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Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

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Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#331

Post by acdha »

Jtsummers wrote: post #108
WarmWash wrote: post #96

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.

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 popc…

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#332

Post by SoftTalker »

mosura wrote: post #301
ozim wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#333

Post by Firehawke »

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#334

Post by kjksf »

robcohen wrote: post #265
longislandguido wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#335

Post by rayiner »

bloomingeek wrote: post #284
tyjen wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#336

Post by LightBug1 »

WarmWash wrote: post #96

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.

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#337

Post by ravenstine »

Firehawke wrote: post #333

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 u…

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#338

Post by dyauspitr »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #233
longislandguido wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 arti…

> 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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#339

Post by sien »

awongh wrote: post #94
jrowen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

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 fie…

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.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#340

Post by Firehawke »

ravenstine wrote: post #337
Firehawke wrote: post #333

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 u…

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…

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.

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