Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

walzr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 280 posts

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#171

Post by [deleted] »

dgacmu wrote: post #168
BrannonKing wrote: post #149

AMC should start showing Chinese and Korean dramas. That would help them a lot. I'm sure that they could work a deal with those studios that would let AMC set the ticket price. There hasn't been an American-made movie since Lord of the Rings that has compelled me to go see it in the theater. The movie studios seem to be pushing more extremes on immorality, violence, gore, etc, being completely disconnected from the a…

I go to the theater rarely, but recently watched Project Hail Mary in-theater and quite recommend it. There _have_ been some great films made in the last while, among a sea of derivatives. (E.g., you may find the new Dune films too violent, but they were great. And the moral is not very subtle in them. :)

[deleted]

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#172

Post by GJim »

nebula8804 wrote: post #55
HerbManic wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only film I saw in an empty theater was 'The Death of Stalin'. That was kind of odd but a decent film regardless.

On the one hand Its fun to watch movies alone on a big screen. My area of NJ apparently could care less about movies like Knock Down The House(Biography of AOC and other house candidates), Navalny (Movie about the murdered politician opposing Putin), The Imitation Machine: Movie about Alan Turing or Last Night in Soho (A wonderful Edgar Wright thriller) On the other hand, I feel sad that no one in my region seems to…

> My area of NJ apparently could care less

Surely you mean "couldn't care less"?

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#173

Post by lotsofpulp »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #167
embedding-shape wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, kind of defeats the purpose when you have to spend hours double-checking if every "fact" you just got "taught" was actually true or not afterwards...

There has to be some latitude given here. They can’t possibly, for instance, know exactly what was said or who interacted with who and when with any reasonable certainty. It’s usually “John met with Ted and I think Sally too, he told them to fuck off because it was a bad idea.” Now make that a scene and stay accurate. Rarely are these things documented in the moment and human memory is fickle even when we think we re…

Which is why it should be assumed to all be fiction. Video presents the problem that you are receiving lots of extra data which are fictional, and pretending that you are getting a sufficiently accurate representation when you have no idea how much of the representation is accurate is a detriment.

Take it as entertainment, and nothing more. For example, Remember the Titans, we were shown it in school over and over. There was no racial component in real life. The Blind Side is egregious in its portrayals. Pursuit of Happyness also.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#174

Post by philovivero »

chrisss395 wrote: post #166
simiones wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes no sense from a classical economics perspective to keep the theater empty. Even if no one is buying at the break-even price, it can make sense to sell below cost just to recoup some of the investment - and adjust the investment in the future, of course. Now, in reality there are second-hand effects, of course - like people getting adjusted to the below-cost ticket prices and being even less incentivized to b…

Seems the same as a hotel - empty rooms benefit no one.

I don't know about theatres, but I do know about hotel rooms.

If you lower the price too much, you get a different sort of clientele. The sort of person who wrecks the place and annoys all the other patrons nearby.

Then the cleanup costs a lot. Often more than the amount of revenue collected on the room.

It absolutely makes more sense to keep the hotel room empty than to lower the price to keep it fully occupied.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#175

Post by philovivero »

DaSHacka wrote: post #160
cbeach wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Hollywood has been churning out derivative content for a while, and catering for "modern audiences" (as opposed to the silent majority) too much. One or two exceptions - Project Hail Mary, for example. But the decline of Marvel, Star Trek and Star Wars franchises has been stark. https://www.youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker has some great commentary on the problem. Also, a number of other factors: * massive TVs…

Never expected to see the Critical Drinker mentioned on HN. I find myself agreeing with the majority of points he brings up in his videos, but I suspect the majority on HN would disagree with him. I'll be curious to see if others chime in. This was my first thought upon seeing the OP as well. I haven't been to a theater in years, and part of the problem is I don't know what I'd go there to watch. I've been pretty exp…

Yeah. HN is a bubble. Hollywood has an axe to grind, and it's not a good one, but HN ideology is in-line with Hollywood ideology.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#176

Post by tclancy »

HerbManic wrote: post #23
blintz wrote: post #7

This is cool. Something about dropping everything to go see a movie in an empty theater is sort of tempting.

The only film I saw in an empty theater was 'The Death of Stalin'. That was kind of odd but a decent film regardless.

Did you arrive late? Could be you actually survived a purge.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#177

Post by cbeach »

DaSHacka wrote: post #160
cbeach wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Hollywood has been churning out derivative content for a while, and catering for "modern audiences" (as opposed to the silent majority) too much. One or two exceptions - Project Hail Mary, for example. But the decline of Marvel, Star Trek and Star Wars franchises has been stark. https://www.youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker has some great commentary on the problem. Also, a number of other factors: * massive TVs…

Never expected to see the Critical Drinker mentioned on HN. I find myself agreeing with the majority of points he brings up in his videos, but I suspect the majority on HN would disagree with him. I'll be curious to see if others chime in. This was my first thought upon seeing the OP as well. I haven't been to a theater in years, and part of the problem is I don't know what I'd go there to watch. I've been pretty exp…

> Never expected to see the Critical Drinker mentioned on HN. I find myself agreeing with the majority of points he brings up in his videos, but I suspect the majority on HN would disagree with him.

Sadly you're right. At times like this I wish Silicon Valley was in Texas or Florida rather than one of the most leftwing / collectivist states in America.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#178

Post by no_wizard »

soco wrote: post #97
jojobas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pros: get to watch movies alone. Cons: have to watch arthouse.

Arthouse is the only thing worth watching nowadays as the others seem to only rechew the same crud. Change my mind.

Not everyone is an avant garde movie enthusiast. Some still enjoy the fun and spectacle of action films, superhero films, Star Wars.

I am among them. I make no attempt to say they’re high concept or anything, but I leave feeling good for awhile and that’s enough for me

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#179

Post by BloondAndDoom »

Frieren wrote: post #124
vlovich123 wrote: post #108

To me this suggests that theater’s are at least partially incorrectly pricing things which explains why they are struggling.

> To me this suggests that theater’s are at least partially incorrectly pricing things which explains why they are struggling. Theaters are struggling because they need the working class to attend, and the working class has no money. This is true for any non-essential business that depends on 90% of the people. To find new ways of extract money may help a little, but in the end the basic economics do not add up.

This might be and not an objective data, 2 more things seem relevant :

1. New releases get on stream within weeks to couple of months. 2. Lots of new movies are supposed to be a TV movie and not a theater release (subjective)

I go to the movies way more than needed and I stopped blindly going to the movies and started to check reviews before because so many movies were really bad which is something I very rarely have experienced in the past (even when I had unlimited passes and seeing more than 1 movies per week)

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#180

Post by nkrisc »

bell-cot wrote: post #130
lotsofpulp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen too many video projects that were supposed to be non fictional either have fictional material or a misleading slant such that I would not consider it a good use of my time.

That I've seen, the problem is worse than that. A movie merely says it's "based on a true story". If you're a lawyer or literature professor, that "based on" might be correct usage - since 40-ish percent of what the movie told was true. The other 60-ish percent was utter fiction. Meanwhile, people who saw the movie and found it decently engaging are busy convincing themselves that it was 99% true. And 99% of 'em will…

Actually 99% do understand it’s not all factual and do bother to check.
Post reply on HN