Piracy Not To Blame In Decline of Moviegoers 1539
lucyfersam writes "In a somewhat surprisingly earnest assessment, the NYTimes has an article about the massive decline in movie-going that does not once try to blame piracy and file-sharing programs. It sounds like studios are beginning to understand that they have only themselves to blame." From the article: "Multiples theories for the decline abound: a failure of studio marketing, the rising price of gas, the lure of alternate entertainment, even the prevalence of commercials and pesky cellphones inside once-sacrosanct theaters. But many movie executives and industry experts are beginning to conclude that something more fundamental is at work: too many Hollywood movies these days, they say, just are not good enough."
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:2, Informative)
Large Drink - $7
Large Popcorn - $7
Tea (even if you bring your own bag) - $4
All refills are free though and you get one refill on the popcorn, no extra tea bags. It is a new gimmick but I can't remember the previous prices.
Re:In Other News... (Score:3, Informative)
Sad reality (Score:2, Informative)
The facts are that no matter how many press releases they shove down the throats of their news subsidiaries they are not losing money on any measurable scale because of people downloading video camera captures of movies online. If they ever cleared the system of book keeping they use so that stars, writers, producers etc did not have to sue to collect actual profits Excerpt from How the Movie Wars Were Won by John W. Cones [homevideo.net] and even going so far as to try to tell Stan Lee that the movie "Spiderman" made no money forcing him to sue for revenue, then MAYBE I might have some sympathy for them. Were you aware that based on Hollywood bookkeeping four of the top ten movies of all time...LOST MONEY!!! So they have no idea what their actual revenues are versus costs, so at this point no one can say if they are losing money. I think the entire problem is that the massive amounts of money generated by this industry have resulted in one overwhelming problem. Greed.
So, lets talk about why there is a decline in movie attendance, based on the assumption of it NOT being piracy. Well, first lets examine the fact that,
"In 2004, domestic box office sales were $9.2 billion (with three-quarters going to the major distributors, who must share the box office gross with the theaters), up slightly from 2003. DVD sales and rentals came in at $21.2 billion, up almost a third from the previous year." -Newsday
Hmm so they made MORE money in 2004 than 2003, okay well what about the current 2005 movie year?
"Blase adds that 2005's gross reflects that 10 fewer films have been released by the studios so far this year. And, she says, if you eliminate 2004 anomalies like "The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" - the highest-grossing religious and documentary films ever - 2005's box office is actually up by 2 percent" -Newsday
So in 2005 the box office is lagging and they have released fewer films, and have not produced any automatic sellouts like those based on a religion held by a majority of the nation or those based on propaganda that would make Leni Riefenstahl happy. It is easy to see the real truth is that the evil online pirates sharing second rate views of movies are the problem here, isn't it? The problem is the MPAA and their watchword. Greed.
So aside from those numbers, let's talk about a trip to the movies. I have a rather 50'sesque Nuclear Family with a Y2K twist, my wife and I have two children half the week and they spend the other half with their father, but we have them weekends. So for the sake of argument I will assume a Saturday evening viewing of a movie and at regular price. Before someone asks why not go to a matinee and save money, locally the regular versus matinee pricing is not really that different, $9.50 evening, and $7.00 matinee. But in the interest of fairness, when I hit my totals cost for the evening subtract 10 bucks if you want matinee pricing. Why have mostly empty daytime showings and not reduce the price to attract more customers? Greed.
So lets go step by step through what it runs my family to see a movie, and I will pick something harmless that we all attended as a base. Charlie and the Shreking Nemo is about as white bread as they come in the movie field, we look it up to find out times, and we pack up the car. Now nearest Gigantagoogplex of screens is in the suburbs because Showcase/AMC etc fear urban areas so much that Magic Johnson is making a mint setting up theatres in cities. My city has 105k people and not a single screen in the city limits but immediately outside of them we have 30 plus screens.
More for your money (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:5, Informative)
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area I can assure you that we do not exaggerate the problem.
All of my friends here in the IT dept where I work have completely stopped going to movies because of the poor behavior of the audience.
I go once in awhile with the wife because we enjoy seeing big special effects laden SciFi movies on a big screen.
But I'm about ready to give it up. Teenagers with cellphones roam the multi-plex. They cruise from movie to movie and don't really care about what they are watching. It's just a hang out zone to them. They talk to each other and they talk on their phone.
Dozens of cellphones flip open repeatedly in the rows in front of you as the kids check for text messages. They jump up and down and roam from row to row and theater to theater.
Theaters have been made into kid friendly hang out zones where parents can drop the anti-social little shits for an afternoon. Most movies are made and marketed for a teen mentality now. Because of this adults feel less and less comfortable at the theater.
Re:I can tell you what's wrong for nothing! (Score:3, Informative)
Tommy Lee Jones (Score:3, Informative)
Played a good cop who was chasing things in "The Fugitive."
Unfortunately, when an actor does such a good job in a role, and enough money is made from it, that actor HAS to produce ten to twenty more films of increasingly bad quality. Tommy Lee Jones, as a tracker cop who chases bad guys through snow covered Oregon, just seems rehashed and boring now.
Hollywood takes the masses for idiots, and seem to think that "new" is bad. Lucas, at least, wasn't too scared of producing something new and off-the-wall. It is a pity that he fell into that trap recently, as well.
Here's an idea (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I can tell you what's wrong for nothing! (Score:3, Informative)
MLB has a statutory exemption.
NFL/NBA/NHL/etc. have an exemption because the caps are part of a "collective bargaining agreement."
So a salary cap would violate the antitrust laws unless you somehow convinced SAG to agree (pretty unlikely, I think).
A 56 Year Trend (Score:5, Informative)
Epstein has been writing a number of quality articles for NPR & Slate about the Hollywood profit shift from movie theatres to home theatres. Here are a few of the recent ones.
The Vanishing Box Office [slate.com]
Hollywood's Death Spiral [slate.com]
Hollywood's Death Spiral, Part 2 [slate.com]
Hollywood's Profits, Demystified [slate.com]
Indie Films (Score:2, Informative)
Lately, however, I've discovered that there is a vast wealth of good indie films, with decent acting, excellent stories, and the cost of admission is just a dvd rental. "Primer" is an excellent example. It was made on $7000 US, and it is the best movie I have seen in several years. I see no reason to go see a crappy big-budget film when there are better options.
Re:Couple more (Score:2, Informative)
by wbean (222522) on Thursday August 25, @12:18PM
Actually, if you use the CPI inflator found at http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/inflateCPI.html [nasa.gov], you find that the ticket-price inflation occured prior to 1967. Prices have been remarkably stable since then - even through the high-inflation period in the 70's.
My problem is that I don't want to sit through 20 minutes of commercials for movies I'd rather not see and the volume is often loud enought that I've taken to carrying earplugs.
Here are some sample datapoints:
Year Price Price in 2004 $
2004 $6.21 6.21
2000 $5.39 5.91
1990 $4.22 6.09
1980 $2.69 6.16
1967 $1.22 6.90
1963 $0.86 5.30
1958 $0.68 4.44
1954 $0.49 3.44
1948 $0.36 2.82
Rentals and Purchases? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:5, Informative)
Commercials! (Score:2, Informative)
I figure if I boycott them enough and enough of us get together to do that we can just rub out the ads by making them lose money. I think we should start writting letters to these advertisers to make this point
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:5, Informative)
I've sat in theaters with black women who just would not shut up... holy crap, its a stereotype but its unfortunately true.
I even asked them to be quite twice.... only to receive dirty looks by them as if "how dare i ask them to shut the fuck up in a theater"
I've listend to boyfriends explain to their girlfriends the story or characters. When i saw ST:Nemesis, this guy was telling his girl all of the characters names and trying to get her to remember who they were from the tv show.
I SAW star wars ep2 and had people talk about the film during the film in a way that was like "And here comes the part when..." AS IT FUCKING WAS HAPPENING
Movie theaters are nightmares here in NY
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, since no one goes alone (unless you're from
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:2, Informative)
Use under-rated
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:2, Informative)
VCR and DVD created a much larger market than there was with just cinema.
Life for the studios has never been better.
Bring chocolate with you! (Score:3, Informative)
"Charlie and the chocolate factory" is also good.
And it has way more midgets.
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:2, Informative)
I'll stick with the home theatre thanks.
Re:Movie Theaters are Obsolete (Score:1, Informative)
Economics of Movies? (Score:3, Informative)
Given that these problems will not go away by themselves, what are the solutions? (I agree with William McDonough (http://www.mcdonough.com/ [mcdonough.com]) that regulation is a result of poor design.) There is a huge fortune to be made by the designer who resolves these problems and makes theater-going a pleasant experience again. (I usually see 3 or 4 movies a week, but I usually go in the afternoon early when there aren't any kids or crowds. Summer is a bummer for movie goers like me.) I know there are places in Japan that have counter-frequency generators that kill cell and pager transmission. That would be a good start. perhaps if each seat was provided with individual noise-cancelling headphones, that would also help (and, yes, I know that brings up other problems of hygiene, etc, but that's where solving those problems brings in the fortune. Legitimately patentable solutions.)
Of course, maybe we could change society? I have a friend who is a cameraman for Fox Sports, and he described a goodwill game between the Astros and a Japanese team a few years ago. All the players were applauded when they came on the field. All the players were applauded for good plays. Players bowed to the crowd to acknowledge the applause. When the game was over, all the spectators stood up and applauded the teams. Then they sat back down, and rose one row at a time to file out of the stadium in an orderly fashion. And they took their trash with them!
How many movies are actually worth watching? (Score:3, Informative)
Generally many movies don't make it big because they basically suck. Uninspired makeovers, no plots etc. And I guess it will get worse each additional year. Same with music, there's just so much good stuff out there already that at some point it will be hard come out with something new and fresh, because all has been done before.
I've read some people also complain about the previews and ads shown, but I actually enjoy seeing previews as I'm not always aware of movies coming out, ads on the other hand are stupid. I can imagine if you go see movies frequently you can get annoyed with seeing the same previews over and over.
Things I like:- I'm out of the house - going to a theater is a nice change of environment for me and my wife
- Bigger is better - well, not always but some movies are just more fun to watch on a big screen with loud audio
Things I don't like: