign films and many others are filmed in Canada.
People always think unions are magic when I saw in my small town where I grew up in South GA was that when union demands got to onerous - factories just picked up and left.
Just like software engineers scream unionization when tech companies can just expand departments overseas and as a bonus, they don’t have to worry about H1B shifting policies
Ironic that pro-unionization people on HN frequently use SAG as an example of what a software industry union could look like. Ignoring that that's absurd (no other engineering union I know of works like that), just as the parent highlights, unions won't make a difference when the economics of an industry no longer make sense and that is what is happening to software right now.
Don't really see anyone doing this, more like the pro-union arguments I see on HN are mostly about getting paid for on-call, wanting a worker elected member to the board, and having leadership actually held accountable for their decisions.
Getting paid for being on-call seems straight forward to me.
One of the main differences I've heard referenced is that acting and being a movie star means that the work is fundamentally differentiable via the end-product, where producing software is meant to have the same outcome no matter who creates it.
That is just not the case with acting, where the end product being differentiable is part of the inherent value of the product.
Also, it's probably true that SAG's loss of industry power has very much to do with the loss of the power of movie stars in general.
Small but important correction: the biggest issue for the movie industry aren't streaming services or them filming in locations with good tax incentives like UK or Australia but Youtube.
It's hard to compete with millions of videomakers, some of them extremely skilled and able to produce interesting content on a budget.
For some nations there is still a sort of paternal fixation with US influence but it does seem to be fading with time. Couldnt point to any one factor than maybe just an overall sort of boredom of it.
It's easy to say that because the whole idea of "movies" has been fundamentally linked to the USA for the last 60-70 years. So if nowadays there are a few other countries who also have "movies", you could say it's true, but it speaks more to the level of cultural dominance and soft power USA movies have held up to this point than anything.
Can you comment further on this? As an American it's kind of hard to see that. Is this just kind of a temporary reaction to the Trump administration or a larger trend? What is taking its place? Are there more localized media pockets (e.g. is there a significant German-language Instagram influencer world)? Geographically which areas are you talking about?
> The optimistic viewpoint is that maybe new AI production tools will trigger a re-democratization of creative movies
I don't think so.
Part of the downfall of movies -- blockbusters movies anyway, the kind where being a box office hit matters -- is that they have seemed produced like AI slop even before AI. Making it easier to produce more slop isn't going to fix this.
Then there's one thing making noise in my brain. It's not polite to say it, but here it is anyway: should movies be democratized? And art in general? Maybe people without the means of making art that reaches millions shouldn't be enabled by AI. Maybe it's ok that not everyone can produce this kind of art. Maybe the world is saved from a crapton of, well, garbage. More than what's currently being produced, anyway.
As for non-blockbuster art, it's already democratic. Everyone can grab a phone camera or a paintbrush and create art for their friends and family. And that's ok.
What I object to is this notion that everyone should make art, and that AI empowers them. As in (and yes, I've read this, I'm not making this up) "people without writing skills can now write novels". That seems wrong to me. People without writing skills (or drawing, or movie making) should not be making those things.
I would distinguish: they could make them for their own entertainment, but should not market them. But come to think about it, how much non-AI slop is out there that has become popular from entities with no or mediocre talent in it: generic Hollywood blockbusters, supplements, yellow papers, influencers ... all slop that became popular not due to its quality but secondary resources in form of marketing, placement and persistence of the propellants.
Yes, I thought of this too: the industry was full of slop way before AI. We spoke of "Netflix's algorithm", but even before Netflix blockbuster movies were done with a cookie cutter. Transformers (to pick one example) existed way before this brand of AI. Movies like it are perfect candidates to be prompted and built by an AI, since they were almost there anyway.
I can't help but think this "AI empowerment" will make it even easier for studios to produce more garbage at an unprecedented pace. And they won't have to even let actors age gracefully and die; now we can have Tom Cruise (or whomever, pick your poison) forever.
For me the "blockbuster" movies use so much CGI that it's impossible to suspend disbelief. They've gone too far and ruined the experience. AI will only make it worse.
Democratization is a specious argument. The artistry in an AI assisted work is the part that the human contributes as opposed to the the part that the AI contributes. If the human contribution is negligible, the artistry is negligible and there is no meaningful democratization because there was only token artistic intent in the first place.
And what's actually happening with AI? Someone mentioned in another submission that 7500 new books _per day_ are being released on Amazon Kindle. The wave of low quality AI submissions to HN was so severe that the HN mods had to restrict them. Whatever democratization is actually happening is drowned out by those taking advantage of the low cost of AI slop for profit.
In the end people have limited number of hours to watch content, and only a few things bubble up to the popular attention.
What I meant is that I don't see truly indie-produced feature films reach the zeitgeist anymore.
I don't mean AI slop, but the next gen of creative tools that will allow people to make cool and creative and compelling stuff without the backing of 100's of millions of dollars.
It seems like movies are just another cyclical creative industry and this has already happened multiple times before- with each new technology and distribution platform there's the potential to get a wave of creative output that wasn't possible before.
Another aspect could be that the hollowing out of the top / polarization of the industry is another catalyst.
It could be enough that people who don't work on 100's of million dollar budget films get funding to do the next 1 million dollar film that looks great and is amazing.
That's more analogous to the SaaS startup boom that happened in the previous gen of tech startups. Initial costs went down and platform access went up.
> What I meant is that I don't see truly indie-produced feature films reach the zeitgeist anymore.
Maybe they shouldn't. Maybe word of mouth from among those in your circle of friends that have good taste is enough. I'm not sure that blockbuster cinema reaching millions is tenable, or a good thing.
As for "watching content"... yuck, I hate the word "content".
Summary: it's okay to talk about "content" if you're a "content plumber" like some kind of backend video engineer or sysadmin, someone whose job is to help the bits get to the viewers and doesn't need to care what the bits represent. It's not okay if you're a director, actor or viewer, someone who's actually interacting with the the specific piece of content.
looking at the last 4 years of world events, I think some people already have some nostalgia for a shared cultural experience, instead of everyone being in their own algorithmically and socio-culturally / demographically segregated bubbles. Or maybe it's just looking back with rose colored glasses shrug
Arguably this existed for the limited time in history with invention of over-the-air TV and ended with advent of cable. Event before internet streaming nobody watched same stuff anymore.
To be honest, I'm ambivalent about it. I do value a shared experience (contradicting somewhat what I wrote earlier). I don't have everything figured out...
They don’t have to reach the zeitgeist. Tyler Perry has made a good living producing crappy movies and plays that appeal to certain demographic. It’s a lot easier to get 5x ROI on a $5 million movie than a $200 million movie.
Before the pearl clutching starts - yes I’m Black.
What if all the good stories have been told? I conjecture Hollywood is out of ideas but there’s plenty new if you look elsewhere.
Recently watched a fantastic Chinese movie: Upstream (2024) - a dramatized view of a culture driven by algorithms where everyone is plugged in but opportunity does exist if you work hard. Optimistic and pessimistic, with an underdog you want to see win, and a bunch of beautiful human and touching moments. Highly recommended.
Hollywood will keep going maybe in a smaller form. It’s ok for industries to change or run out of steam, and it’s ok for new to replace told. It’s ok for a place to run out of stories to tell, because new stories will get told by others in other places.
My 2c: They should stop concentrating on appealing to the broadest audience. Formulaic heros' journeys, franchises, predictable characters acted by the same narrow set of the the most-attractive people etc.
Safety and mass-market appeal over creativity.
For contrast: Books, non-AAA video games, and movies from smaller studios still produce high-quality, creative efforts I continue to be excited about. Big-budget movies (and games), and Netflix shows are mostly bottom-feeder stuff.
There are some studios who do this already (A24 for example who have produced a number of relatively popular films). But agreed that the big studios have focused on sequels and formulaic content for the most part
I think it’s the finance people. They have decided every creative movie made represents resources and time that can’t be used for a “sure-thing” franchise schlock movie.
Sure, but Spider-Man CXXVI is a sure bet for a safe ROI. Nobody knows what Chopper Chicks in Zombietown will yield.
Books are a great example - even popular books will now have a readership in the tens of thousands, at most. Nobody makes money - it’s an art, not an industry.
- Theatrical releases are how movies make most of their money, not giving them away for free on streaming. Box office margins are huge, but renting licenses to streamers is limited and fungible with all the other mountains of content they license.
- Box office optimizes for novelty, streamers optimize for "don't churn" - very different criteria for investment.
- Disney cannibalized the box office with Marvel Star Wars, which killed the mid market and killed innovation. This is your point. Disney's success and tentpole successes in general killed innovation and diversity and made the market more winner-takes-all. Comedy movies barely exist anymore. There are few $50-75M films now. Little original content. Now films are engineered for maximum audience penetration and maximum box office revenue. This changes how films are written and who they are written for. The answer is "everyone", and that means "safe", "predictable", and "repeatable". No gambles. Everything else has to fight for table scraps.
- End of ZIRP puts us back in 2000. Money used to be free. Now it's expensive. It's not as easy to underwrite productions anymore. Less innovation.
- Dopamine machines fit into your pocket and suck up time and attention. Gaming is also huge now. Less people going to the movies because plenty of alternatives exist.
- The $400 80'' plus Netflix versus the expensive theater, concessions, and rude people have made theaters unattractive. Theaters are where film margins come from. Without that revenue, expensive movies will be scaled back.
- Labor costs less in Europe and Asia, even with ample tax subsidy. The LA and American jobs and infrastructure are drying up. These are lifelong careers that are ending.
- Global audiences want global stories. American culture isn't local, and local talent can now make high quality productions. Asia is turning out banger after banger.
- Youth want youth mediums. Movies feel slow and boring. TikTok is where it's at.
- AI is now a thing.
All of the fundamentals have changed.
I will debate one point you raised:
> most-attractive people
Most people prefer to look at attractive people. It's an almost universal preference. Tried and tested throughout time. In film, those attractive people also need charisma.
To be fair, there's plenty of that in older films and TV series as well, particularly "golden age" material from the 1940s -- 1970s, which played strongly off WWII, Cold War, and pro-business themes, with occasional ventures into counterculture works for the latter.
The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US Navy's most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004 account citing 1990 correspondence with then Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney: <https://archive.org/details/operationhollywo00robb/page/180>. Similarly endless war, cowboy, biblical, and rom-com films of that period.
At the same time, you certainly could reasonably read the film as being very dubious about the military. It opens with the psychological collapse of Maverick's wingman when a MiG locks on to him, Cruise's character has to defy orders to save him, and gets chewed out for doing so.
Maverick's original motivation is clearing his father name, not patriotism. Goose dies in a pointless accident. The final dogfight is random "rescue mission" against an unnamed foe in "hostile waters" in the Indian ocean, and Cruise's character almost abandons the fight due to PTSD.
Yeah, the almost pornographic love the camera shows to the jets probably made the actual story all be irrelevant to the Navy's recruiting success. But it's easy to imagine all the whining from the Fox news personality cosplaying as Secretary of "War" about such a film if it were made today.
> The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US Navy's most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004 account citing 1990 correspondence with then Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney: <https://archive.org/details/operationhollywo00robb/page/180>.
Sure, but was that the intent of Tony Scott when he made the film, or was it just a side effect of watching exciting air wing navy operations portrayed on the big screen?
I can easily see a young man wanting to be not just a fighter pilot, but one of those guys on deck standing in the wind, dancing and pointing and saluting F-14s off the catapult.
I think one highlight is that the old propaganda doesn't affect you in the same way as the "current thing" propaganda. Old propaganda feels sort of cute. So this is an argument for watching older movies :)
Some is reasonable and then some is obviously just what rich people want you to think. Like America paid Hollywood a lot to always show the US armies being macho and always on the right side of wars.
It can, sure. However, I will not pay to be lectured to on topics I have no interest getting lectured on. I'll keep my money, they can keep the sermon. Let's see who has more to gain from listening to the other. If they want my money, what I want to hear/see matters a whole lot more than what they want to preach to me.
They simply forgot the golden rule: he who has the gold -- makes the rules. Let them rediscover it.
If Sinners and One Battle After Another are up for movie of the year then it's no wonder no one is going. One is a fun but ultimately forgettable horror action movie. The other is a movie that just based on its major theme would attract less then half the country and even in those remaining is a very polarizing movie. It's up for best picture because to preach, not because it's actually good.
The obvious political stance of One Battle After Another notwithstanding, given how much the film succeeds as an exercise in using the language of cinema to tell a compelling story, it comes across (ironically) as idealogically motivated to say the movie isnt nominated in part for its merits with regard to craft and construction.
No doubt it appeals to people at the Academy in its persuasion, but if we were to strip it down to film technical aspects it would no doubt still be a frontrunner for film of the year.
I just didn't think that either of them were very good. Sinners was okay, and One Battle After Another was just kind of silly, I think regardless of your political views.
I’m also in the camp ”I respect the authors but here am not impressed”
Regarding wider adoption ”One Battle Another” is incomprehensible mess unless you are familiar with US. I understand the white supremacist conspiracy but nothing else makes sense _at all_. I trust when people say it’s super intelligent but I just don’t have any of the context.
Sinners is a cool music video that is about 5x too long - the few dances are really nice, some of the characters have very strong presence and few dialogues really are strong but … I would not categorize it as industry leading in anything unless the industry reference points are super low
Two organizations that love money (Apple & F1) collaborating to make a ton more money.
The tech for in-cockpit capture and presentation of the races themselves was great, but the dialogue and basically everything off-track was boring or rote.
People like to point at prices and bad audience behaviour for the downfall of cinemas, but I'd suggest that it also comes down to availability and home experience.
When I was growing up we went to the cinema regularly, but the only options for watching a film were VHS rentals and the cinema, both of which required going out. Films were rare. Sometimes there would be a film on TV, but it would have ads every 20 minutes, and our TV was a relatively small CRT.
Now I have nearly every film made available to me to watch within minutes on a huge screen, in a quiet room, that doesn't smell, with no ads, at the time I want, without going out, and I can pause it to go to the toilet or get a drink rather than having to hope I don't miss anything. And I don't have a home cinema setup, I have a <$1k TV and <$200 speakers, no surround sound, very basic, very accessible.
The only time I go to the cinema now is for IMAX because that passes the bar of better than I have at home as a whole package.
I totally get how much more convenient home viewing is, but there’s something about going out and watching something in a group that is special, like we do with opera or theater, sporting events or concerts.
I'm not sure I agree. If I'm there to enjoy the film I don't want to notice the audience, much like at the opera or theatre. If I've seen the film before and want to enjoy the atmosphere (like a concert or sport) then a cinema would often be a bad place for that (I've had that experience once in my life).
And yet I have no interest in watching any of the current few decades of superhero crap that Hollywood has been grinding out—at home or anywhere else. Maybe movies also suck these days.
I think it has always been true in most media that the mainstream is boring and devoid of artistic value while the fringes are interesting and valuable. There are plenty of excellent films around at the moment.
There just aren’t as many good new movies. Most movies we watch at home are from decades ago. If we didn’t have streaming maybe we’d go to the movies more often, but it’s hard to say.
A few movies we watched are not worth the money. To stay afloat they have to raise ticket prices, but if we’re paying so much, the movie better be absolutely outstanding, and the are just not usually, so we stopped going.
Is this true, or you just can’t discover them anymore because everything else competes for your attention? Arguably in the last decade more great content in both movies and TV shows produced than ever, it’s just so much, that it’s hard to choose.
I recently watched A League of Their Own and Die Hard. In my opinion, these movies are just categorically different from what's being made today, are still totally compelling start to finish, and really capture the magic and the high art of the golden age of cinema. I truly believe movies were just better 30-40 years ago.
That was the era of "every second counts." Every second has meaning and purpose and adds something to the narrative. The Fifth Element is another good example, and almost 30 years old. Now in the age of binging, where a 2 hour plot is stretched into 17 hours of TV, there is SO much filler and downtime and it's honestly just offensive in comparison.
I kind of enjoyed Pluribus, I liked the concept and what they did with it, but there's way too much forgettable filler that dilutes it into a slog. The movies I mentioned are (again, IMO) absolutely gripping and just lean and mean storytelling vehicles.
I went through the lists. In 1985, of the top 10 movies, you had two direct sequels, two adaptations, leaving six original movies. In 2025, of the top 10 movies, you had two direct sequels, two remakes, three franchises (maybe sequels?), one that is a part II (so sequel?, also an adaptation), one adaptation and it seems one original movie. My, how times have changed.
See my other comment on this, but I'm talking about the top of the form, the movies that have and/or will stand the test of time and be considered notable for some reason. Not the average of all movies made in a given year.
> I truly believe movies were just better 30-40 years ago.
That's the problem with nostalgia, you don't remember all the bad movies you had to watch just to get those two gems. Someone probably suggested those movies rather than you stumbling onto them. That's pretty much the job of a critic. Siskel and Ebert in the 1980s would often talk about the pain of having to sit through hours of awful movies every week just so that they could find one or two worth recommending.
I'm talking about the best of the best though, the top of the form at the time. Yes those are classics and for good reason. But there were also lots more. Lucas, Kubrick, Spielberg, Lynch...feels like they just don't make 'em like that anymore. It's crazy that in some ways nothing has really eclipsed a movie from 1977 and we're still awash in its glow.
I tried to provide specific examples and contrast with something in the current zeitgest. I'm open to counter-arguments. I liked Barbie and Oppenheimer, both were well-done, but I don't think they'll stand up with the greats. I admit that I don't watch as many movies now but what stands out in the past 10 years? What has captured the zeitgeist like The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings?
Whenever someone says online that something's declining (Hollywood movies, video games, UX experiences in desktop environments, etc.), I see a variation on this argument: "actually the options are even better today, they're just buried" (often accompanied by: "you were just younger then and everything was new and that's why you liked it").
Sometimes, cultural decline actually does happen, usually eventually followed by some kind of renaissance. Anyone who has studied the cinema, literature, etc. of a certain country in the past knows that there are "hot" periods and "cool" ones. When we see this phenomenon in the past, it doesn't tend to trigger the same defensive reaction, I guess because it doesn't feel as personal.
> Is this true, or you just can’t discover them anymore because everything else competes for your attention?
There is an element of that perhaps: from the past we already have a great number of movies. The more time passes the more great movies will accumulate, so newer movies will be judges compared to that whole set.
However, at the same thinking how many times I was exciting about a movie and how much I liked it. There are lot of fewer of them in the recent times.
> Arguably in the last decade more great content in both movies and TV shows produced than ever,
I could see the quantity but not the quality. Netflix produced a lot of shows and movies, Hollywood did, but I don't think as many good ones in there as say in the decades of 1990-2000 or 2000-2010. Tastes of course are subjective, you may just like newer movies they make that's fine, too.
> To stay afloat they have to raise ticket prices, but if we’re paying so much
What are you paying when you go to the cinema? Just went to the cinema today to see Hoppers, and was slightly surprised that the tickets were only 8 EUR per person, then we spent maybe 5-10 EUR per person on snacks too, so ended up paying maybe ~15 EUR per person overall. This was outside a metropolitan city in South-Western Europe, maybe that's why, or I've just lost track of what's expensive/cheap.
About $18 latest price if we go in the evening, and for a the whole family it adds up. Given the HBO subscription is about $20/month for the whole household, you can see the movie has to be really good to be worth it, and most of them are not that good.
Just checked AMC - $18.50 in the app for a normal adult ticket. ($16 + $2.50 fee for using the app). An icee and popcorn would be ballpark $18 as well.
About the same where I am. A matinee used to be cheap, now it’s the price you said, and more like 20 for the full price show.
You don’t have to pay the app “convenience fee” but they added assigned seats to pressure you to do so. If you wait till the day of and buy on the big kiosk in the lobby, what if all the good seats are gone? (Hint: they won’t be, the theaters are always mostly empty)
Not even good seats, but if you're in a group you may not be all able to sit together. Or if you get your tickets and someone wants to join you later, there could be nothing left near you. I'm not a fan of assigned seating for those reasons.
We pay $6 tickets for first run movies on Tuesdays at the Studio movie grill as a cheapish date night with movie + dinner + drinks and reserve seating
Movie theatres hardly make any money from ticket sales with 80% of the ticket price going to the studio during the first two weeks and then declining. They make money off of concessions
So many more products are competing for finite attention now. And the solution to that problem is not to productize your commodity imo, art created for the sake of selling is not art.
Then UBI. This is a failure of our economy, which creates perverse incentives. Clean air, clean water, good food, plentiful housing, and opportunities for sport, contemplation and art are the things we need, but our economy incentivizes people to pollute, sell slop, restrict housing, and exploit ourselves and others.
Everyone is complaining about movie theater prices. But, I'll also complain about streaming prices. I want to watch The Secret Agent and it's $9.99 to rent on Apple TV. It doesn't seem to make sense in comparison to month all-you-can-watch subscription prices.
This is one thing I really despise about the streaming world. When rental stores were a thing you could grab older movies from the bargain bin to rest for $1 or less. Now all movies are the same price no matter if it's new or 30 years old.
I was already complaining about the price when it was only $30 for two tickets, two drinks, and popcorn. To think it's more than double that now!
Add in the fact most anyone can have access to a pretty good quality 60" display. It's not as large as the theater, but it's pretty good-sized, has better color reproduction than a lot of older (read: less-maintained) theaters' gear, and you don't have to deal with people using their phones or talking over the movie.
Lastly, let's just consider that for most people the number of movies you'd actually want to watch on a yearly basis has probably decreased in general while the cost of actually producing those movies has skyrocketed-- it's the same problem with AAA gaming. Your costs are so high that if a movie/game isn't an immediate massive hit, you're doomed.
Yeah, the bottom has dropped out of that market entirely. Gaming will be saved by indie and AA games, but I'm not sure if there's anything like that for movies; sure, smaller films exist but distribution, etc. doesn't really have anything like Steam.
This is something I already knew, but I realized it even more upon seeing the film Wendy and Lucy.
Yes, it's an arthouse flick. No, it won't be everyone's cup of tea. No, it's not blockbuster material. But, what it does show is how filmmakers can do a lot with very little. It's a simple story with a bittersweet ending and no VFX. I'm certain it cost relatively nothing to make. And it's unfortunate that we don't get anything like it in mainstream theaters.
Hollywood has been pricing itself out of existence but they still have the surprised Pikachu face while things decline.
I had a conversation with a bunch of Hollywood people last year. Some were writers, actors, etc. A handful of film personnel. They were all quabbling about what was going to win at the Academy Awards, who was getting good and bad attention from the Hollywood Reporter, and so on. Simultaneously, they were lamenting about how bad things were in their industry.
I then asked the group if the industry had thought about making a good movie for a change instead of giving a shit what the Hollywood Reporter has to say. They were dumbstruck, probably due to a combination of my rudeness and not having a good counterargument. If people are losing their jobs and not making money then it's hard to deny how self-congratulatory the entertainment industry is.
Yep. I'd just about kill for a decade where we go back to 80s flicks. Some of the best quantity and quality we've ever had for mass-appeal movies, and they didn't cost anywhere near what the average cost is today.
And I'd have at least 2-3 movies a year I'd really WANT to go see, probably more.
Back to the Future, Lethal Weapon, Arnie's action flicks, Ghostbusters-- I could go on for quite awhile, maybe the last decade where we had that kind of movie output.
I started watching 1960s era movies with my kids and I understand why Hollywood had the power at the time. Entertainment and solid values crafted into a "picture".
I can imagine back then eagerly awaiting a new release. Now, who cares. Some depressing trauma story of someone I can't relate to or rehashed superhero flick. Yawn.
Nobody else to blame but themselves. Of course, Hollywood is full of narcissists so they'll blame everyone else, e.g. streaming, prices, etc. but the reality is of the last 10-15 years of mainstream US cinema is:
- Scripts that sound more like an HR meeting than a good story.
- Blockbuster superhero movies that are all the same movie.
- Lots of remakes that added modern CGI flare and destroyed the artistic value of the original.
- As consolidation of studios happens, way more "safe" stories that aim to not offend anyone. I think the only one able to get away with it right now is Tarantino.
Prices, streaming, theaters, etc. -- they're all accessory to the problem. People went to the movies for enjoyment, why would they go to endure them? There's no cultural collective experience anymore in the sense of going to see Lord of the Rings or Matrix with your friends for the first time.
Also this is happening throughout all media. Music and video games have the same kind of discussions.
Hollywood seems to have never realized that the point of works like LotR and Star Wars was to take the ridiculous extremely seriously. The bad CGI didn't matter because every actor took it seriously. A marvel-ized star wars with great CGI is still a bad movie because nobody on screen takes it seriously despite how realistic the graphics are.
The only reason I like going to the theater now is to see movies in "4dx". It's a ridiculous format where the seats move and there are other special effects including air, water, and smoke which are custom edited for each chosen movie. It's like a combination between a movie and one of those amusement park rides. I think most people hate it, but my kids and I enjoy it. Tickets are ~$30 each though.
Otherwise I would just rather watch a movie on the couch at home. They come to streaming so quickly there's no problem waiting for it.
I watch a film every single day since Covid. There are great films everywhere every year. I'm not american but the sooner you ignore the american cultural imperialism is the better (or at least the films that don't premiere at competition festivals). There is a whole world outside of America.
When compared to the nascent asian cultural imperialism, I'd rather have american media, to be honest. Over here in the global south, Hollywood was a pretty good influence compared with what I see around the anime/Kpop crew.
There is a whole world inside America. You can say that about every single country on Earth, but not every country on Earth produced The Godfather, Citizen Kane and Toy Story 2.
Good riddance. It won’t be missed. Very little of Hollywood benefited humanity - it was mostly a tool of the rich and governments to propagandize. It was just an another opiate for masses. It was built on ruthless exploitation of labour and consumers.
Hollywood produced some of the most influential pieces of art of the last century and it permeated global culture in a way only comparable to Renaissance-era Florence. Even if your simplistic take stained by marxist propaganda is true, you shouldn't just casually dismiss the labor of hundreds of thousands of artists and technicians over a century simply because you've become jaded by Marvel slop.
> some of the most influential pieces of art of the last century and it permeated global culture in a way only comparable to Renaissance-era Florence
Not just comparable; easily greater than. US movie business has easily been more influential than Romanticism. That said... TFA makes undeniably valid points:
"Morale has been battered by tens of thousands of layoffs, the exodus of production from California to lower-cost territories, the waning cultural relevance of cinema versus social media, declining attendance at theater chains and fears that artificial intelligence will displace traditional moviemaking.
[...] this year’s Oscar race has been overshadowed by rival Paramount Skydance Corp.’s $110 billion deal to buy the company. It’s the third time Warner Bros. has been sold in less than a decade.
[...] Hollywood’s anxiety — the local industry’s challenges are often compared to the decline of automaking in Detroit — isn’t misplaced. The crisis has grown to such magnitude that last year, California doubled the annual assistance it gives to film and TV productions to $750 million to stop them from fleeing the state."
Influential? Yes. Was that influence for the betterment of humanity? I’m not sure. Beyond the slop many of the classics were deeply racist and built on immoral exploitation. Yes all those artists did great work but they did it in terrible conditions for where near enough pay.
Take apocalypse now: a great piece of art. Was it worth the pain and suffering of its production? Absolutely not.
> I’m not sure. Beyond the slop many of the classics were deeply racist and built on immoral exploitation. Yes all those artists did great work but they did it in terrible conditions for where near enough pay.
This is so naive, I can't even begin to tell you how wrong you are. Hollywood is the first window into the western way of life for many third worlders. And if you knew how the third world really is, they are much more racist, much more primitive than the West.
In reality, Hollywood opens up people into western culture - openness, rationality and so on.
Terrible historical practices/immoral productions shouldn't the reason alone for such dismissal. Every industry had it's fair share of terrible things. Sometimes, we learn to do better. There are also enough ongoing things to be worried about.
Hollywood should implode and hopefully the art form will resurrect for the better. But for me the primary reason is that they don't live up to what they are supposed to do. Creating good art.
The greed is the same for all players and industries. I don't see why hollywood's situation is different. They just failed to adapt to new conditions.
I agree that the good stuff is just a result of shotgunning, for every great movie, there are 100 that are forgettable. But we have the habit of concentrating power in one place, so I have no clue how it could be otherwise. Sure youtube is an alternative with myriad of independent creators, but it produced totally different outcomes.
Agreed. To say "good riddance" to Hollywood scares me. Like we are giving up and accepting generated slop and influencers from now on. There's a lot of bad movies, but just as you said, very few mediums have thusly pierced through across cultures and societies quite like Hollywood.
>very few mediums have thusly pierced through across cultures and societies quite like Hollywood
This is laughable if you look at video games and music EVEN if you ignore everything american. Not mention Asia from Bollywood to Kpop to anime to HK cinema.
for what it's worth, I agree. there's a lot that hollywood contributed and a large part of our culture can be attributed to things that stuck from hollywood.
As an example: I know that the particular type of sitcoms like Friends or How I Met Your Mother are very popular in third world countries. They are the first real window into western culture for many people in such countries. A lot of ideas like promiscuity, dating, career and the western way of life are primarily introduced to people through such media.
Its hard to overstate the impact this brings. Once you have enough people exposed to such ideas, the mindset changes and the ripple effects are pretty huge.
Third world countries would still be in their old and primitive lifestyle if not for the propaganda of Hollywood which I very much welcome.
One new problem for theaters is that entertainment now comes in other time formats than the 1-3 hour movie or the hour-long TV show. Netflix is not constrained by the need to push groups of people through a movie theater.
I haven't been in cinema in the past ~10 years and to be honest I wouldn't care if no more movies were ever made, simply because there are hundreds, if not thousands, amazing movies made since the beginning of the cinema that I didn't watch. Most of the new movies are crap anyways, so why waste time and money when I can watch a classic movie instead which has a much higher probability of me enyjoing it.
This is a boring opinion. It's the equivalent of what happens to many older adults when it comes to music. All of the best songs came out in their teens to about 30 so what's the point of listening to anything new? It assumes there is no innovation and the person just traps themselves in the past.
You could say there hasn't been any good new music since 1970 and humans have been making music for thousands of year. Or you could try out the many new genres and eventually find something new and exciting.
it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.
That's funny. I was having this similar discussion with my 16 year old niece, and I was asking her what she's been listening to as a 50 year old trying to broaden my musical horizons. She pulled out her Spotify and shared some of her playlists with me, and I was astonished to see that most of the music that she had been enjoying was produced in the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. We had a good laugh about it, and bonded over some of the classic music that I love that I was suprised to find that she loves. There were some modern things interspersed, and I did learn about some new artists and experimental genres. Seems like a clear example of the Law of diminishing marginal returns in the cinema and music industries in Southern California — leading to those industries collapsing. AI and generative crap being a big evidence point for the argument.
To test whether you’re right, please list 10 movies made in the last 10 years that will stand the test of time as truly great movies. If fewer than one per year is worth watching, it’s a hard sell to say that we should spend our time sorting through the chaff trying to find it.
It’s entirely possible that we’re in a period where most of those with creativity have just stopped making movies. Interestingly, I find TV has everything movies are lacking, creativity, originality, even big name actors that used to make movies.
List ten movies that will stand the test of time in the time frame of the decade after you turned 25. This will make it less biased to stuff you think is good just because you had never seen anything similar.
Any list will be subjective so instead of taking your initial bait for you to subsequently tear down, people (but probably AI) can construct a list to your personal taste.
I didn't say there're no new great movies coming out, I simply stated that there are enough of great old movies than I PERSONALLY don't need new movies.
> it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.
Quite the contrary, I constantly discover interesting old movies from a wide variety of genres and different parts of the world.
Theatres don't just show new movies. There's something very special about being locked in a dark room with a big screen to watch Alien or Barry Lyndon. Older movies especially look great in a theatre and some of the magic is lost on a smaller screen.
90% of any content is crap but you're missing out if you like movies and you haven't seen Sinners, The Bone Temple, or NOPE (to name a few recent great theatre watches).
I regularly go to a nearby cinema that also shows older movies. Watching a movie like "Ran" (Akira Kurosawa) in a restored 4k version on a big screen is quite an experience. (Tickets are 10€ btw.) Often I go with a friend, but occasionally I also go alone. There's something about spending 2 or 3 hours in a dark room entirely focussing on a piece of art.
There is very little incentive to make good movies now, especially when zoomers' attention spans are maximum 2 minutes. I still enjoy a classic movie or two but I'm running out of movies to watch even then.
I think book sales are significantly down compared to most periods in the last 50-100 years? Still a culturally significant thing, but economically not what they used to be ...
Young people are going to prefer content that caters to their cultural zeitgeist and worldview. This is why new media is continually made and we don't all just listen to Mozart.
Everything changes and evolves. Fashion, music, games, young adult fiction, memes.
You wouldn't limit yourself to your grandparents' taste, would you? (I didn't say parents because some kids are instilled with parental preferences. I grew up around kids in the 00's who said the Beatles were the peak of music - obviously learned preferences straight from their parents.)
You might not understand youth culture because you grew up before them and have different tastes. We're imprinted with preference and nostalgia for our youth, and we can see changes to that as a hideous affront. The next generation is meanwhile going through the same cycle we did.
Most recent in theater movie I was was "F1" because I thought the audio experience would be worth the ticket price. While the audio was good, seat quality was sub par, popcorn stale and soda was from a Freestyle machine (YUK!)
I put more stock in the the Sundance and Cannes jury prizes: even if they're comprised of the elites who can afford to go to these festivals, they've still got far more artistic sense than the ossified corporate board that the Academy has always been.
$100 to go to the movies for a family of four. No thanks. There’s no mystery why the movies are dying. They’ve priced themselves out and then they give away the product on streaming several months later anyways.
If they want theaters to come back then they’ll have to put movies behind a paywall again.
Yeah, I think the prices also have resulted in a massive change in how consumers decide to go to movies as well. With the price so high for a family of four, people rely much more heavily on positive word of mouth/reviews before making a decision.
So people are much more risk adverse. I've never understood why they don't do tiered pricing based on the type of movie it is. If it's not a mega blockbuster type film, reduce the price a bit to make it easier for people to take a risk and try out a movie without it being a 90%+ rating on rotten tomatoes. I'd personally probably go a lot more if a movie like say Marty Supreme was $10 instead of $20.
I think it's more about being unwilling to pay so much when a free version is just a few months away. Streaming is too good and too cheap compared to the theatrical release.
The missing middle from 20 years back is rentals. That was $5-10 a pop, people rented almost weekly. The option is there digitally now but its not in the public conscience for the same reason as cinema, people can just wait for the streaming option as the turnover is so short. (And granted, more people went to the cinema back then)
Meanwhile consumers are whining about the increases in streaming cost and diffusion, and low quality content. It had to happen, the math wasn't working out. In the social media bubbles users argue they will "just pirate again", over and over as though those who would care to don't already do so. Its toothless. Average people are not going to pay for a VPN and navigate things they don't understand just to pirate. They will eat the cost, whether it be streaming or renting
You’re probably right. Big franchises would survive, a bunch of people would pay modestly for each new Marvel movie if it were never coming to streaming. But the films that do still exist that have no marketing, would probably do even worse without having any streaming release.
People are living in entirely different cost of living realities outside of NYC and the Bay Area.
Within 5 miles of me with 2 adults and 2 kids and $100, you could go to a trampoline park, ropes course, bowling, hours at an arcade, water park, race go-karts, several months of pool membership, or 5+ museums. Possibly 2 of those activities.
For free there’s dozens of playgrounds, courts and fields for any sport, community and religious-sponsored events, and after you can get a nice sit down meal with money leftover from your $100 budget.
$100 would be above many families entire entertainment budget for a week.
I mean when you have Larry Ellison and other goons pledging investments in these major studios, it's no wonder people who actually enjoy watching movies don't want to give their money+time to watch some dumbed down bottom of the barrel slime that AI has decided people will sit through.
Thankfully, filmmaking is becoming more and more independent. It's never been easier and cheaper to make a movie and share it to millions of people on YouTube or Vimeo. Why go through Hollywood, investors, or give money to festivals for a chance at success when you can just upload the thing and see what happens?
A few years ago, someone on Twitter had a really cool proposal for how to revamp the entire format of the Oscars, even taking the importance of commercials into account, but I can't for the life of me find it anymore.
Hollywood has been going through a similar cultural problem that gaming has. They have been extremely woke, and I'm sorry that people won't like that, and they have made movies to make far left critics happy instead of audiences. Not all are like this but this has dominated the industry. There have been some big moneymakers in recent years an the industry could try to make movies for audiences again but they have gotten into this space where they have to make the Academy happy. There was those Danish filmmakers at a press conference talking about their movie set in the 1700s, or something like that, and the press were whining about the lack of diversity in a historical Nordic film. I think if they decide to make movies people want to see and stop using Millennial vernacular in all script writing, they will see people wanting to watch movies again.
The main issue was the content the movie industry produced which looked like a lot like some AI slop. I think the DEI lecturing was another nail in the coffin. Unless that changes and they magically add something new to the cinema experience I think they will keep diving into irrelevance because now everybody can produce AI slop.
> North Americans are going to the movies about half as often as they used to a decade ago, based on the number of tickets sold at cinemas in the US and Canada.
The best movie of this year, a film called Sirāt, was in part funded by a grant from Spain's Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts [1]. Another incredible one this past year, a Brazilian film called The Secret Agent, was funded by various grants and institutes as well [2].
The promise er sorry propaganda used to be “attend the big blockbuster movies so they can spend the extra money on riskier indie films”. Essentially trickle down for the movie business. Here we are.
Actors being this wealthy and famous has always been a mystery to me. Oh so you are a good looking person that recites other people's words for money while faking emotions? And you can take as many takes as you can and your fuckups will be corrected in post-production anyway? Well I guess the work you do totally merits the hundreds of millions of dollars you've amassed.
Like even kicking a ball or whatever makes more sense to me because there is an objective measurement of what it means to do it well, while with actors its mostly about sympathy or preference
Actors have a kind of legally-enforced monopoly. They're not employees you hire, they're products you buy.
If you want to make a movie staring Nicole Kidman, you have to pay whatever Nicole Kidman wants you to pay. You're legally forbidden from hiring an "off-brand" person and making her look indistinguishable from Kidman.
If you want to hire a Scala programmer, there's plenty of easily-replaceable people willing and able to do that job. No single person dictates how much money Scala programmers make.
Famous actors are basically a category that they're the only member of, and so they can set their prices. You can switch to a different category )(just as you can switch from Scala to Typescript) if one becomes too expensive, but that too carries some expense.
Franchises have a similar problem. If all your friends are watching Game of Thrones, you too want to watch Game of Thrones, even if there are other shows which are just as good. This means the Makers of GoT can dictate GoT prices, because the government gives them a legal monopoly on GoT distribution.
It's celebrity. People want to imagine themselves like these icons they've built, even if only through the laziest of efforts. I wonder if it's an innate human trait to aspire to be like those we admire.
There's certainly a lot of actors that seem to just phone in a performance and are mainly hired due to their looks and high profiles, but don't forget about the actors that can elevate just about any role that they're in due to their skills and artistry.
Every time there’s an article about the “good ol’ days of Hollywood” I like to trot out this comic strip- looks like last time I posted it was five years ago:
Hollywood has been a franchise and licensed IP sequel/remake/reboot farm since the ‘80s, since Star Wars and Jaws blockbusters killed off the experimental period of New Hollywood. And even before that it was Cecil B. DeMille bombastic productions and westerns and musicals everywhere. The movie industry has always been characterized by crowd pleasers.
I can hardly wait for "vibe cinema". Type in a prompt and a 2 hour epic AI slop film comes out. Not much different from Hollywood is now making the hard way.
Market forces know no culture except what consumers pay for. Absent real care, stewardship and focused investment, the product will always get cheaper.
And of course consumers' tastes are under attack from another direction: their attention spans.
Some load-bearing pillars of human culture are weakening.
Is this article a weird cut-paste of older content? This passage makes no sense in the rest of the context, the tense is all wrong.
>Starting in 2029, the Oscars will also be streamed globally on YouTube, which the academy hopes will attract new audiences and reinvigorate the ceremony’s popularity after years of declining viewership.
Edit: I read 2019 not.. 2029. That's actually incredible. Are they going to get in on tiktok for 2039 next?
What exactly doesn't make sense? The Oscars are moving to streaming the event globally on YouTube (bunch of TV channels has said they'll stop broadcasting it in 2029), and the viewership of the Oscars has been declining for years. I'm not sure I see what's wrong in there.
The Oscars are the heart of the problem. One definition of “celebrity” is “person who is celebrated”
Hollywood is so used to getting high on its own supply that it really thinks we want to see an AI slop video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise. People there just don’t have any information at all about what anybody outside their bubble thinks so of course they make samey big budget pictures and samey small budget pictures. Unless they shut down their communications channels and disperse geographically they are going to keep doing the same thing over and over again and be wondering why they keep getting the same results.
And that gets us to why they will never reform, they know their numbers are terrible but think this is (1) cyclical and (2) due to technological changes so they’ll never get it that running ads that make it sound like somebody else cares about Tom Cruise doesn’t really make people care about Tom Cruise, it just makes them ignore advertising messages.
I think it's the opposite problem, they have too much information and data, which means they aren't making lots of gambles on new/different scripts anymore but making very safe bets because everyone is terrified of losing their cool high paying jobs.
The video you are referring to was not produced by Hollywood, it was created by Irish director Ruairi Robinson, basically as a test of the new Seedance AI.
I'm not saying that Hollywood isn't out of touch, I'm just saying that nothing about Hollywood can be inferred from that video.
My fiance mentioned we haven't gone to see a movie in theaters in years and it would be fun to go.
I checked what was playing and:
2 tickets, 2 sodas, 1 popcorn.
$86 dollars.
Don't know if I'll ever go to a conventional movie theater again.
The last movie we attended people were incredibly disruptive throughout the film, to the point that it was difficult to focus on the film. Some people enjoy screaming, laughing, and talking as part of the experience, but it's apparently been normalized beyond my tolerance threshold. Add in the cost and overall movie quality decrease of Hollywood productions, and it's difficult to justify.
Presently, we watch foreign movies at home 95% of the time and maybe a Hollywood production when they manage to find their roots and create something worth watching.
With current TV setups or projector technology I basically have cinema in my living room.
As a kid who grew up in 90’s I would say it is easily better than what cinema had back then.
I don’t have that high expectations of sound/video as many people will point out that streaming kills the quality but for all its worth still much better than what I need to enjoy a movie.
One of the criteria for me to go to the theater was the big screen and big sound would really add to the experience. The last film I saw in the theater was was so loud that it physically hurt and ruined the experience.
As you say with the image quality being as high at home now plus a decent surround system really makes the theater experience at home very enjoyable.
If you got a house of your own, yes.
If you are in an urban area and are not a millionaire, you probably live in some kind of apartment or studio. And yes, you can stick up a projector and a good surround system... but it might be that the builder cut corners on the floors and your neighbors already come knocking when you are talking, much less turn up the audio system to a tenth of the sound pressure a good cinema sound system provides.
I do live in an apartment and I am far from a millionaire.
I don't have any of the problem - but I don't have "cinema sound system" as I mentioned whatever I have must have just clear sound and clear doesn't mean loud. I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie.
> I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie.
Unfortunately, most cinema movies are not properly remastered in their audio tracks, but keep the original cinema mix. That results in very silent dialogue (which is not a problem in a cinema, at least as long as people behave and don't yap around all the time) and very loud sequences particularly in action shots.
When you now give such a movie to your usual home theater setup, you have to turn up the volume enough so you can understand the dialogue and either constantly turn it down whenever it gets heated or live with neighbors complaining.
Straight-to-streaming releases usually don't suffer from that problem, because they are made and mixed for normal users streaming on their laptops with shitty speakers. Note I said usually, because Disney's Star Wars series are still mastered for decent setups with dynamic range.
There's a debate to be had about the impact of that on storytelling, as straight-to-streaming these days is produced with the movie/episode on a side screen while people are doing something else, so everything that you would normally see on a screen is verbally described by actors, but that's another debate entirely.
Thanks for clarifying that. I always thinking it was due to my bad hearing or lack of fluency! English is my second language, and without subtitles, I'm having trouble to understand the dialogues without increasing the volume until I reach a level where I also got disturbed from the sound effects, bg music etc. It's a bigger issue with movies, not only due to what you explained about sound mixing, but also error correction of my brain works worse without the context, unlike series where I know the plot and the characters.
Watch out for any show with Christopher Nolan as director. He is notorious for terrible audio mixing, and having actor mumble and otherwise dictate horribly.
As an american and English as my only human language, even I need subtitles.
And the movie "Tenet" was so bad that I ragequit 30 minutes in. Horrible horrible audio.
Back pre digital I was once lucky enough to see Aliens on one of the private cinemas at Fox, and it was astounding. I think people underestimate how poorly operated most normal cinemas used to be, combined with maybe not the best prints etc.
I remember seeing In the Mood for Love on the big screen in my local arthouse cinema back around 2000. It was shot with analogue film and projected as such, and the sheer details of the textures were astounding. It's not a bad film on my 4k monitor, but I don't feel the same awe.
I’ve only seen that movie on an old MacBook about a decade ago, but I can certainly believe it’d be a treat seeing it the way you mention.
Funny enough, I want to see a version of Chungking Express that feels processed to look like an early-2000s digital camera.
Blame lossy compression to save bandwidth. There's no way to legally stream in Blu-ray quality.
IIRC in the film era there was one "master" of the movie, it was duplicated multiple times to make negative versions of the film, then those negatives are used to make the positive copies that are sent to theaters. So you're watching something that has been copied at least twice.
Commercial theaters are all digital now. They don't even have film projectors anymore. Some independent or "revival" cinemas might still have them.
As a huge film buff, I sadly agree. And theaters in my area aren’t doing a good job keeping their projection technology current. When we went to see “Wicked”, my wife leaned over and whispered that it would probably look better on our 77” OLED, and she was absolutely right. The theater image was dark and lacked vibrant color.
Sort of off topic, but almost the same can be said for music concerts. During slower or softer songs, people can be heard talking and laughing loudly. I get it, they paid their money, same as us, but we didn't pay to hear them.
People call the classical music audience prudish for demanding quiet during performances, but IMO when you go to a concert it should be ok to shush people who talk during the quiet parts.
A couple of years ago, I went to see Echo & The Bunnymen open for Violent Femmes. I had seen the Femmes multiple times, but was really excited to see Echo. These two old biddies that sat in front of us talked the entire show. In between bands, one of them dropped their purse without noticing. I picked it up and offered in exchange for the purse if they wouldn't mind talking through the next act. They were shocked at the nerve and said they didn't talk that much. I then told them all about their kids and their school work and other nonsense that I had to endure. The looked at each other like "oops". To my luck, the show was not sold out, and we moved down our row to get away from them. I obviously gave the purse back
I went with my daughter to see Taylor Swift in Tokyo. It was an amazing experiences. Swift fans prefer recording Tokyo performances because fangs don’t sing along to the music or talk during the performance.
Just went to a very small show, 200 tickets but lots of no shows. Maybe 100 people there total. The folks at the bar were so rude to the talent just loudly talking over them. I just don’t get it.
The last time I chose to watch a movie in a theater instead of the comfort of my home, I went for the raucous audience aspect of the experience.
There's a middle ground. I go for the laughter and reaction of the audience. I don't go to hear the 2 people behind me have a conversation during the movie. Nor do I go to have people critiquing the movie out loud as we're watching it. I certainly don't go to watch people pop out their phones and scroll through social media or check their messages.
One of my better cinema experiences was watching Austin Powers 3 at the theater in some random late-morning screening where there were only three friends and me in the hall, plus two elderly ladies in their 70s. They were laughing so hard that the movie became even funnier for us, because you somehow wouldn’t expect them to find it that hilarious.
Also, growing up in a small town in Yugoslavia in the 80s definitely didn’t guarantee a top-tier cinema experience, to put it mildly. But the feeling I had watching the James Bond opening credits from a damaged film reel, with frayed subtitles projected from a decades-old projector, is something I can never quite recreate when watching on a 4K screen from a perfect source. So there's that.
</old-man-rant>
Out of curiosity was it a movie where you’re expected to throw toast?
The midnight showing of movies like Rocky Horror Picture show are fun when everyone knows that audience participation is the entire reason of going, but that's the only time I want audience participation.
This is why I strongly endorse buying a projector if the space allows for one. Changed the home experience. I thought I might be making a mistake when I bought my first (720p) years ago but I'd never go back to a traditional television.
Idk, a giant OLED is a pretty great experience, and the visual quality of them beats a good chunk of professional cinemas.
This is why I no longer go to the theater. The norms around how one behaves in theaters have been destroyed (at least to my preferences).
In the US there's also a non-zero chance that you'll be shot in a movie theater.
Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets.
So the theatres stay alive by selling concessions.
I'd wager everyone here complaining about prices would also wax poetic about how theatres don't "pay a living wage" to the kids scooping popcorn and would immediately drive home in their $100k Rivians or Teslas so they can give a one star review on Yelp or complain on Reddit about the bathrooms or floors being dirty or sticky.
These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.
You can't have it both ways.
> These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.
This seems weirdly condescending, especially since I think these two things are very related.
There are two types of $14 food truck grilled cheese in my experience:
The first type is usually found at farmer’s markets or free city events where the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients.
The second type is where there’s a captive audience, like a music festival or a brewery patio. This is no free market: you are hungry, and you’re about to be exploited.
I find American society increasingly reflected in the second type of $14 grilled cheese. Movie theaters, sporting events, music events, video games, tipping culture, hidden fees, etc. etc. Exploitative business practices to extract profit at the expense of the customer. It’s like walking around being shown the middle finger at all times. And people complain about the breakdown of the social contract…
> the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients.
Simple ingredients should be cheap. It’s fucking cheese and bread, stop trying to normalize $15 for it. The raw ingredients are milk and wheat, both of which are incredible cheap.
You’re disregarding training, labor, and the intangibles of culture and tradition. Those things should be cheaper, but in America we’ve basically all but destroyed bakery artisanship at the altar of capitalist efficiency, so its rarity has now made its products more expensive. Cheese is in a slightly better position, but only barely, and very regionally-dependent (Wisconsin and Oregon, for example).
So yeah, I don’t disagree, it should be about half the price if we had better artisan programs in the US. But I don’t think wonder bread and Kraft singles should set the bar for grilled cheese pricing.
I was going to say the same thing
the artisan grilled cheese is better than a hotdog that’s been overheated for six hours with a stale bun, and stale popcorn with fake flavoring
The reasoning doesn't particularly matter to me, honestly. Whether or not it they need to charge a second mortgage to cover the cost of the theater isn't really my problem; these are for-profit companies, I don't need to do them any favor.
Popcorn cost basically nothing to make at home, especially if you buy the raw kernels and pop them yourself, and I can rent a 4k version of a movie for like three dollars on Amazon. My 85" 8k TV cost me $1200 (refurbished, but still). For the cost of going to the theater with my wife 15 times, I can buy that TV to watch movies but also use that same TV for many other things.
Even cheap shitty TVs are pretty ok nowadays, certainly better than the stuff when I was a kid, and after I have to question the point of going to an expensive physical theater where there's a risk of some teenagers talking over the movie and I can't pause if I need to use the bathroom. The theaters might not like it, but regardless of whether its fair, they are competing with TVs now.
I am with you on everything but the TV speakers. They are awful because TVs are so thin. They are running into pure physics. Get a nice soundbar, and it's a huge upgrade. Get one with separate rear speakers and a sub, and it's pretty great.
But the experience is way better than when we were kids. Watching Jurassic Park on a 19-inch CRT with mono audio was nothing like going to the theater. The delta between home and cinema was massive. Now I have a 77-inch OLED with 4K HDR and an Atmos sound setup. I'd take my home setup over a generic cinema screen. Only the premium large format is a noticeable upgrade. It's hard to justify shelling out a ton of money for the movie and snacks for similar audio/visual quality to home, and the risk that the person next to me is checking their phone the entire time (happened a year ago, and it's super distracting in a dark theater).
I buy popcorn kernels in bulk at my local grocery store, and we go through a lot of popcorn. It might cost $10 a year in kernels to regularly eat popcorn at home when you pop it yourself.
Everyone I know with an Espresso machine still goes to coffee shops. Beer is cheaper from a super market but everyone I know prefers pubs. For some reason this does not hold with cinemas. I way prefer the escapism of the cinema to sitting in my house surrounded by my usual ambient domestic Todo list. Sure I have a very good oled, amazing surround sound, but I'd take the cinema every time. But I can't due to kids.
However, I'm the outlier, none of my friends prefer the cinema. No idea why.
I would generally agree with you except for three points: 1) the price of going to the cinema has surged so much that you have to budget for it in a way you didn't before. 2) I can pause a movie at any time and go to the bathroom or get a new drink. The lack of intermission during longer movies at the theater is rough. 3) The behavior of moviegoers continues to decline. In particular, people with untreated ADHD constantly checking their phones is really distracting. A phone screen really pops in a dark movie theater. And when I watch these people check their phones, they aren't doing anything other than habitually dicking around.
I can go to the movie and there is a decent chance people will talk through the movie or will be on their phones, etc. Or I could watch at home and be guaranteed a great experience.
Movie theaters have to upgrade the experience. They need to police patrons like they used to. They need to sell better food and drinks. And they need to get the pricing model under control.
> Beer is cheaper from a super market but everyone I know prefers pubs.
It's a pretty frequent complaint that drinks at pubs, bars, and restaurants have become extortionately expensive, to the point that a lot of younger people are drinking less for that reason.
I avoid "bars" where the bar tenders only pour beers. I much prefer the higher end places where every drink is hand made in front of you where the quality of the bartender is everything. I recognize the skill and accept that the price of the cocktail will be set accordingly. There are places that make cocktails with the same ice they use for soft drinks from premade cocktails charging the same price. I do not go back to those ever again after I slog down the one drink. Luckily, I'm a freak where I didn't actually start drinking until I was in my 30s so I didn't have to suffer being broke at a bar.
Even outside of pubs and restaurants. Six packs and cases in the grocery store are all hugely inflated. Since I like beer, I got an old freezer and built a kegerator out of it and now buy my beer by the keg. (For now) keg prices are barely reasonable. $10 for a glass of beer at a restaurant?? Fuck right off with that.
I don't drink alcohol or coffee, so I can't really relate to the others.
I will admit to having good experiences going to the theater with friends and/or family, but I don't really enjoy watching a movie with strangers. Nowadays if I want to watch a movie with friends, I will simply invite them over and we'll watch it together.
More power to you if you like going to a theater, I'm not trying to convince you to stop, just that I don't feel the value-add is worth it to me anymore. Decent TVs have gotten so cheap that I just prefer to watch movies at home.
My ideal movie experience is to go during the day towards the end of a run when there's a fair chance the theatre will either be empty or almost empty.
But I haven't even done that for a while.
If it's going to be crowded - no thanks.
Tangentially, because my gf works in opera I've been to some productions, and real theatre - a real stage, with real people, and real stage effects - can have a presence and magic that cinema can't touch.
So I'd much rather spend money on that now. It's physically less comfortable because of the seats, but as an experience it's so much more hands-on, hand-made, and satisfying, and creatively it leaves so much more space for atmosphere and implication.
I've had the same thoughts, also I sure don't miss the theater experience of having your shoes sticky with soda. God forbid you drop something on the floor like your phone, and have to feel around for it in the dark.
The last time I went to a theater, I went to the first showing of the movie for the day. We were the only people in the theater. 30 minutes into the movie, the projection suddenly shut off and all the lights turned on. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, we went out to talk to a staff member about it, and they told us that the computer said there was no one in the theater so they should shut it off. Long story short, they did not end up turning it back on, and referred us to the customer support hotline to try and get our money back. And this might be a little ageist, but there's something infuriating about a condescending teenager acting like this is somehow our fault. Yeah, no thank you.
Wow, that’s really a never again experience. Regardless of whether you got your money back or not, your anecdote makes clear that the movie theater business is on autopilot with extraction set to high. Last time for me the pre movie high volume advertising shower totally put me off from ever set foot in a movie theater again. The volume was so cranked up that it was distorting the sound so badly it was all unintelligible. There was nobody in charge to turn that down and it went on like that for 10 minutes. That was to me a never again experience.
I remember when I was watching Kick-Ass in the theater, there were some teenagers trying to be funny the entire time.
I initially very politely asked them if they could stop talking because we're trying to watch the movie, but they didn't take that very seriously.
After another ten minutes of their commentary I yell very loudly "SHUT THE FUCK UP!". Extremely loud, I suspect everyone in the theater heard me pretty clearly. I'm a pretty big guy and I have a very loud and deep voice, and of course the theater is dark, so they might have assumed I was more threatening than I actually am. The teenagers shut up for the rest of the movie.
The thing is, though, it kind of ruined the rest of the movie for me. The entire time I'm sitting there, kind of worked up and annoyed that I had to yell at some kids and ruin their Friday night.
I've certainly had good times in theaters too, I like movies, but I've grown a bit tired of it. Now generally the only time I go to the theater is the live showings of The Room.
Correct, you can't give customers a horrible experience at the theater and expect the theater to do well.
Years ago I was in one of those old kitschy theatres. The seat was wet.
I prayed it wasn't urine.
When my wife and I first started dating, we went to one of those cheap second-run theaters.
I liked that theater because it was super cheap (like seriously $1.50 for a ticket because it showed out of date movies). One time when she and I were watching The Purge, I hear this kind of squishy noise from right behind me.
I turn around, and a guy is getting a handjob. I motion to my wife that we need to move a few seats over.
You know, The Purge isn't the worst movie ever but I gotta admit that it's not a movie that ever really turned me on either. To each their own, I suppose.
From that point forward we always called that the Handjob Theater.
>I turn around, and a guy is getting a handjob. I motion to my wife that we need to move a few seats over.
To get a better view, right?
We were mostly afraid of substances landing anywhere near us.
You don’t happen to live in exurban Denver do you?
Nope, this was in Dallas. Well, Garland actually.
I don't live there anymore and haven't for about eleven years.
And you'd lose that wager.
I complain about movie costs while I watch movies at home, drive a VW that was under $40k new, live in a state with a minimum wage over $17 an hour, and refuse to pay $14 plus tip to a food truck that doesn't provide seating when I can pay $12 and no tip at a fast food restaurant that does provide dine-in eating.
Some of us live our principles, we're not all just whinging hypocrites.
Why can’t I have it both ways?
If all of those things are true, then the conclusion is that theaters can’t operate in a way that wins my business. That would be unfortunate, but it’s not contradictory. It also seems to be that pretty much true, as I see a movie in a theater maybe once a year.
Extending this logic, Netflix should be able to lower prices to $1.99 if they stopped paying staff $800k/year...
After all, they move 1s and 0s at the end of the day. No screens or customer-facing capital equipment to maintain outside of DCs.
Actually, yes, I do think that netflix could do their job much cheaper. I use putflix, which uses put.io for $0.99 per month. Better quality streaming than netflix, no forced ads, and they can make it work for $1. Maybe it's the model where my monthly subscription pays for their entire catalog that's broken. Maybe it should just be a la carte licensing.
Either way, until the industry lets me pay directly to the org that literally made the movie, I'll just pirate.
I do want to pay the artists that make the films. I think the most viable way to do this is via cryptocurrency associated with social media accounts, and then validate ownership by having owners post a magic validation link. This way I can send artists money and it's on them to go get it if they want it.
This is not a satire?
putflix is criminal theft. They pay nothing to people who make movies. You can drive the cost to zero by downloading torrents directly from pirate bay.
If you did want to pay the artists then you would pay for netflix of rent/buy from a number of places (amazon video, youtube, apple).
Your cryptocurrency fantasy is just a way to rationalize stealing.
That is not the logic used by wat10000.
I believe they wrote that it is consistent to find sufficient utility from a $14 grilled cheese sandwich and also find insufficient utility from a whatever price movie theater experience.
It isn’t written out, but when people complain about the price of anything, they are complaining the price to utility ratio. Not exactly profound stuff, but that is basically what it is, most people don’t get a sufficiently better experience in theaters in today’s world.
What?
The extension of my logic to Netflix would be, if I think their prices are too high and that causes me not to subscribe, and their prices are so high because they need to pay very high salaries, then there’s just no way that Netflix can exist in a form that I would subscribe to.
> the conclusion is that theaters can’t operate in a way that wins my business
They can, if studios gave them a better deal: "Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets."
That is not a fact of nature, but the studio's whim. If they want to drive theaters out of business and send all their customers to the pirate bay, they are more than welcome to.
Where is that? Tickets here are only $7-10 each (except maybe some IMAX or similar showings) and two drinks and popcorn would be $15-25 for two people (size dependent). This is in Colorado.
EDIT: I was going off of memory, but matinee/child/senior pricing is apparently $9.75 at the theater I usually go to, evening is $13.25 (I never go in the evening, had forgotten what that price was). They have a two drink and popcorn combo for $22.10. So the worst case of evening prices (again, not considering IMAX, just regular screens and seats) for two with that combo is $48.60. That's not cheap, but it's not $86 either. And if you're willing to share the drink and go to a matinee you can cut the price to $34.80. This is a Cinemark, a pretty big theater chain.
I thought tickets had more standard pricing across markets. For a standard ticket here in SF -- (I know we're comparing probably the highest end to the lowset end here) -- its $22. For IMAX its about $30, at your standard AMC. Indie theatres are not cheaper and are often more expensive.
7 dollar tickets I haven't seen since elementary school
Other side of the pond here (western Europe), but I pay 6 in an indie cinema, 12 if I went to IMAX and similar (which I never do because most of those are dubbed).
Popcorn and drinks is usually roughly the same price as the ticket, though the smaller ones frequently forbid it - they claim for the experience, I wonder if it's that or not wanting to clean between passes.
I go weekly, though rarely American movies.
Go on a Tuesday or Wednesday and tickets are 50% off at AMC (and maybe other theaters). While still not cheap, that gets you down to $16.49 for an imax showing at the metreon AMC and $9.49 for a standard screen.
>here in SF
Not op, but in Norway, so includes 25% VAT.
IMAX opening week is a lot, $25-35. After a while it can drop to $20 or so. Regular is more like $20-25 opening week and drops to $12-15.
I don't bother with popcorn and soda, it's grossly over priced. Like $10 for a small popcorn the size of a pint. I buy a 0.5L bottle at the grocery store next to the cinema and some M (our M&Ms), maybe $10.
Though lately I've been going a lot to the local cinemateque. Not only are tickets around $7 regardless, they mostly show classic movies so seldom worse than the new stuff. They show popular movies too, recently saw Heat there, first time I saw it at the big screen since the premiere. Still packed a punch.
I thought that you're being a little too critical. Others should know that Norway is a country with relatively high costs of living.
The minimum wage for a cleaner is 46k per year ($23\h). And your boss better not try any shenanigans, because you're most likely unionized and shouldn't really be messed with.
I've found $18 ticket for opening week for Hail Mary in my city. Most of them were at $23, but that's for the premium sall, with shaking seats or other fancy stuff.
So a person with a job looked down upon in most other countries can still get one ticket for an hour of work.
Reason I've felt compelled to reply was because cinema tickets always felt cheap to me in Norway, compared to more like 2h of work for minimum wage worker in Poland where I originally come from. Compared to any other prices like $15 for a beer at a bar or $30+ for a bottle of vodka in the alcohol shop* they just always felt like a steal. YMMV OFC.
*Interesting trivia: The alcohol shop is called Vinmonopolet and it really is a monopoly. The only company allowed to sell alcohol above 4.7% is run by the state. They have shops in towns, and if you live far from one (like most of northern Norway past the polar circle) you're most likely getting your alcohol from homebrew mafia instead.
I wasn't trying to be critical actually, as for non-opening weeks I agree, it's not bad at all. I mainly just wanted to provide a point of comparison.
IMAX opening week is a bit more but are comparable to mid-range concert tickets. And it really is a big screen, so can definitely be worth it.
The snacks and drinks at the cinema is wild though I think. As a comparison the M's they sell are twice the price and half the size of that from the grocery store. I get that they want to make some money on it, but 4x the price is just too much for me.
Here in DC is pretty similar - I just checked the Silver Spring Regal and it’d be $82 plus tax for an 8pm showing tonight. I think part of this is the push to promo/membership programs — if you’re price sensitive, you’re not paying $9.54 for a medium soda (not making that up) so they make their margin on the people who just pay and everyone else gets some kind of discount program which gives the company data mining / ad revenue opportunity.
Google claims the average price in the USA is $16 with Wyoming being $9 and NYC being $23. It's $18 at my local theater
Then I guess you aren't familiar with the 20 minutes of trailers, 1 minute of Cocacola ad and 2 minutes of other completely irrelevant content before the movie actually begins.
And worse, it's not even consistent, they show different amounts of trailers based on the movie/showing! If you show up 20 minutes late, you might miss the start for some movies and yet still have another 15 minutes of trailers for others.
Calling them trailers is a bit of a stretch; and only 3 minutes of ads? We go to different screenings!
Well at least it's not Amazon prime where they now interrupt the movie for the same ad/trailer 3 for weeks unless you pay extra again.
Fwiw I always enjoyed the trailers at the movies, no the other ads I could very much do away with (and I used to purposefully come late to shows to miss the ads).
Now that reserved seats are the norm, I leave my house at the specified starting time and never have missed even a minute of the feature film.
I hate this. Like the ticket is not expensive already, they also feel like feeding you ads.
And then wonder why people don't go to the cinema and wonder if they can increase the amount of ads to compensate...
Ticket sales typically go to the distributor, those ads are how the theater makes money
As a customer, though, I don't really care about the theater's pricing structure. If I'm paying for a pricey ticket, I don't expect to be advertised to. If the theater experience is lousy, I won't go to the theater.
Sure, that needs to change.
Just bring your smartphone and a headphone.
Not a conventional theater, but I recently went to Vidiots in Los Angeles and enjoyed myself so much I went back a week later. The location I went to has two theaters—37 seat and 270 seat, both with comfortable seating and an excellent picture/sound. Most people who go are kind of movie nerds, so everyone was super respectful. And they don't really play blockbusters, so you don't get that kind of crowd. They seem to be doing well, and I really hope the model works and is reproducible.
Oh, and it was $11 for one of the tickets, $13 for another. I don't remember how much a beer cost, but it was on par with (and maybe less than) local bars.
> they don't really play blockbusters
This seems key, the more comments I read here about cinema theatres and their crowds. Maybe the local (indie) cinematheque is the best movie theatre for money/quality ratio.
Where do you live? I'm in a HCOL area and just checked that same combo for a Friday night premiere and it's more like ~$70.
The markup on concessions has always been a thing but it really is just insane to think the unit economics on 2 sodas and a popcorn must be like 50 cents and selling it from $26 (in my area). Clearly they must make the most money this way but it is just crazy that anyone outside of significant disposable income even considers buying concessions. It's priced in such a way where anyone outside of the top 5% income brackets should just laugh at the price and view it as an extreme luxury good and not ever even consider buying anything.
Support small theatres, you won’t get charged like this.
If they exist. None exists the in 15 mile radius of where I live.
In the millennial suburbs some people have converted their garages into small indie move theaters with good sound systems and people from around the neighborhood show up to watch obscure movies together and eat barbecued food.
pre-millennial here; we call this a party, rather than a "suburban prosumer boutique theatre".
Is this actually a broad trend, or more just your personal experience? There is very little that could get me to move back to the suburbs, but this kind of thing is compelling.
Similar to people building a bar in their garage.
You could become the first.
unfortunately they are dying faster than malls… I live in urban area and my small theatre options re dwindling
This isn't why Hollywood is dying. Hollywood is dying because it's cheaper to make movies elsewhere. We're (probably) still going to have movies for a long time. In the same way that we still have cars long after Detroit "died".
I wouldn’t even say that. It’s dying because people are spending a lot of time watching YouTube, instagram and TikTok. A lot of people now just don’t watch a lot of long form content.
What theater is that at? Sounds like a mega chain like AMC or Regal. The local indie theater we go to in one of the 5 largest American cities has never been over $15 per ticket and adding popcorn and a drink is maybe $10 more on top.
Do they get first-run releases? Around here AMC has some sort of exclusive on that. And their theatres are disgusting. Sticky floors, dirty seats, just gross.
I haven't been to a movie in a theater in at least 10 years.
If you are expressing your judgement based on experiences from more than 10 years ago you are not really contributing to the discussion.
Admittedly, it was a while ago. But from what I've heard from friends who've been recently, it's no better, possibly worse.
Here in Finland this would cost about 50 euro, which is still a lot, but for me the main reason to never go to a movie theater again is that even after paying all of this money, the first 15 minutes is filled with advertisement, then 15 more minutes of movie trailers, then some "IMAX" or whatever intro video. By the time the movie starts, I feel like I've been watching tiktok for a day.
Movie theaters around me (even the high end ones) have 30 minutes of commercials and previews before the movie, so I typically arrive 25 minutes after showtime, no problem.
However it is still frustrating that they expect you to tolerate 30 minutes of commercials after paying so much money.
Do you not have reserved seats?
We simply arrive late.
I still go to arthouse movies regularly, mostly because it forces me to give them undivided attention
Although, I’ll admit I go way less often than two years ago when I was full time WFH. Which begs the question if I just went for a reason to leave the house
I don't know where people get these crazy prices. Try to find a little hole-in-the-wall theater. I like the local Landmark Cinema. It is about $8 a ticket and I skip on the junk food.
There is another theater on the other side of town that does midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Those kinds of places are also cheap.
I think it's more relevant to talk about theaters showing current new movies because that's kind of what Hollywood is focused on. I'm in a more expensive city where a weeknight non-matinee will run $20 a pop for a current release. Comfort is average but food is pretty solid. Not Alamo, but similar service level. Not unusual for a couple to leave paying more like 80 after concessions.
Alamo food and service have absolutely tanked over the last year. They no longer prohibit phones during the film. In fact, now they require one to order food. They have completely undermined their entire value proposition. Alamo Drafthouse is a walking corpse.
Huh? Aziz Ansari is very clear that this is now a quiet zone and you'll get no more warnings.
Where I go it's about $33 for two tickets bought online and probably $20 for those snacks, though we usually share a drink and a popcorn. The theater is still usually empty.
The market-clearing price is nearly zero except for some new releases. Oppenheimer was sold out in its first weekend, for example.
Anyone who went to movies before about 1999 remembers them being a lot more popular.
For a long time now I've felt that there's only situation where it makes sense. That's movies where it is something about it would make it much more enjoyable on IMAX or similar with a professional sound system. So something in the visual spectacle category.
For any normal movie I'd rather just watch it from my couch. But for the once in a while, over the top, blockbuster I'll still go to a theater.
Avatar is a good example.
I enjoyed each one in the theater but I tried watching Avatar: The Way of Water at home and despite having an entire media room devoted to good sound, proper lighting well calibrated projector and such it was not all that great. The movie fell a little flat without the theater experience to go with it.
I saw the limited run in advance to the 3rd one coming out in theaters again and it was good in that setting, as a reference point for my experience
Exactly, Avatar was literally what I was picturing when I wrote that. They're not good movies. But damn they're fun to watch in 3D, on a giant screen, and with great sound.
That's not to say that all movies in this category are *only* worth watching in the theater like Avatar is. For instance I would have still enjoyed the recent Dune movies either way but they were a lot better with all the pomp & circumstance.
At that point what you are describing is a theme park ride. It only works a handful of times though before people get bored of it and want something else.
Pretty much. I only go to a theater about once every 2 years or so at most.
Tent-pole black movies? Basically anything Ryan Coogler or Jordan Peele are involved in. They're a case where the unfortunate stereotype might work out in your favor, if you're looking for a group experience that heightens with shared energy and a visual-and-sonic spectacle. (Well, assuming it's true.)
Or maybe it's just a horror/Marvel thing. Weapons and Endgame had a similar audience feel to Sinners and Black Panther.
Definitely not during Chris Nolan films. It's hard enough to hear his dialogue when it's dead silent.
You can see live theater (albeit without concessions) for less than that.
I'm not sure who is going to the theater or why, but I hope they are enjoying themselves!
> 2 tickets, 2 sodas, 1 popcorn. > $86 dollars. > Don't know if I'll ever go to a conventional movie theater again.
We almost never go to regular theaters anymore. IMAX feels worth it for something like F1 or Top Gun where it’s all about the visual spectacle, otherwise meh.
We go to Alamo Drafthouse a lot tho. A little pricey but the experience of watching a movie in comfy seats over a fairly decent restaurant dinner is fantastic for certain kinds of movies. Peaky Blinders was the most recent. Tommy Shelby paired with a good cocktail or two, fantastic.
Also I don’t know how Alamo achieves this, but people there are really good about noise and other bullshit. I think it’s because they do in fact kick people out for being annoying.
They no longer prohibit phones during the film. In fact, now they require one to place an order. This has just started and is rolling out to every market. It completely undermined their entire value proposition. Alamo Drafthouse is a walking corpse.
Can you break down the prices?
Because my local AMC has tickets right now at $20, and soda+popcorn is another $20.
The people going to movies regularly are playing a different game.
The prices you see upfront like this are for "suckers". People who come in, don't think about price, and just pay whatever the cost is. McDonald's is like this now too.
People who are concerned about price though - they use the app, they get deals, and so forth. I've gone to movies and done the same thing - two tickets, two drinks, 1 popcorn and it was $30. This is because these movie theaters run "deals" all the time for this stuff.
You'll have to get used to this paradigm as it's the main way everything is priced now. There's not going to be a "one price for everyone" thing anymore. It's going to be dynamic and different pricing for everything.
And out of 2 hours experience, 30 min is ads.
Our local AMC theater would be $13 a ticket, $8 a drink, and $11 for popcorn (rounding up and assuming the largest sizes, although the prices are in a narrow band so the price difference between the least and most is under a dollar).
So, we’re looking at $53. Which is $33 less than wherever you’re at.
I also don’t know how standardized prices are across all AMC venues. So while Pokopia costs $70 everywhere, the same may not be true of theater tickets and concessions.
But yeah, it’s typically why we try to avoid theater concessions, because they’ve always been overpriced
if you love cinema enough
It's not even price for me - I'm happy to pay for an experience. I'm more annoyed that the theater is basically the worst place to watch a movie now.
The silver screen has a contrast ratio in the hundreds. A $300 consumer TV now looks significantly better than the blurry, muted, and muddled projector image.
Then the audio at theaters is always totally blown out and overly bassy and siblant. Fine for action, I guess, but it makes listening to dialogue exhausting.
And unless you get your favorite seat, you have to watch the movie skewed. God forbid you get a seat in the front and have to crane your neck the whole hour.
Meanwhile I can stay home, not deal with driving 20 minutes and interacting with the public, pay less, eat better food, get blitzed with friends, talk with my wife, have better visuals and audio, etc. Other than nostalgia, there's just no reason at all to go to a movie theater. It's become kind of outdated in an era of modern TVs to me.
I enjoy going to the theater to hear the guy next to me eating popcorn with his mouth open and maximum mandibular crunch. Also, I do enjoy the woman behind me that with her constant non-stop vocal reactions to everything onscreen (anything mildly sad --> "awww"; anything vaguely surprising --> "oooh"; ...).
Other highlights include the super bright EXIT signs flanking both sides of the screen -- helps me get immersed in the scene. The occasional loud bass rumble from the action movie playing one theater over also helps.
$20 for the tickets. $20 for 2x soda and popcorn, but they've always been on the expensive side compared to tickets.
Tickets are a bit more for IMAX.
Less than an hour outside Philly. The theater is recently renovated too and has nice recliner seats, and everyone has their own armrest.
I can confirm this, it is stupid how much just basic outing to watch a movie costs. I have 3 kids... I am in Chicago but it is like this everywhere
WTF? Where are you based?
Cheapest tickets are £2.50 where I am in London. Maybe £4.50 at a stretch. £10 worse care scenario.
Granted, I don't know about sodas and popcorn, as we always bring or eat beforehand.
Having said that, home theatre is hard to beat but I'd still check a cinema every so often just to experience the group vibe. Nothing beats the collective vibe around a great movie - and worth the risk of shitty neighbours. Maybe I just love cinema.
You can watch a movie without popcorn, you know. Not only cheaper but also healthier. This American obsession with popcorn always seemed weird to me.
German here. I have never not had popcorn when going to the movies in my younger days. It is just part of the experience.
But in my days it was around 12€ for a ticket, popcorn and a coke. And there were cinema days with special deals. Or cheap sneak previews.
I would never go when paying for me and my SO is equivalent of one of my subscriptions for a year.
I don't think that math checks out as the subscriptions got way more expensive as well.
Good point! At home you can watch a movie without being judged on your choice of snacks.
There's nothing unhealthy about plain popcorn with a little salt. The added "butter" or other toppings may be problematic.
I mean you can stay home and have zuchini slices with cottage cheese instead of nachos too; that's not really the point.
Do Europeans know you can watch soccer without drinking beer? It's cheaper and healthier. Absolutely bizarre obsession you lot have with it.
Europeans don’t watch soccer. They watch football.
It’s a communal thing. It’s more than just the sport it’s also about being out with other fans, showing support and usually friendly ribbing of the opposing teams fans from time to time.
That is how it was explained to me when I said something similar
Soccer without beer would be like college basketball without the gambling.
beer is way cooler than popcorn
Honestly the stench of theatre popcorn, and all the masticating around me, grosses me out. Fortunately it usually subsides.
It is surprising that such a large number of people continue to fall victim to fraud at the cinema. High-quality televisions and sound systems are now available at a reasonable price. It has been 12 years since I last attended a movie screening. All content will be available on-demand within a month of the theatrical release. Popcorn maker at home and drinks.
That's not what fraud is.
Unless you have a private theater room its not quite the same thing as watching first run movie in a darkend crowded theater - and even that misses the social aspect for an anticipated picture
The communal experience is special
On top of that most people don't have the attention span to sit through a film without opening their phones - film is supposed to be about capturing your attention not just entertainment
Otherwise watch it on your laptop for all I care
The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the room: gaming. The article doesn't mention it. The market for video games in 2024 was around $225B, compared to movies at around $33B. Hollywood has worked very hard not to realize that their industry has become niche and have succeeded.
My last week may be an indicator. I've watched zero TV or movies but have spent about 40 hours helping a small colony of scrappy hard working beavers survive on post apocalyptic earth. Steam got my money, Hollywood didn't.
The biggest competition for movies is actually from Youtube.
While the streaming business led to a growth of the movie industry, pre Covid and pre strikes at least, it's difficult to compete when millions of people can produce good content for low prices.
On top of that, it doesn't help that movies stopped innovating, 2025 box office was entirely dominated by prequels and sequels.
I don't care about avengers, I really don't, the first bored me enough.
Maybe one could reasonably blame on-line video and or video games if this were a global phenomenon.
But it isn't. China and India are going gangbusters. Japan is thriving and doing strong work. Nigerian cinema is projected to hit 3 million ticket sales for the first time this year. The UK--is at least stealing work from Hollywood with tax breaks. Korea had a rough patch, which they turned around by doing more mid-market films.
The US studios problems are unique, which at least suggests that the answer lies in the failures of their leadership. Perhaps their long project of abandoning original mid-market films to push bloated huge special effects heavy franchises was ill-advised. It's almost Like having a portfolio of 10-20 reasonable original bets is better than investing everything in a single expensive "sure-thing" sequel it increasingly seems like no one actually wants to see.
So I agree that Hollywood has stopped innovating, but am dubious that any other problems has much to do with Youtube (as much as I enjoy YouTube).
To be honest, a lot of the YouTube content creators, especially the most successful ones, actually moved to LA and Hollywood already, suggesting that its not Hollywood itself, as a place for developing fresh ideas, that is dying, but its more established institutions. I would say that if you are in LA right now, there is no end to the amount of young people ready and willing to work on some creative entertainment project, but the market is YouTube, and the biggest studio is MrBeast's (among others).
Everytime I see a trailer for an american film I feel like it's the same crap just re-hashed with different actors and the same plots over and over again. Give me something original. Something from Japan, Turkey, India, someone with a new idea. The Koreans? Yup, they push the boundaries of story telling. For example the School Nurse Files, that was either one of the best or the worse series I've ever seen. I'm still trying to figure it out. No way a Hollywood studio would take a risk like TSNF.
It's funny that you mention Japan, because I live here and I swear 90% of Japanese movies/dramas/animes are just rehashes of the same ideas over and over again. I guess only the good stuff gets exported.
I remember Joel Spoksky talking at a conference when YouTube was new, and media companies were suing it for pirated content, and Joel said that media companies were afraid of users sharing media content, but what they should be afraid of is users sharing their own content and everyone liking that better. Which has steadily come to pass.
Of note here too: There's been a lot of (social media at least) backlash against AAA studios lately. Anecdote: 2025 had a number of great (High quality, popular, award winners/nominees etc), and they weren't from big studios. There seems to be a niche middle-budget level that produces wonders. Just to limit scope to 2025: KCD2, Expedition 33, and Blue Prince were all incredible games. Expedition 33 has my favorite sound track (Or album in general?) of all time. Death Stranding 2 is another great one. By a big studio, but let a creative person run wild with it.
I suspect the problem with AAA games is the same one movie studios face; mass-market appeal and profit-driven-design degrades the experience.
There's definitely been an enslopification of both. Endless sequels. "Franchises" with meaningless stories and common tropes. Maybe it's survivor bias when I think back on older works, but nothing just seems that exciting these days.
Right, but you can ignore them, as they don't stifle the good stuff. You can ignore Ubisoft, Bethesda etc and still have a nice selection.
The difference between games and movies is how easy it is for entrants comparatively.
Indie / small studios have an infinitely easier time going to market than one would with making a film or especially a TV series.
You just make an account on a platform, sometimes submitting some additional information and paying a small fee, and that’s it. You may not even need actors like for text based games (Shovel Knight, Balatro etc)
Movies is so much more. And the cost of production is higher.
Also, the other big thing to realize is by far what games many people play is dominated by a handful of highly successful live service games. I have friends who only play Fortnite and have for a long time. They don’t play much else other than a few casual games when they take small breaks from Fortnite.
It’s not universal but there is a reason they’re always top of charts for revenue. Millions play every day.
The one other thing I’ll say is that seemingly unlike other media there is enough sufficient customer diversity that one business model doesn’t completely choke off all other types. Look at Expedition 33 for example
I also suspect this is the core reason. There are plenty of bad books, video games etc, including some for the same reasons we have bad movies. But the lower barrier-to-entry allows great ones to exist too!
I don't game at all but watch at least one movie a day as my relaxing time: criterion collection, mubi etc. I go to an indie cinema about once a month, often to see older movies as much as new ones. The cinema is rarely full but they have a good café and affordable subscriptions and I'm guessing some municipal funding, they won't ever run out of films to show. Though the day A24 goes out of business will be my sad day.
I don't watch a movie a day, but I'm at my friendly local indie theater at least once a month. It's got a more comftorable audience, more consistently interesting films, and it costs less than the big theater. If I went just a bit more often, I'd for sure get a subscription. There's already so many good films, and so many good indie films being made, I just don't need the big cinemas.
When you buy movie tickets, you go see the movie.
When I purchase a game, I generally don't have time to play it.
We are not the same.
This may be why gaming is a few multiples larger an industry than film.
The gaming industry has been bigger than the film industry for decades. This isn't new.
That’s because Hollywood makes movies, not videogames. You also spent a few hours driving but Hollywood hasn’t done anything about it because they are not in the business of making cars.
They are substitute goods. A common failure mode is not realizing this until it's too late.
They're entertainment, yes, but really not the same. I'll look for a specific game to play, I'll look for a specific movie to watch, and I won't play a game when I want to watch a movie.
Yes, and yet by the counts, Westerners watch more televised content than ever.
If anything the substitute has been TV. Gaming is big, sure, but that doesn't appear to crowd out time reserved for watching media. I expect that the marathoner gamer who plays for hours daily is a comparatively smaller demographic.
Well, sure, but they’re both in the entertainment space.
I think I have to agree with HN User Blell here.
I mean, the NFL, at root, is in the business of entertainment also, and it makes more than Hollywood as well all in.
But why would Hollywood care?
It’s funny in tech it’s generally understood that that attention economy apps are in competition even though they ostensibly are not direct competitors. But when it comes to entertainment (the original attention economy) we don’t think of it in the same way.
NFL and related sport are, at least putatively, unscripted.
Which might be raised in relation to gaming as well, but I'd argue that gaming elements share much more in common with cinema, particularly in the contexts of world design, character development, backstory, and of course, CGI.
> That’s because Hollywood makes movies, not videogames
Not true. Most media conglomerates own both video game and movie production. The big players like Disney, Sony, Comcast, Universal, etc all have ownership stakes in video game companies and most TMT funds invest in both as a same bucket.
Yes. Those conglomerates also do TV. But Hollywood makes movies, and not talk shows. Many of those conglomerates also have internet access businesses. But Hollywood doesn’t lay fibre.
"Hollywood" is a metonym/catch-all term for the media industry just like how "Silicon Valley" is for the tech industry and "Wall Street" is for finance.
Silicon Valley is a not a catch-all term for tech?
Metonym & Toponym <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy>.
"Silicon Valley":
As more high-tech companies were established across San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the Bay Area's two other major cities, San Francisco and Oakland, the term "Silicon Valley" came to have two definitions: a narrower geographic one, referring to Santa Clara County and southeastern San Mateo County, and a metonymical definition referring to high-tech businesses in the entire Bay Area.[citation needed] The name also became a global synonym for leading high-tech research and enterprises, and thus inspired similarly named locations, as well as research parks and technology centers with comparable structures all around the world.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley>
The time I used to spend watching movies is now spent on YouTube.
With the high quality cameras and drones at approachable prices, it's amazing to watch individuals create videos at such high quality but also has a bit of that DIY vibe that makes it more relatable and enjoyable.
My current fav is watching 4X4 overlanding videos of people driving along some stunning landscapes.
They're trying to avoid thinking (or at least talking) about it because they don't control it. They're hoping that the next downturn (which will almost certainly include a partial collapse of the game industry as we know it) will present an opportunity to scoop up incumbents. At that point, they'll be open about their relationship to, and ambitions, for gaming. Until then, the most you'll hear is A24 stuff, Kojima stuff, and tut-tutting about Ubisoft (almost certainly their first target).
That game sounds interesting. What is it called? I only saw Beavers Be Damned when I searched Steam.
Not OP, but I think they meant Timberborn. It just hit 1.0 release . I tried it a while back, definitely a fun premise for a game.
Not the original commenter but they could be talking about Timberborn. Don't have it but have friends who play.
Timberborn. It's fantastic!
As I wrote elsewhere, I think TV is what is actually consuming cinema's lunch. The average hours spent watching TV have only gone up over the years, but the same is not true of film. Gaming as a "primary" hobby is also quite male-coded (women tend to play on their phones, but they spend by far the most amount of time watching trash tv and Bridgerton or whatever).
Didn't The Game Awards receive more viewers than the Super Bowl? It used to be referred to as, like, "the Oscars for video games", but now it's immensely more popular than the Oscars.
> Didn't The Game Awards receive more viewers than the Super Bowl?
To be fair, barely anyone (in global terms) watches the Super Bowl.
You are correct though - [0] claims 171M for TGA with [1] claiming 125M for the Superb Owl 2026.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_Awards_2025
[1] https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...
There's no cite for the 171 million, which is a bit hard to believe. There are cites (which I didn't check) for these claims. Maybe they are counting people watching clips on Twitter?
According to Streams Charts, the ceremony peaked at 4.4 million concurrent viewers—the most in its history and a 9% increase from 2024—including 1.4 million viewers on the official YouTube broadcast (an 8% increase) and 1.8 million on Twitch. On YouTube, the ceremony peaked at 2.4 million total concurrent viewers (a 9% increase), including a record 8,600 co-streams.[6] More than 16,500 creators co-streamed on Twitch—a record for the show, representing a 50% yearly increase—with total unique viewers and hours watched each increasing 5% from 2024.[6][114] On Twitter, posts about the show increased by 12%, with more than 1.79 million posts from December 10–12, while the broadcast and related videos received over 60 million views.[6]
There is absolutely no way The Game Awards got more viewers than the Super Bowl. I’d love to see a source because I have serious doubts.
games are global - NFL is solely american.
They do show the Super Bowl internationally however. I had a client in Brisbane who talked to me about it, as he had been watching it. The international audiences don't have to be fans of American football to take an interest in it for social reasons (the same way people watch sports they don't care about during the Olympics)
OK, but how many markets are Games Awards actively televised in? I believe they have been watched more on YouTube, when I hear watched more than NFL in context of TV discussion I don't think YouTube is the distribution channel, however I followed the wikipedia link and it says "streams" which OK, not how I thought it was being ranked.
If we are ranking on streams however, does this take into account streams of parts of each media? For example streams of Bad Bunny's halftime show, streams of important plays, versus streams of individual awards being presented?
I don't actually care either way, much, since I don't like American football, don't generally like team sports, and don't spend time gaming, but somehow I think the comparison between the two in online streams throws the metrics off.
See the sibling reply for sources. A big part of it is that TGA is a worldwide thing.
> The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the room: gaming
Partially, but a massive issue has been the offshoring of Hollywood [0].
UK, Canada, EU states like Ireland and Poland, and others match dollar-for-dollar in subsidizes to incentivize local production, and factoring in lower salaries are able to outcompete even Georgia.
After COVID and the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, production completely left Hollywood.
Film production is high risk and expensive, so margins really matter, so the double whammy of the COVID shutdowns and then fhe WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike became existential.
California has been trying to reincentivize onshoring [1], but it's too little too late. Hollywood even lobbied the Trump admin [2] for a 100% tariff on foreign produced films [3] which more diversified media companies pushed back.
[0] - https://milkeninstitute.org/content-hub/research-and-reports...
[1] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/06/gavin-newsom-hollyw...
[2] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/15/hollywood-lobbying-...
[3] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g78e809zqo
The cultural relevance of movies, and American made movies isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but I think the economics of streaming is finally playing out in the loss of the geographical concentration of power in Hollywood and California.
This is the endgame of the feedback loop of streamers causing industry consolidation... the direct connection of dollars people spend to sit in a theatre seat was slowly declining, but now I think it's gotten so small that it no longer matters- and once the whole box-office feedback loop disappears a lot of the economics of how films are produced are being forced to change.
One of the reasons that people have loved to make fun of Hollywood for literally it's entire existence (besides the fact that the meta talk is self-indulgent artist stuff) is that making movies with so much money and waste is fundamentally ridiculous.
The optimistic viewpoint is that maybe new AI production tools will trigger a re-democratization of creative movies in the next wave, like in the 70s and the 90s indies.
I think the issue is that content creation and distribution has already been fully democratized. How many hours do people spend watching videos shot by individuals on their phones in their apartments?
Combined with streaming, there's just an overabundance of "good enough" content at everyone's fingertips. The moat that protected big-budget feature films is gone. You don't see a trailer for a movie and salivate and wait for it to come out, it just blends in to the stream of 5000 other things you can watch right now.
Like I said elsewhere, I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that are compelling. This is a broad category that I think people still want that's differentiated from 30sec vertical video, and that should exist in the cultural conversation.
It doesn't feel fully democratized because if it was, you'd see more indie things in this same format competing with "big budget" movies on the same playing field.
Yep.
Creating a good story, getting good actors and getting it all to come together is hard and still costs millions. At the end you may also not get your money back
Take 'I Swear', a very good recent film. It's well worth a watch.
It's made 8.3M. Has it made the money back?
It's not going to compete with 'The Mandalorian and Sidekick'.
That's likely to make several hundred million and still be fairly poor.
> I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that are compelling
Might be an anecdote, but I've noticed several friends and family unable to focus on a movie and lately even on a tv show without pulling their phones every few minutes.
> I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that are compelling.
I mean, "want to" is one thing, but the numbers show what they end up doing. Instagram and TikTok, like video games as someone else mentioned, have taken a significant share of the "entertainment hours" budget. I feel like the impact of the low-to-no-budget content creator is undeniable (this traces back to ebaumsworld and early YouTube, it was just internet dorks then, now it's been industrialized. Gen Z probably wholeheartedly prefers this type of content).
My point was that content creation has been democratized -- unfunded individuals can now compete -- not that making traditional Hollywood-style movies has been. It's gone so far they've been phased out, the entire premise is largely untenable at this point. That specific sector was actually somewhat more democratized in the late stages of the heyday, when a Hollywood movie called Dude, Where's My Car was made, and indie films did flourish because the industry was healthy enough to support them.
> Gen Z probably wholeheartedly prefers this type of content
I think it's virtually all demographics below 70.
My 60/70 years old family are all too distracted by the phones to watch a movie, and so are millenial friends.
True but I think a lot of them would be in the "I totally want to watch feature films" camp. By wholeheartedly I meant that the kids don't even have that pretense.
Cultural relevance of movies is already greatly diminished. Maybe these AI tools will trigger a reversion of movies to the days of the nickelodeons where plot, story, and character are irrelevant and people just shell out money (attention) as long as the moving image looks cool.
Can't it be both? In Marvel movies the plot, story, and characters are irrelevant and it's still the current greatest American cultural export.
You may want to watch again the movies that created the franchise.
All the successful Marvel movies are completely based on the characters.
A lot of the best Marvel movies are really other genres wearing a marvel skin
Look at Captain America: The First Avenger. It's a pulpy world war 2 film, really. If you took Captain America out it would still be a fun film. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a spy thriller
Ant Man is a heist movie, like Oceans 11. Guardians is a sci fi comedy.
After a while they started to all just become "Marvel Movies" and that's the point they stopped being nearly as fun imo
A lot of them are only "Marvel Movies" in their final act, which still leaves a lot of room for fun genre-surfing and -bending, before they have to get back to the business of, "This is part of a franchise." But even on that note, I don't think they get enough credit. Phases 1-3, Marvel et al. managed to wrangle a dozen films of varying genres, working through the stories of just as many main characters, into a single series with a coherent, overarching narrative. It was the biggest spectacle ever created in the Spectacle Industry, yet with a handful of examples of genuine cinematic sublimity (if not entire films, at least a few scenes), to boot.
And people would rather hate than just ride the wave.
Right, most of the context of who the original characters were and represented in the comic books are washed away in the movie versions- it's just a marketing thing that draws people in.
Batman and the different actors and directors over the different versions of the franchise is another example.
There will be some creative people that can now tell stories they couldn't before with AI, but I think by and large the major use case is to create short form video clips to get attention on the internet (advertising). I don't foresee a "movie" (meaning narrative story told via visuals and sounds in 1-3 hours) renaissance happening, in part because I think the form is fully mature and there's not really much more that can be done with it. It's essentially gonna be where Jazz music is today in 40 years, it will have its fans, and there will be talented practitioners, but every year it will be more and more culturally irrelevant.
It could be "film" as a medium is dead- but most likely 1+ hour video fictional story telling as a medium is just a very broad category and will probably continue to exist as a format that people enjoy.
It could be that in 20 years the Oscars are like the Jazz awards (the Grammys? - I listen to Jazz but I can't name a single Jazz Grammy winner)
You mean the Gramophone awards where they hand you a little mini gramophone statue.
Samara Joy, famously, for the past few years.
https://www.facebook.com/CBSMornings/videos/start-your-morni...
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/saturday-sessions-samara-joy-p...
They might have been in the last decade, but now it’s just yet another franchise audiences have stopped caring about.
As much as I support unions and labour rights, the last SAG-AFTRA strike mostly just helped the big studios realize they could do more with less.
Hollywood is a factory town at the end of the day, and we all know what happened to most factory towns in America. This one is just getting there a few decades after the others.
This is definitely another case where a union could either understand where the bigger economic forces are headed (in this case globalization, IP licensing, residuals that no longer make sense, attention economy fracturing the marketplace etc) and adapt to how people will consume content in the future, or double down on an economic model that is one generation behind.
In theory the union is the only org capable of standing up to the streamers' buying power, but it has to make sense within a business model where consumers pay one monthly fee for content. I'm not even sure what that really looks like in the end.
Maybe it's also that the FTC allowed all this monopolization to happen, and turns out that having three media companies in the US is bad.
How will unions help stand up to streamers? Many of the “Netflix originals” are already just co financed or licensed foreign films and many others are filmed in Canada.
People always think unions are magic when I saw in my small town where I grew up in South GA was that when union demands got to onerous - factories just picked up and left.
Just like software engineers scream unionization when tech companies can just expand departments overseas and as a bonus, they don’t have to worry about H1B shifting policies
Ironic that pro-unionization people on HN frequently use SAG as an example of what a software industry union could look like. Ignoring that that's absurd (no other engineering union I know of works like that), just as the parent highlights, unions won't make a difference when the economics of an industry no longer make sense and that is what is happening to software right now.
Don't really see anyone doing this, more like the pro-union arguments I see on HN are mostly about getting paid for on-call, wanting a worker elected member to the board, and having leadership actually held accountable for their decisions.
Getting paid for being on-call seems straight forward to me.
One of the main differences I've heard referenced is that acting and being a movie star means that the work is fundamentally differentiable via the end-product, where producing software is meant to have the same outcome no matter who creates it.
That is just not the case with acting, where the end product being differentiable is part of the inherent value of the product.
Also, it's probably true that SAG's loss of industry power has very much to do with the loss of the power of movie stars in general.
Small but important correction: the biggest issue for the movie industry aren't streaming services or them filming in locations with good tax incentives like UK or Australia but Youtube.
It's hard to compete with millions of videomakers, some of them extremely skilled and able to produce interesting content on a budget.
American movies suck.
The cultural relevance of all kinds of American media has been declining as the U.S. is not cool or aspirational anymore.
For some nations there is still a sort of paternal fixation with US influence but it does seem to be fading with time. Couldnt point to any one factor than maybe just an overall sort of boredom of it.
It's easy to say that because the whole idea of "movies" has been fundamentally linked to the USA for the last 60-70 years. So if nowadays there are a few other countries who also have "movies", you could say it's true, but it speaks more to the level of cultural dominance and soft power USA movies have held up to this point than anything.
Can you comment further on this? As an American it's kind of hard to see that. Is this just kind of a temporary reaction to the Trump administration or a larger trend? What is taking its place? Are there more localized media pockets (e.g. is there a significant German-language Instagram influencer world)? Geographically which areas are you talking about?
> The optimistic viewpoint is that maybe new AI production tools will trigger a re-democratization of creative movies
I don't think so.
Part of the downfall of movies -- blockbusters movies anyway, the kind where being a box office hit matters -- is that they have seemed produced like AI slop even before AI. Making it easier to produce more slop isn't going to fix this.
Then there's one thing making noise in my brain. It's not polite to say it, but here it is anyway: should movies be democratized? And art in general? Maybe people without the means of making art that reaches millions shouldn't be enabled by AI. Maybe it's ok that not everyone can produce this kind of art. Maybe the world is saved from a crapton of, well, garbage. More than what's currently being produced, anyway.
As for non-blockbuster art, it's already democratic. Everyone can grab a phone camera or a paintbrush and create art for their friends and family. And that's ok.
Anton Ego in Ratatouille gives this take on what democratization should mean:
Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.
That's a pretty good take, I think.
What I object to is this notion that everyone should make art, and that AI empowers them. As in (and yes, I've read this, I'm not making this up) "people without writing skills can now write novels". That seems wrong to me. People without writing skills (or drawing, or movie making) should not be making those things.
I would distinguish: they could make them for their own entertainment, but should not market them. But come to think about it, how much non-AI slop is out there that has become popular from entities with no or mediocre talent in it: generic Hollywood blockbusters, supplements, yellow papers, influencers ... all slop that became popular not due to its quality but secondary resources in form of marketing, placement and persistence of the propellants.
Yes, I thought of this too: the industry was full of slop way before AI. We spoke of "Netflix's algorithm", but even before Netflix blockbuster movies were done with a cookie cutter. Transformers (to pick one example) existed way before this brand of AI. Movies like it are perfect candidates to be prompted and built by an AI, since they were almost there anyway.
I can't help but think this "AI empowerment" will make it even easier for studios to produce more garbage at an unprecedented pace. And they won't have to even let actors age gracefully and die; now we can have Tom Cruise (or whomever, pick your poison) forever.
For me the "blockbuster" movies use so much CGI that it's impossible to suspend disbelief. They've gone too far and ruined the experience. AI will only make it worse.
Democratization is a specious argument. The artistry in an AI assisted work is the part that the human contributes as opposed to the the part that the AI contributes. If the human contribution is negligible, the artistry is negligible and there is no meaningful democratization because there was only token artistic intent in the first place.
And what's actually happening with AI? Someone mentioned in another submission that 7500 new books _per day_ are being released on Amazon Kindle. The wave of low quality AI submissions to HN was so severe that the HN mods had to restrict them. Whatever democratization is actually happening is drowned out by those taking advantage of the low cost of AI slop for profit.
In the end people have limited number of hours to watch content, and only a few things bubble up to the popular attention.
What I meant is that I don't see truly indie-produced feature films reach the zeitgeist anymore.
I don't mean AI slop, but the next gen of creative tools that will allow people to make cool and creative and compelling stuff without the backing of 100's of millions of dollars.
It seems like movies are just another cyclical creative industry and this has already happened multiple times before- with each new technology and distribution platform there's the potential to get a wave of creative output that wasn't possible before.
Another aspect could be that the hollowing out of the top / polarization of the industry is another catalyst.
It could be enough that people who don't work on 100's of million dollar budget films get funding to do the next 1 million dollar film that looks great and is amazing.
That's more analogous to the SaaS startup boom that happened in the previous gen of tech startups. Initial costs went down and platform access went up.
> What I meant is that I don't see truly indie-produced feature films reach the zeitgeist anymore.
Maybe they shouldn't. Maybe word of mouth from among those in your circle of friends that have good taste is enough. I'm not sure that blockbuster cinema reaching millions is tenable, or a good thing.
As for "watching content"... yuck, I hate the word "content".
Saw this link posted elsewhere on HN: https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2025/07/06/content-creator/
Summary: it's okay to talk about "content" if you're a "content plumber" like some kind of backend video engineer or sysadmin, someone whose job is to help the bits get to the viewers and doesn't need to care what the bits represent. It's not okay if you're a director, actor or viewer, someone who's actually interacting with the the specific piece of content.
> Maybe they shouldn't
looking at the last 4 years of world events, I think some people already have some nostalgia for a shared cultural experience, instead of everyone being in their own algorithmically and socio-culturally / demographically segregated bubbles. Or maybe it's just looking back with rose colored glasses shrug
Arguably this existed for the limited time in history with invention of over-the-air TV and ended with advent of cable. Event before internet streaming nobody watched same stuff anymore.
To be honest, I'm ambivalent about it. I do value a shared experience (contradicting somewhat what I wrote earlier). I don't have everything figured out...
They don’t have to reach the zeitgeist. Tyler Perry has made a good living producing crappy movies and plays that appeal to certain demographic. It’s a lot easier to get 5x ROI on a $5 million movie than a $200 million movie.
Before the pearl clutching starts - yes I’m Black.
What if all the good stories have been told? I conjecture Hollywood is out of ideas but there’s plenty new if you look elsewhere.
Recently watched a fantastic Chinese movie: Upstream (2024) - a dramatized view of a culture driven by algorithms where everyone is plugged in but opportunity does exist if you work hard. Optimistic and pessimistic, with an underdog you want to see win, and a bunch of beautiful human and touching moments. Highly recommended.
Hollywood will keep going maybe in a smaller form. It’s ok for industries to change or run out of steam, and it’s ok for new to replace told. It’s ok for a place to run out of stories to tell, because new stories will get told by others in other places.
My 2c: They should stop concentrating on appealing to the broadest audience. Formulaic heros' journeys, franchises, predictable characters acted by the same narrow set of the the most-attractive people etc.
Safety and mass-market appeal over creativity.
For contrast: Books, non-AAA video games, and movies from smaller studios still produce high-quality, creative efforts I continue to be excited about. Big-budget movies (and games), and Netflix shows are mostly bottom-feeder stuff.
There are some studios who do this already (A24 for example who have produced a number of relatively popular films). But agreed that the big studios have focused on sequels and formulaic content for the most part
I think it’s the finance people. They have decided every creative movie made represents resources and time that can’t be used for a “sure-thing” franchise schlock movie.
I miss the inner journeys mostly. The heroic journey is boring if the hero doesn’t change.
Modern youth cannot relate to that. They just browse their smartphones without emotion. Inner journey is not a concept they understand.
Sure, but Spider-Man CXXVI is a sure bet for a safe ROI. Nobody knows what Chopper Chicks in Zombietown will yield.
Books are a great example - even popular books will now have a readership in the tens of thousands, at most. Nobody makes money - it’s an art, not an industry.
Except that pretty much as soon as movies started being made, people have said this about movies :)
- Theatrical releases are how movies make most of their money, not giving them away for free on streaming. Box office margins are huge, but renting licenses to streamers is limited and fungible with all the other mountains of content they license.
- Box office optimizes for novelty, streamers optimize for "don't churn" - very different criteria for investment.
- Disney cannibalized the box office with Marvel Star Wars, which killed the mid market and killed innovation. This is your point. Disney's success and tentpole successes in general killed innovation and diversity and made the market more winner-takes-all. Comedy movies barely exist anymore. There are few $50-75M films now. Little original content. Now films are engineered for maximum audience penetration and maximum box office revenue. This changes how films are written and who they are written for. The answer is "everyone", and that means "safe", "predictable", and "repeatable". No gambles. Everything else has to fight for table scraps.
- End of ZIRP puts us back in 2000. Money used to be free. Now it's expensive. It's not as easy to underwrite productions anymore. Less innovation.
- Dopamine machines fit into your pocket and suck up time and attention. Gaming is also huge now. Less people going to the movies because plenty of alternatives exist.
- The $400 80'' plus Netflix versus the expensive theater, concessions, and rude people have made theaters unattractive. Theaters are where film margins come from. Without that revenue, expensive movies will be scaled back.
- Labor costs less in Europe and Asia, even with ample tax subsidy. The LA and American jobs and infrastructure are drying up. These are lifelong careers that are ending.
- Global audiences want global stories. American culture isn't local, and local talent can now make high quality productions. Asia is turning out banger after banger.
- Youth want youth mediums. Movies feel slow and boring. TikTok is where it's at.
- AI is now a thing.
All of the fundamentals have changed.
I will debate one point you raised:
> most-attractive people
Most people prefer to look at attractive people. It's an almost universal preference. Tried and tested throughout time. In film, those attractive people also need charisma.
not appealing to the masses is DEI; perfect robotic formula are just common sense.
Obviously.
Maybe I'm insane or it's my age, but I can't watch new movies/shows without just seeing propaganda agendas at every turn. Really kills it for me.
To be fair, there's plenty of that in older films and TV series as well, particularly "golden age" material from the 1940s -- 1970s, which played strongly off WWII, Cold War, and pro-business themes, with occasional ventures into counterculture works for the latter.
The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US Navy's most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004 account citing 1990 correspondence with then Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney: <https://archive.org/details/operationhollywo00robb/page/180>. Similarly endless war, cowboy, biblical, and rom-com films of that period.
That's certainly why the Navy supported Top Gun.
At the same time, you certainly could reasonably read the film as being very dubious about the military. It opens with the psychological collapse of Maverick's wingman when a MiG locks on to him, Cruise's character has to defy orders to save him, and gets chewed out for doing so.
Maverick's original motivation is clearing his father name, not patriotism. Goose dies in a pointless accident. The final dogfight is random "rescue mission" against an unnamed foe in "hostile waters" in the Indian ocean, and Cruise's character almost abandons the fight due to PTSD.
Yeah, the almost pornographic love the camera shows to the jets probably made the actual story all be irrelevant to the Navy's recruiting success. But it's easy to imagine all the whining from the Fox news personality cosplaying as Secretary of "War" about such a film if it were made today.
Cheney was sensible enough to take the win.
> The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US Navy's most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004 account citing 1990 correspondence with then Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney: <https://archive.org/details/operationhollywo00robb/page/180>.
Sure, but was that the intent of Tony Scott when he made the film, or was it just a side effect of watching exciting air wing navy operations portrayed on the big screen?
I can easily see a young man wanting to be not just a fighter pilot, but one of those guys on deck standing in the wind, dancing and pointing and saluting F-14s off the catapult.
Or, maybe they just like volleyball.
I think one highlight is that the old propaganda doesn't affect you in the same way as the "current thing" propaganda. Old propaganda feels sort of cute. So this is an argument for watching older movies :)
Should art not of a point of view?
That is the whole point. Since decades, it has a single point of view, failing to represent the majority of the people.
I think you need to get out more if you really believe all movies have the one point of view
And what point of view does all art have now?
That smugness is the exact point of view we’re talking about
Some is reasonable and then some is obviously just what rich people want you to think. Like America paid Hollywood a lot to always show the US armies being macho and always on the right side of wars.
Should a sentence have a verb?
Not always, no
You caught my typo. Gold medal.
Not all sentences.
Absolutely!
> Should art not of a point of view?
It can, sure. However, I will not pay to be lectured to on topics I have no interest getting lectured on. I'll keep my money, they can keep the sermon. Let's see who has more to gain from listening to the other. If they want my money, what I want to hear/see matters a whole lot more than what they want to preach to me.
They simply forgot the golden rule: he who has the gold -- makes the rules. Let them rediscover it.
Absolutely, when they are trying to lecture and educate me, it's repulsive and breaks experience every time.
If Sinners and One Battle After Another are up for movie of the year then it's no wonder no one is going. One is a fun but ultimately forgettable horror action movie. The other is a movie that just based on its major theme would attract less then half the country and even in those remaining is a very polarizing movie. It's up for best picture because to preach, not because it's actually good.
The obvious political stance of One Battle After Another notwithstanding, given how much the film succeeds as an exercise in using the language of cinema to tell a compelling story, it comes across (ironically) as idealogically motivated to say the movie isnt nominated in part for its merits with regard to craft and construction.
No doubt it appeals to people at the Academy in its persuasion, but if we were to strip it down to film technical aspects it would no doubt still be a frontrunner for film of the year.
I just didn't think that either of them were very good. Sinners was okay, and One Battle After Another was just kind of silly, I think regardless of your political views.
I’m also in the camp ”I respect the authors but here am not impressed”
Regarding wider adoption ”One Battle Another” is incomprehensible mess unless you are familiar with US. I understand the white supremacist conspiracy but nothing else makes sense _at all_. I trust when people say it’s super intelligent but I just don’t have any of the context.
Sinners is a cool music video that is about 5x too long - the few dances are really nice, some of the characters have very strong presence and few dialogues really are strong but … I would not categorize it as industry leading in anything unless the industry reference points are super low
F1 is also nominated what’s your explanation for that picture
Two organizations that love money (Apple & F1) collaborating to make a ton more money.
The tech for in-cockpit capture and presentation of the races themselves was great, but the dialogue and basically everything off-track was boring or rote.
People like to point at prices and bad audience behaviour for the downfall of cinemas, but I'd suggest that it also comes down to availability and home experience.
When I was growing up we went to the cinema regularly, but the only options for watching a film were VHS rentals and the cinema, both of which required going out. Films were rare. Sometimes there would be a film on TV, but it would have ads every 20 minutes, and our TV was a relatively small CRT.
Now I have nearly every film made available to me to watch within minutes on a huge screen, in a quiet room, that doesn't smell, with no ads, at the time I want, without going out, and I can pause it to go to the toilet or get a drink rather than having to hope I don't miss anything. And I don't have a home cinema setup, I have a <$1k TV and <$200 speakers, no surround sound, very basic, very accessible.
The only time I go to the cinema now is for IMAX because that passes the bar of better than I have at home as a whole package.
Cinemas just suck.
I totally get how much more convenient home viewing is, but there’s something about going out and watching something in a group that is special, like we do with opera or theater, sporting events or concerts.
I'm not sure I agree. If I'm there to enjoy the film I don't want to notice the audience, much like at the opera or theatre. If I've seen the film before and want to enjoy the atmosphere (like a concert or sport) then a cinema would often be a bad place for that (I've had that experience once in my life).
And yet I have no interest in watching any of the current few decades of superhero crap that Hollywood has been grinding out—at home or anywhere else. Maybe movies also suck these days.
I think it has always been true in most media that the mainstream is boring and devoid of artistic value while the fringes are interesting and valuable. There are plenty of excellent films around at the moment.
There just aren’t as many good new movies. Most movies we watch at home are from decades ago. If we didn’t have streaming maybe we’d go to the movies more often, but it’s hard to say.
A few movies we watched are not worth the money. To stay afloat they have to raise ticket prices, but if we’re paying so much, the movie better be absolutely outstanding, and the are just not usually, so we stopped going.
> There just aren’t as many good new movies.
Is this true, or you just can’t discover them anymore because everything else competes for your attention? Arguably in the last decade more great content in both movies and TV shows produced than ever, it’s just so much, that it’s hard to choose.
I recently watched A League of Their Own and Die Hard. In my opinion, these movies are just categorically different from what's being made today, are still totally compelling start to finish, and really capture the magic and the high art of the golden age of cinema. I truly believe movies were just better 30-40 years ago.
That was the era of "every second counts." Every second has meaning and purpose and adds something to the narrative. The Fifth Element is another good example, and almost 30 years old. Now in the age of binging, where a 2 hour plot is stretched into 17 hours of TV, there is SO much filler and downtime and it's honestly just offensive in comparison.
I kind of enjoyed Pluribus, I liked the concept and what they did with it, but there's way too much forgettable filler that dilutes it into a slog. The movies I mentioned are (again, IMO) absolutely gripping and just lean and mean storytelling vehicles.
Survivalship bias. Here's a list of movies released in 1985: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_1985>. How many of those are good? How many have you heard of? Here's a list of movies released in 2025: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2025>. Same questions.
I went through the lists. In 1985, of the top 10 movies, you had two direct sequels, two adaptations, leaving six original movies. In 2025, of the top 10 movies, you had two direct sequels, two remakes, three franchises (maybe sequels?), one that is a part II (so sequel?, also an adaptation), one adaptation and it seems one original movie. My, how times have changed.
See my other comment on this, but I'm talking about the top of the form, the movies that have and/or will stand the test of time and be considered notable for some reason. Not the average of all movies made in a given year.
> I truly believe movies were just better 30-40 years ago.
That's the problem with nostalgia, you don't remember all the bad movies you had to watch just to get those two gems. Someone probably suggested those movies rather than you stumbling onto them. That's pretty much the job of a critic. Siskel and Ebert in the 1980s would often talk about the pain of having to sit through hours of awful movies every week just so that they could find one or two worth recommending.
I'm talking about the best of the best though, the top of the form at the time. Yes those are classics and for good reason. But there were also lots more. Lucas, Kubrick, Spielberg, Lynch...feels like they just don't make 'em like that anymore. It's crazy that in some ways nothing has really eclipsed a movie from 1977 and we're still awash in its glow.
I tried to provide specific examples and contrast with something in the current zeitgest. I'm open to counter-arguments. I liked Barbie and Oppenheimer, both were well-done, but I don't think they'll stand up with the greats. I admit that I don't watch as many movies now but what stands out in the past 10 years? What has captured the zeitgeist like The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings?
Whenever someone says online that something's declining (Hollywood movies, video games, UX experiences in desktop environments, etc.), I see a variation on this argument: "actually the options are even better today, they're just buried" (often accompanied by: "you were just younger then and everything was new and that's why you liked it").
Sometimes, cultural decline actually does happen, usually eventually followed by some kind of renaissance. Anyone who has studied the cinema, literature, etc. of a certain country in the past knows that there are "hot" periods and "cool" ones. When we see this phenomenon in the past, it doesn't tend to trigger the same defensive reaction, I guess because it doesn't feel as personal.
> Is this true, or you just can’t discover them anymore because everything else competes for your attention?
There is an element of that perhaps: from the past we already have a great number of movies. The more time passes the more great movies will accumulate, so newer movies will be judges compared to that whole set.
However, at the same thinking how many times I was exciting about a movie and how much I liked it. There are lot of fewer of them in the recent times.
> Arguably in the last decade more great content in both movies and TV shows produced than ever,
I could see the quantity but not the quality. Netflix produced a lot of shows and movies, Hollywood did, but I don't think as many good ones in there as say in the decades of 1990-2000 or 2000-2010. Tastes of course are subjective, you may just like newer movies they make that's fine, too.
> To stay afloat they have to raise ticket prices, but if we’re paying so much
What are you paying when you go to the cinema? Just went to the cinema today to see Hoppers, and was slightly surprised that the tickets were only 8 EUR per person, then we spent maybe 5-10 EUR per person on snacks too, so ended up paying maybe ~15 EUR per person overall. This was outside a metropolitan city in South-Western Europe, maybe that's why, or I've just lost track of what's expensive/cheap.
About $18 latest price if we go in the evening, and for a the whole family it adds up. Given the HBO subscription is about $20/month for the whole household, you can see the movie has to be really good to be worth it, and most of them are not that good.
Just checked AMC - $18.50 in the app for a normal adult ticket. ($16 + $2.50 fee for using the app). An icee and popcorn would be ballpark $18 as well.
About the same where I am. A matinee used to be cheap, now it’s the price you said, and more like 20 for the full price show.
You don’t have to pay the app “convenience fee” but they added assigned seats to pressure you to do so. If you wait till the day of and buy on the big kiosk in the lobby, what if all the good seats are gone? (Hint: they won’t be, the theaters are always mostly empty)
Not even good seats, but if you're in a group you may not be all able to sit together. Or if you get your tickets and someone wants to join you later, there could be nothing left near you. I'm not a fan of assigned seating for those reasons.
We pay $6 tickets for first run movies on Tuesdays at the Studio movie grill as a cheapish date night with movie + dinner + drinks and reserve seating
Movie theatres hardly make any money from ticket sales with 80% of the ticket price going to the studio during the first two weeks and then declining. They make money off of concessions
As a kid I often went to the drive-in with my family. Completely different experience to a theatre, but one that I remember fondly.
The sound was always tinny and in mono from the small speaker you hooked on the window, but it was fun and very cheap.
So many more products are competing for finite attention now. And the solution to that problem is not to productize your commodity imo, art created for the sake of selling is not art.
If you don't productize something you won't make money and then you'll starve and die.
Then UBI. This is a failure of our economy, which creates perverse incentives. Clean air, clean water, good food, plentiful housing, and opportunities for sport, contemplation and art are the things we need, but our economy incentivizes people to pollute, sell slop, restrict housing, and exploit ourselves and others.
Everyone is complaining about movie theater prices. But, I'll also complain about streaming prices. I want to watch The Secret Agent and it's $9.99 to rent on Apple TV. It doesn't seem to make sense in comparison to month all-you-can-watch subscription prices.
Presumably, the business goal is to steer you toward (recurring) subscription rather than (one-off) pay-to-watch activities.
This is one thing I really despise about the streaming world. When rental stores were a thing you could grab older movies from the bargain bin to rest for $1 or less. Now all movies are the same price no matter if it's new or 30 years old.
I was already complaining about the price when it was only $30 for two tickets, two drinks, and popcorn. To think it's more than double that now!
Add in the fact most anyone can have access to a pretty good quality 60" display. It's not as large as the theater, but it's pretty good-sized, has better color reproduction than a lot of older (read: less-maintained) theaters' gear, and you don't have to deal with people using their phones or talking over the movie.
Lastly, let's just consider that for most people the number of movies you'd actually want to watch on a yearly basis has probably decreased in general while the cost of actually producing those movies has skyrocketed-- it's the same problem with AAA gaming. Your costs are so high that if a movie/game isn't an immediate massive hit, you're doomed.
Yeah, the bottom has dropped out of that market entirely. Gaming will be saved by indie and AA games, but I'm not sure if there's anything like that for movies; sure, smaller films exist but distribution, etc. doesn't really have anything like Steam.
This is something I already knew, but I realized it even more upon seeing the film Wendy and Lucy.
Yes, it's an arthouse flick. No, it won't be everyone's cup of tea. No, it's not blockbuster material. But, what it does show is how filmmakers can do a lot with very little. It's a simple story with a bittersweet ending and no VFX. I'm certain it cost relatively nothing to make. And it's unfortunate that we don't get anything like it in mainstream theaters.
Hollywood has been pricing itself out of existence but they still have the surprised Pikachu face while things decline.
I had a conversation with a bunch of Hollywood people last year. Some were writers, actors, etc. A handful of film personnel. They were all quabbling about what was going to win at the Academy Awards, who was getting good and bad attention from the Hollywood Reporter, and so on. Simultaneously, they were lamenting about how bad things were in their industry.
I then asked the group if the industry had thought about making a good movie for a change instead of giving a shit what the Hollywood Reporter has to say. They were dumbstruck, probably due to a combination of my rudeness and not having a good counterargument. If people are losing their jobs and not making money then it's hard to deny how self-congratulatory the entertainment industry is.
Yep. I'd just about kill for a decade where we go back to 80s flicks. Some of the best quantity and quality we've ever had for mass-appeal movies, and they didn't cost anywhere near what the average cost is today.
And I'd have at least 2-3 movies a year I'd really WANT to go see, probably more.
Back to the Future, Lethal Weapon, Arnie's action flicks, Ghostbusters-- I could go on for quite awhile, maybe the last decade where we had that kind of movie output.
I started watching 1960s era movies with my kids and I understand why Hollywood had the power at the time. Entertainment and solid values crafted into a "picture".
I can imagine back then eagerly awaiting a new release. Now, who cares. Some depressing trauma story of someone I can't relate to or rehashed superhero flick. Yawn.
Nobody else to blame but themselves. Of course, Hollywood is full of narcissists so they'll blame everyone else, e.g. streaming, prices, etc. but the reality is of the last 10-15 years of mainstream US cinema is:
- Scripts that sound more like an HR meeting than a good story.
- Blockbuster superhero movies that are all the same movie.
- Lots of remakes that added modern CGI flare and destroyed the artistic value of the original.
- As consolidation of studios happens, way more "safe" stories that aim to not offend anyone. I think the only one able to get away with it right now is Tarantino.
Prices, streaming, theaters, etc. -- they're all accessory to the problem. People went to the movies for enjoyment, why would they go to endure them? There's no cultural collective experience anymore in the sense of going to see Lord of the Rings or Matrix with your friends for the first time.
Also this is happening throughout all media. Music and video games have the same kind of discussions.
Hollywood seems to have never realized that the point of works like LotR and Star Wars was to take the ridiculous extremely seriously. The bad CGI didn't matter because every actor took it seriously. A marvel-ized star wars with great CGI is still a bad movie because nobody on screen takes it seriously despite how realistic the graphics are.
Iv had some movies I wanted to see but had to wait for them to appear online via youtube, apple, PBS, or DVD.
Niche films / indie films don't get shown everywhere and unless your sometimes willing to drive over 150+ miles you just have to wait.
The only reason I like going to the theater now is to see movies in "4dx". It's a ridiculous format where the seats move and there are other special effects including air, water, and smoke which are custom edited for each chosen movie. It's like a combination between a movie and one of those amusement park rides. I think most people hate it, but my kids and I enjoy it. Tickets are ~$30 each though.
Otherwise I would just rather watch a movie on the couch at home. They come to streaming so quickly there's no problem waiting for it.
I watch a film every single day since Covid. There are great films everywhere every year. I'm not american but the sooner you ignore the american cultural imperialism is the better (or at least the films that don't premiere at competition festivals). There is a whole world outside of America.
When compared to the nascent asian cultural imperialism, I'd rather have american media, to be honest. Over here in the global south, Hollywood was a pretty good influence compared with what I see around the anime/Kpop crew.
There is a whole world inside America. You can say that about every single country on Earth, but not every country on Earth produced The Godfather, Citizen Kane and Toy Story 2.
Can you tell me your top 3 of every year since Covid?
Good riddance. It won’t be missed. Very little of Hollywood benefited humanity - it was mostly a tool of the rich and governments to propagandize. It was just an another opiate for masses. It was built on ruthless exploitation of labour and consumers.
Hollywood produced some of the most influential pieces of art of the last century and it permeated global culture in a way only comparable to Renaissance-era Florence. Even if your simplistic take stained by marxist propaganda is true, you shouldn't just casually dismiss the labor of hundreds of thousands of artists and technicians over a century simply because you've become jaded by Marvel slop.
> some of the most influential pieces of art of the last century and it permeated global culture in a way only comparable to Renaissance-era Florence
Not just comparable; easily greater than. US movie business has easily been more influential than Romanticism. That said... TFA makes undeniably valid points:
"Morale has been battered by tens of thousands of layoffs, the exodus of production from California to lower-cost territories, the waning cultural relevance of cinema versus social media, declining attendance at theater chains and fears that artificial intelligence will displace traditional moviemaking.
[...] this year’s Oscar race has been overshadowed by rival Paramount Skydance Corp.’s $110 billion deal to buy the company. It’s the third time Warner Bros. has been sold in less than a decade.
[...] Hollywood’s anxiety — the local industry’s challenges are often compared to the decline of automaking in Detroit — isn’t misplaced. The crisis has grown to such magnitude that last year, California doubled the annual assistance it gives to film and TV productions to $750 million to stop them from fleeing the state."
Influential? Yes. Was that influence for the betterment of humanity? I’m not sure. Beyond the slop many of the classics were deeply racist and built on immoral exploitation. Yes all those artists did great work but they did it in terrible conditions for where near enough pay.
Take apocalypse now: a great piece of art. Was it worth the pain and suffering of its production? Absolutely not.
> I’m not sure. Beyond the slop many of the classics were deeply racist and built on immoral exploitation. Yes all those artists did great work but they did it in terrible conditions for where near enough pay.
This is so naive, I can't even begin to tell you how wrong you are. Hollywood is the first window into the western way of life for many third worlders. And if you knew how the third world really is, they are much more racist, much more primitive than the West.
In reality, Hollywood opens up people into western culture - openness, rationality and so on.
Terrible historical practices/immoral productions shouldn't the reason alone for such dismissal. Every industry had it's fair share of terrible things. Sometimes, we learn to do better. There are also enough ongoing things to be worried about.
Hollywood should implode and hopefully the art form will resurrect for the better. But for me the primary reason is that they don't live up to what they are supposed to do. Creating good art.
Hollywood was never about making art. It was about making money. That some good art came out of it was an accident of the process.
Do I want movies to survive? Sure. But Hollywood as a thing was about vacuuming up every penny it could and that I do not grieve.
The greed is the same for all players and industries. I don't see why hollywood's situation is different. They just failed to adapt to new conditions.
I agree that the good stuff is just a result of shotgunning, for every great movie, there are 100 that are forgettable. But we have the habit of concentrating power in one place, so I have no clue how it could be otherwise. Sure youtube is an alternative with myriad of independent creators, but it produced totally different outcomes.
Agreed. To say "good riddance" to Hollywood scares me. Like we are giving up and accepting generated slop and influencers from now on. There's a lot of bad movies, but just as you said, very few mediums have thusly pierced through across cultures and societies quite like Hollywood.
>To say "good riddance" to Hollywood scares me
It should only scare you if you are ignorant.
>very few mediums have thusly pierced through across cultures and societies quite like Hollywood
This is laughable if you look at video games and music EVEN if you ignore everything american. Not mention Asia from Bollywood to Kpop to anime to HK cinema.
This is such a college freshman worldview take, IMO.
for what it's worth, I agree. there's a lot that hollywood contributed and a large part of our culture can be attributed to things that stuck from hollywood.
As an example: I know that the particular type of sitcoms like Friends or How I Met Your Mother are very popular in third world countries. They are the first real window into western culture for many people in such countries. A lot of ideas like promiscuity, dating, career and the western way of life are primarily introduced to people through such media.
Its hard to overstate the impact this brings. Once you have enough people exposed to such ideas, the mindset changes and the ripple effects are pretty huge.
Third world countries would still be in their old and primitive lifestyle if not for the propaganda of Hollywood which I very much welcome.
One new problem for theaters is that entertainment now comes in other time formats than the 1-3 hour movie or the hour-long TV show. Netflix is not constrained by the need to push groups of people through a movie theater.
Original:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-13/hollywood...
There was a bubble when all the new streaming services started making content, now there's a bust.
Attendance drops at movie theatres is irrelevant. Most people have watched movies and tv shows at home for years.
Hollywood will be fine.
> ... California doubled the annual assistance it gives to film and TV productions to $750 million to stop them from fleeing the state.
750M/38.9M = $19.28 per resident
Why can't we call a taxpayer subsidy by its right name?
I haven't been in cinema in the past ~10 years and to be honest I wouldn't care if no more movies were ever made, simply because there are hundreds, if not thousands, amazing movies made since the beginning of the cinema that I didn't watch. Most of the new movies are crap anyways, so why waste time and money when I can watch a classic movie instead which has a much higher probability of me enyjoing it.
This is a boring opinion. It's the equivalent of what happens to many older adults when it comes to music. All of the best songs came out in their teens to about 30 so what's the point of listening to anything new? It assumes there is no innovation and the person just traps themselves in the past.
You could say there hasn't been any good new music since 1970 and humans have been making music for thousands of year. Or you could try out the many new genres and eventually find something new and exciting.
it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.
That's funny. I was having this similar discussion with my 16 year old niece, and I was asking her what she's been listening to as a 50 year old trying to broaden my musical horizons. She pulled out her Spotify and shared some of her playlists with me, and I was astonished to see that most of the music that she had been enjoying was produced in the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. We had a good laugh about it, and bonded over some of the classic music that I love that I was suprised to find that she loves. There were some modern things interspersed, and I did learn about some new artists and experimental genres. Seems like a clear example of the Law of diminishing marginal returns in the cinema and music industries in Southern California — leading to those industries collapsing. AI and generative crap being a big evidence point for the argument.
To test whether you’re right, please list 10 movies made in the last 10 years that will stand the test of time as truly great movies. If fewer than one per year is worth watching, it’s a hard sell to say that we should spend our time sorting through the chaff trying to find it.
It’s entirely possible that we’re in a period where most of those with creativity have just stopped making movies. Interestingly, I find TV has everything movies are lacking, creativity, originality, even big name actors that used to make movies.
List ten movies that will stand the test of time in the time frame of the decade after you turned 25. This will make it less biased to stuff you think is good just because you had never seen anything similar.
Any list will be subjective so instead of taking your initial bait for you to subsequently tear down, people (but probably AI) can construct a list to your personal taste.
Yeah reading this comment thread really reminds me how dull and disinterested in art so many people in this community are.
I didn't say there're no new great movies coming out, I simply stated that there are enough of great old movies than I PERSONALLY don't need new movies.
> it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.
Quite the contrary, I constantly discover interesting old movies from a wide variety of genres and different parts of the world.
Theatres don't just show new movies. There's something very special about being locked in a dark room with a big screen to watch Alien or Barry Lyndon. Older movies especially look great in a theatre and some of the magic is lost on a smaller screen.
90% of any content is crap but you're missing out if you like movies and you haven't seen Sinners, The Bone Temple, or NOPE (to name a few recent great theatre watches).
I regularly go to a nearby cinema that also shows older movies. Watching a movie like "Ran" (Akira Kurosawa) in a restored 4k version on a big screen is quite an experience. (Tickets are 10€ btw.) Often I go with a friend, but occasionally I also go alone. There's something about spending 2 or 3 hours in a dark room entirely focussing on a piece of art.
There is very little incentive to make good movies now, especially when zoomers' attention spans are maximum 2 minutes. I still enjoy a classic movie or two but I'm running out of movies to watch even then.
“Second screen viewing” that there is a term for it and they’re writing for it… is a real problem.
The same argument could be made for the book industry, where there are centuries of content available. And yet, people still read new books.
I think book sales are significantly down compared to most periods in the last 50-100 years? Still a culturally significant thing, but economically not what they used to be ...
IIRC the book merger lawsuits, they don’t really read many new books. Many are published few are bought.
It often is made, an the vast majority of new books are slop
Enshittification seems to be the modus operandi in every business. The music and the movies from current era feel like they're made for idiots.
I went to see Avatar. I only go to the movies once a year its a kinda tradition on New Year's Day.
It cost me 50 eurodollars for two tickets. And people complain Netflix is expensive!
What's a eurodollar?
Young people are going to prefer content that caters to their cultural zeitgeist and worldview. This is why new media is continually made and we don't all just listen to Mozart.
Everything changes and evolves. Fashion, music, games, young adult fiction, memes.
You wouldn't limit yourself to your grandparents' taste, would you? (I didn't say parents because some kids are instilled with parental preferences. I grew up around kids in the 00's who said the Beatles were the peak of music - obviously learned preferences straight from their parents.)
You might not understand youth culture because you grew up before them and have different tastes. We're imprinted with preference and nostalgia for our youth, and we can see changes to that as a hideous affront. The next generation is meanwhile going through the same cycle we did.
Most recent in theater movie I was was "F1" because I thought the audio experience would be worth the ticket price. While the audio was good, seat quality was sub par, popcorn stale and soda was from a Freestyle machine (YUK!)
I put more stock in the the Sundance and Cannes jury prizes: even if they're comprised of the elites who can afford to go to these festivals, they've still got far more artistic sense than the ossified corporate board that the Academy has always been.
Cannes is free to attend for film professionals. Always was. You only have to find a hotel.
At Sundance you could stay in Salt Lake City or Heber City and have fun. Free busses.
Oscars are not about the arts, nor about quality. Never was.
Here's a great video-essay on adjacent topic: Why The Movies Don't Feel The Same Anymore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoldOz5YyAw
$100 to go to the movies for a family of four. No thanks. There’s no mystery why the movies are dying. They’ve priced themselves out and then they give away the product on streaming several months later anyways.
If they want theaters to come back then they’ll have to put movies behind a paywall again.
Yeah, I think the prices also have resulted in a massive change in how consumers decide to go to movies as well. With the price so high for a family of four, people rely much more heavily on positive word of mouth/reviews before making a decision.
So people are much more risk adverse. I've never understood why they don't do tiered pricing based on the type of movie it is. If it's not a mega blockbuster type film, reduce the price a bit to make it easier for people to take a risk and try out a movie without it being a 90%+ rating on rotten tomatoes. I'd personally probably go a lot more if a movie like say Marty Supreme was $10 instead of $20.
So do you want to pay more, or less? I am confused.
I think it's more about being unwilling to pay so much when a free version is just a few months away. Streaming is too good and too cheap compared to the theatrical release.
“Free” but you pay a monthly subscription. No one seems to know what free means anymore.
And its $100 minimum... at least in NYC. Right now its 20-25 a head and that doesn't include transportation or food.
The missing middle from 20 years back is rentals. That was $5-10 a pop, people rented almost weekly. The option is there digitally now but its not in the public conscience for the same reason as cinema, people can just wait for the streaming option as the turnover is so short. (And granted, more people went to the cinema back then)
Meanwhile consumers are whining about the increases in streaming cost and diffusion, and low quality content. It had to happen, the math wasn't working out. In the social media bubbles users argue they will "just pirate again", over and over as though those who would care to don't already do so. Its toothless. Average people are not going to pay for a VPN and navigate things they don't understand just to pirate. They will eat the cost, whether it be streaming or renting
I doubt increasing the price of their goods will work when the supply of alternative ways to spend time at almost zero cost is near infinite.
You’re probably right. Big franchises would survive, a bunch of people would pay modestly for each new Marvel movie if it were never coming to streaming. But the films that do still exist that have no marketing, would probably do even worse without having any streaming release.
thats so much cheaper for a family of 4 for 3 hrs compared to other options.
what are the other cheaper options? going to free parks and museums? i am sure going to free museum will be a big hit with the kids :]
People are living in entirely different cost of living realities outside of NYC and the Bay Area.
Within 5 miles of me with 2 adults and 2 kids and $100, you could go to a trampoline park, ropes course, bowling, hours at an arcade, water park, race go-karts, several months of pool membership, or 5+ museums. Possibly 2 of those activities.
For free there’s dozens of playgrounds, courts and fields for any sport, community and religious-sponsored events, and after you can get a nice sit down meal with money leftover from your $100 budget.
$100 would be above many families entire entertainment budget for a week.
Even not free parks. Our Zoo and Cal Academy memberships amortize down to $50/trip for 4.
yes we have those too but you can go there only so many times.
I mean when you have Larry Ellison and other goons pledging investments in these major studios, it's no wonder people who actually enjoy watching movies don't want to give their money+time to watch some dumbed down bottom of the barrel slime that AI has decided people will sit through.
Thankfully, filmmaking is becoming more and more independent. It's never been easier and cheaper to make a movie and share it to millions of people on YouTube or Vimeo. Why go through Hollywood, investors, or give money to festivals for a chance at success when you can just upload the thing and see what happens?
A few years ago, someone on Twitter had a really cool proposal for how to revamp the entire format of the Oscars, even taking the importance of commercials into account, but I can't for the life of me find it anymore.
Hollywood has been going through a similar cultural problem that gaming has. They have been extremely woke, and I'm sorry that people won't like that, and they have made movies to make far left critics happy instead of audiences. Not all are like this but this has dominated the industry. There have been some big moneymakers in recent years an the industry could try to make movies for audiences again but they have gotten into this space where they have to make the Academy happy. There was those Danish filmmakers at a press conference talking about their movie set in the 1700s, or something like that, and the press were whining about the lack of diversity in a historical Nordic film. I think if they decide to make movies people want to see and stop using Millennial vernacular in all script writing, they will see people wanting to watch movies again.
The main issue was the content the movie industry produced which looked like a lot like some AI slop. I think the DEI lecturing was another nail in the coffin. Unless that changes and they magically add something new to the cinema experience I think they will keep diving into irrelevance because now everybody can produce AI slop.
Yes they should never had a Black lady playing an orange alien from Tamarin on the Titan TV series. It just wasn’t realistic.
We should just have all White males leading movies
Could you please explain this? I'm having a hard time following. Ty.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44966851
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfire_(Teen_Titans)
The most interesting part:
> North Americans are going to the movies about half as often as they used to a decade ago, based on the number of tickets sold at cinemas in the US and Canada.
50% down in just 10 years is massive.
One small thing I noticed.
The best movie of this year, a film called Sirāt, was in part funded by a grant from Spain's Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts [1]. Another incredible one this past year, a Brazilian film called The Secret Agent, was funded by various grants and institutes as well [2].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir%C4%81t 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Agent_(2025_film)
The promise er sorry propaganda used to be “attend the big blockbuster movies so they can spend the extra money on riskier indie films”. Essentially trickle down for the movie business. Here we are.
Actors being this wealthy and famous has always been a mystery to me. Oh so you are a good looking person that recites other people's words for money while faking emotions? And you can take as many takes as you can and your fuckups will be corrected in post-production anyway? Well I guess the work you do totally merits the hundreds of millions of dollars you've amassed. Like even kicking a ball or whatever makes more sense to me because there is an objective measurement of what it means to do it well, while with actors its mostly about sympathy or preference
Actors have a kind of legally-enforced monopoly. They're not employees you hire, they're products you buy.
If you want to make a movie staring Nicole Kidman, you have to pay whatever Nicole Kidman wants you to pay. You're legally forbidden from hiring an "off-brand" person and making her look indistinguishable from Kidman.
If you want to hire a Scala programmer, there's plenty of easily-replaceable people willing and able to do that job. No single person dictates how much money Scala programmers make.
Famous actors are basically a category that they're the only member of, and so they can set their prices. You can switch to a different category )(just as you can switch from Scala to Typescript) if one becomes too expensive, but that too carries some expense.
Franchises have a similar problem. If all your friends are watching Game of Thrones, you too want to watch Game of Thrones, even if there are other shows which are just as good. This means the Makers of GoT can dictate GoT prices, because the government gives them a legal monopoly on GoT distribution.
It's celebrity. People want to imagine themselves like these icons they've built, even if only through the laziest of efforts. I wonder if it's an innate human trait to aspire to be like those we admire.
I don't want fame, but if I did I would want a lot of money to give up my freedom to be chased by paparazzi for the rest of my life.
There's certainly a lot of actors that seem to just phone in a performance and are mainly hired due to their looks and high profiles, but don't forget about the actors that can elevate just about any role that they're in due to their skills and artistry.
Every time there’s an article about the “good ol’ days of Hollywood” I like to trot out this comic strip- looks like last time I posted it was five years ago:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201112024059/https://www.gocom...
Hollywood has been a franchise and licensed IP sequel/remake/reboot farm since the ‘80s, since Star Wars and Jaws blockbusters killed off the experimental period of New Hollywood. And even before that it was Cecil B. DeMille bombastic productions and westerns and musicals everywhere. The movie industry has always been characterized by crowd pleasers.
I can hardly wait for "vibe cinema". Type in a prompt and a 2 hour epic AI slop film comes out. Not much different from Hollywood is now making the hard way.
We're already seeing that in the format of short-form serials on TikTok.
Another victim of the efficiency of the market.
Market forces know no culture except what consumers pay for. Absent real care, stewardship and focused investment, the product will always get cheaper.
And of course consumers' tastes are under attack from another direction: their attention spans.
Some load-bearing pillars of human culture are weakening.
They have no one to blame but themselves, judging by the quality of Hollywood movies in recent years.
Is this article a weird cut-paste of older content? This passage makes no sense in the rest of the context, the tense is all wrong.
>Starting in 2029, the Oscars will also be streamed globally on YouTube, which the academy hopes will attract new audiences and reinvigorate the ceremony’s popularity after years of declining viewership.
Edit: I read 2019 not.. 2029. That's actually incredible. Are they going to get in on tiktok for 2039 next?
What exactly doesn't make sense? The Oscars are moving to streaming the event globally on YouTube (bunch of TV channels has said they'll stop broadcasting it in 2029), and the viewership of the Oscars has been declining for years. I'm not sure I see what's wrong in there.
Hm, what's wrong with it?
The Oscars are the heart of the problem. One definition of “celebrity” is “person who is celebrated”
Hollywood is so used to getting high on its own supply that it really thinks we want to see an AI slop video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise. People there just don’t have any information at all about what anybody outside their bubble thinks so of course they make samey big budget pictures and samey small budget pictures. Unless they shut down their communications channels and disperse geographically they are going to keep doing the same thing over and over again and be wondering why they keep getting the same results.
And that gets us to why they will never reform, they know their numbers are terrible but think this is (1) cyclical and (2) due to technological changes so they’ll never get it that running ads that make it sound like somebody else cares about Tom Cruise doesn’t really make people care about Tom Cruise, it just makes them ignore advertising messages.
I think it's the opposite problem, they have too much information and data, which means they aren't making lots of gambles on new/different scripts anymore but making very safe bets because everyone is terrified of losing their cool high paying jobs.
> AI slop video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise
The video you are referring to was not produced by Hollywood, it was created by Irish director Ruairi Robinson, basically as a test of the new Seedance AI.
I'm not saying that Hollywood isn't out of touch, I'm just saying that nothing about Hollywood can be inferred from that video.
"Hollywood" thinks we want AI slop in the way that hackers think we want video with unskippable ads.