[HN Gopher] Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
___________________________________________________________________
Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
Author : RickJWagner
Score : 107 points
Date : 2026-03-15 12:41 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theculturenewspaper.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theculturenewspaper.com)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 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.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > 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.
| fullshark wrote:
| 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.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| "Hollywood" thinks we want AI slop in the way that hackers
| think we want video with unskippable ads.
| chuckadams wrote:
| 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.
| rurban wrote:
| 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.
| thefounder wrote:
| 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.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Could you please explain this? I'm having a hard time
| following. Ty.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44966851
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfire_(Teen_Titans)
| woeirua wrote:
| $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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| xp84 wrote:
| 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.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| So do you want to pay more, or less? I am confused.
| delecti wrote:
| 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.
| righthand wrote:
| "Free" but you pay a monthly subscription. No one seems to
| know what free means anymore.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| 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
| FreeKill wrote:
| 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.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| And its $100 minimum... at least in NYC. Right now its 20-25 a
| head and that doesn't include transportation or food.
| dominotw wrote:
| 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 :]
| derwiki wrote:
| Even not free parks. Our Zoo and Cal Academy memberships
| amortize down to $50/trip for 4.
| dominotw wrote:
| yes we have those too but you can go there only so many
| times.
| lucaspm98 wrote:
| 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.
| morkalork wrote:
| 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?
| stavros wrote:
| Hm, what's wrong with it?
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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.
| mpalmer wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| sbarre wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| 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.
| shimman wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| fullshark wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| philwelch wrote:
| They might have been in the last decade, but now it's just
| yet another franchise audiences have stopped caring about.
| fullshark wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| 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)
| whycome wrote:
| You mean the Gramophone awards where they hand you a
| little mini gramophone statue.
| underlipton wrote:
| 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...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You may want to watch again the movies that created the
| franchise.
|
| All the successful Marvel movies are completely based on
| the characters.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| 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
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| underlipton wrote:
| 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.
| the_af wrote:
| > _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.
| jl6 wrote:
| 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._
| the_af wrote:
| 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.
| mentalgear wrote:
| 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.
| the_af wrote:
| 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_.
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| the_af wrote:
| > _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".
| awongh wrote:
| > 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_
| the_af wrote:
| 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...
| vl wrote:
| 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.
| gzread wrote:
| 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.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| 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.
| jrowen wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| jrowen wrote:
| > _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.
| epolanski wrote:
| > 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.
| jrowen wrote:
| 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.
| epolanski wrote:
| > 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.
| sien wrote:
| 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.
| cnobody wrote:
| American movies suck.
| closewith wrote:
| The cultural relevance of all kinds of American media has been
| declining as the U.S. is not cool or aspirational anymore.
| jrowen wrote:
| 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?
| HerbManic wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| 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.
| epolanski wrote:
| 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.
| rdtsc wrote:
| 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.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > 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.
| soared wrote:
| 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.
| xp84 wrote:
| 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)
| garbawarb wrote:
| 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.
| rdtsc wrote:
| 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.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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
| vl wrote:
| > 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.
| jrowen wrote:
| 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.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| > 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.
| jrowen wrote:
| 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?
| olivierestsage wrote:
| 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.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > 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.
| pkorzeniewski wrote:
| 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.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| The same argument could be made for the book industry, where
| there are centuries of content available. And yet, people still
| read new books.
| bombcar wrote:
| IIRC the book merger lawsuits, they don't really read many
| new books. Many are published few are bought.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It often is made, an the vast majority of new books are slop
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| 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
| ...
| Larrikin wrote:
| 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.
| Teknomadix wrote:
| 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.
| xp84 wrote:
| 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.
| Larrikin wrote:
| 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.
| pkorzeniewski wrote:
| 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.
| padjo wrote:
| Yeah reading this comment thread really reminds me how dull
| and disinterested in art so many people in this community
| are.
| vachina wrote:
| 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.
| shrubby wrote:
| 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.
| echelon wrote:
| 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.
| jrjeksjd8d wrote:
| 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).
| spacechild1 wrote:
| 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 10EUR 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.
| expedition32 wrote:
| 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!
| padjo wrote:
| What's a eurodollar?
| artyom wrote:
| 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.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| 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.
| iammjm wrote:
| 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
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| 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.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| 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.
| worksonmine wrote:
| 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.
| miki123211 wrote:
| 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.
| philwelch wrote:
| They have no one to blame but themselves, judging by the quality
| of Hollywood movies in recent years.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| 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.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| not appealing to the masses is DEI; perfect robotic formula are
| just common sense.
|
| Obviously.
| echelon wrote:
| - 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.
| xp84 wrote:
| 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.
| awongh wrote:
| Except that pretty much as soon as movies started being made,
| people have said this about movies :)
| mpbart wrote:
| 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
| madaxe_again wrote:
| 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.
| baxtr wrote:
| I miss the inner journeys mostly. The heroic journey is boring
| if the hero doesn't change.
| amelius wrote:
| Modern youth cannot relate to that. They just browse their
| smartphones without emotion. Inner journey is not a concept
| they understand.
| eitau_1 wrote:
| 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
| jt2190 wrote:
| Original:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-13/hollywood...
| kmfrk wrote:
| 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.
| willmeyers wrote:
| 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?
| delichon wrote:
| 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__alchemist wrote:
| 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.
| zdc1 wrote:
| 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__alchemist wrote:
| 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.
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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
| the__alchemist wrote:
| 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!
| Trasmatta wrote:
| 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.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > 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...
| mmooss wrote:
| 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]_
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| 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.
| lazystar wrote:
| games are global - NFL is solely american.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| 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.
| bdcravens wrote:
| 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)
| Trasmatta wrote:
| See the sibling reply for sources. A big part of it is that
| TGA is a worldwide thing.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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
| blell wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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.
| blell wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| "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.
| closewith wrote:
| Silicon Valley is a not a catch-all term for tech?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| 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>
| simonklitj wrote:
| Well, sure, but they're both in the entertainment space.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| 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?
| justonceokay wrote:
| 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.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| 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.
| jonas21 wrote:
| They are substitute goods. A common failure mode is not
| realizing this until it's too late.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| 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.
| mycocola wrote:
| 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The gaming industry has been bigger than the film industry for
| decades. This isn't new.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| 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).
| telesilla wrote:
| 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 cafe
| 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.
| WastedCucumber wrote:
| 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.
| ndesaulniers wrote:
| 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.
| epolanski wrote:
| 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.
| msabalau wrote:
| 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).
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| 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).
| MonkeyIsNull wrote:
| 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.
| ebbi wrote:
| 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.
| fraXis wrote:
| That game sounds interesting. What is it called? I only saw
| Beavers Be Damned when I searched Steam.
| gbnwl wrote:
| Not the original commenter but they could be talking about
| Timberborn. Don't have it but have friends who play.
| natebc wrote:
| Timberborn. It's fantastic!
| fatuna wrote:
| 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.
| frmersdog wrote:
| 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).
| jimbo808 wrote:
| 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.
| m-hodges wrote:
| Should art not of a point of view?
| gzread wrote:
| 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.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > 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.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| Should a sentence have a verb?
| m-hodges wrote:
| You caught my typo. Gold medal.
| christophilus wrote:
| Not all sentences.
| nout wrote:
| Absolutely!
| radiator wrote:
| That is the whole _point_. Since decades, it has a single
| point of view, failing to represent the majority of the
| people.
| manphone wrote:
| And what point of view does all art have now?
| padjo wrote:
| I think you need to get out more if you really believe all
| movies have the one point of view
| dredmorbius wrote:
| 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.
| whartung wrote:
| > 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/detail
| s/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.
| msabalau wrote:
| 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.
| nout wrote:
| 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 :)
| WarmWash wrote:
| 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.
| ctkhn wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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.
| tuna74 wrote:
| If you are expressing your judgement based on experiences
| from more than 10 years ago you are not really contributing
| to the discussion.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Admittedly, it was a while ago. But from what I've heard
| from friends who've been recently, it's no better,
| possibly worse.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Support small theatres, you won't get charged like this.
| g947o wrote:
| If they exist. None exists the in 15 mile radius of where I
| live.
| gzread wrote:
| You could become the first.
| deadbabe wrote:
| 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.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| pre-millennial here; we call this a party, rather than a
| "suburban prosumer boutique theatre".
| 1shooner wrote:
| 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.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Similar to people building a bar in their garage.
| bdangubic wrote:
| unfortunately they are dying faster than malls... I live in
| urban area and my small theatre options re dwindling
| Jtsummers wrote:
| 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.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| 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.
| wafflemaker wrote:
| 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.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| 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.
| czhu12 wrote:
| 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
| underlipton wrote:
| >here in SF
| psherman wrote:
| 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.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| 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
| acdha wrote:
| 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.
| Detrytus wrote:
| 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.
| drstewart wrote:
| Do Europeans know you can watch soccer without drinking beer?
| It's cheaper and healthier. Absolutely bizarre obsession you
| lot have with it.
| DareTheDev wrote:
| Europeans don't watch soccer. They watch football.
| quotz wrote:
| beer is way cooler than popcorn
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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
| mosura wrote:
| Soccer without beer would be like college basketball
| without the gambling.
| sdoering wrote:
| 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 12EUR 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.
| bojan wrote:
| I don't think that math checks out as the subscriptions got
| way more expensive as well.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Honestly the stench of theatre popcorn, and all the
| masticating around me, grosses me out. Fortunately it usually
| subsides.
| sowbug wrote:
| Good point! At home you can watch a movie without being
| judged on your choice of snacks.
| nradov wrote:
| There's nothing unhealthy about plain popcorn with a little
| salt. The added "butter" or other toppings may be
| problematic.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I mean you can stay home and have zuchini slices with cottage
| cheese instead of nachos too; that's not really the point.
| g947o wrote:
| 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.
| reidrac wrote:
| 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...
| bena wrote:
| Ticket sales typically go to the distributor, those ads are
| how the theater makes money
| ericd wrote:
| Sure, that needs to change.
| gs17 wrote:
| 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.
| Cerium wrote:
| 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.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Calling them trailers is a bit of a stretch; and only 3
| minutes of ads? We go to different screenings!
| cycomanic wrote:
| 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).
| amelius wrote:
| Just bring your smartphone and a headphone.
| desireco42 wrote:
| 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
| nipperkinfeet wrote:
| 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.
| sfoley wrote:
| That's not what fraud is.
| AIorNot wrote:
| 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
| tyjen wrote:
| 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.
| alwa wrote:
| 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.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| 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.
| vasac wrote:
| 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>
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Out of curiosity was it a movie where you're expected to
| throw toast?
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| ozim wrote:
| 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.
| symfoniq wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| 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.
| ozim wrote:
| 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.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 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.
| mosura wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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
| dawnerd wrote:
| 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.
| rayiner wrote:
| 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.
| dboreham wrote:
| In the US there's also a non-zero chance that you'll be shot
| in a movie theater.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| 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!
| jghn wrote:
| 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.
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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
| jghn wrote:
| 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.
| mosura wrote:
| 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.
| frmersdog wrote:
| 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.
| Swizec wrote:
| > 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.
| bena wrote:
| 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
| longislandguido wrote:
| 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.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Correct, you can't give customers a horrible experience at
| the theater and expect the theater to do well.
| longislandguido wrote:
| Years ago I was in one of those old kitschy theatres. The
| seat was wet.
|
| I prayed it wasn't urine.
| tombert wrote:
| 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.
| bacchusracine wrote:
| >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?
| tombert wrote:
| We were mostly afraid of substances landing anywhere near
| us.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| You don't happen to live in exurban Denver do you?
| tombert wrote:
| Nope, this was in Dallas. Well, Garland actually.
|
| I don't live there anymore and haven't for about eleven
| years.
| wat10000 wrote:
| 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.
| longislandguido wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| wat10000 wrote:
| 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.
| robcohen wrote:
| 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.
| kjksf wrote:
| 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.
| like_any_other wrote:
| > 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.
| datsci_est_2015 wrote:
| > 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...
| stogot wrote:
| 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
| dyauspitr wrote:
| > 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.
| datsci_est_2015 wrote:
| 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.
| tombert wrote:
| 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.
| pipes wrote:
| 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.
| telotortium wrote:
| > 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| tombert wrote:
| 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.
| freedomben wrote:
| 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.
| tombert wrote:
| 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.
| tartoran wrote:
| 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.
| coderjames wrote:
| 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.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| $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.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| 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.
| AbstractH24 wrote:
| 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
| projektfu wrote:
| 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.
| lordmoma wrote:
| if you love cinema enough
| fhdkweig wrote:
| 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.
| wombat-man wrote:
| 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.
| bradlys wrote:
| 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.
| freetonik wrote:
| 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.
| pants2 wrote:
| 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.
| JoeJonathan wrote:
| 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.
| mentalgear wrote:
| > 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.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| WTF? Where are you based?
|
| Cheapest tickets are PS2.50 where I am in London. Maybe PS4.50
| at a stretch. PS10 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.
| jdprgm wrote:
| 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.
| rishabhaiover wrote:
| 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.
| gzread wrote:
| If you don't productize something you won't make money and then
| you'll starve and die.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| 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.
| t1234s wrote:
| 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!)
| bdz wrote:
| 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.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Can you tell me your top 3 of every year since Covid?
| boca_honey wrote:
| 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.
| rimbo789 wrote:
| 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.
| boca_honey wrote:
| 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.
| taftster wrote:
| 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.
| bdz wrote:
| >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.
| rimbo789 wrote:
| 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.
| Yokohiii wrote:
| 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.
| rimbo789 wrote:
| 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.
| Yokohiii wrote:
| 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.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > 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."
| Rover222 wrote:
| This is such a college freshman worldview take, IMO.
| ks2048 wrote:
| 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.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Presumably, the business goal is to steer you toward
| (recurring) subscription rather than (one-off) pay-to-watch
| activities.
| cloche wrote:
| 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.
| cubefox wrote:
| 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.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > ... 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?
| socalgal2 wrote:
| 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.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| _F1_ is also nominated what's your explanation for that picture
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| 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.
| jmugan wrote:
| 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.
| crabkin wrote:
| 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.
| fsloth wrote:
| 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
| chairmansteve wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| 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.
| bdcravens wrote:
| We're already seeing that in the format of short-form serials
| on TikTok.
| xyzelement wrote:
| 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.
| Animats wrote:
| 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.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| 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.
| bryan0 wrote:
| 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.
| righthand wrote:
| 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.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| One small thing I noticed.
|
| The best movie of this year, a film called _Sirat_ , 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)
| Firehawke wrote:
| 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.
| ravenstine wrote:
| 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.
| Firehawke wrote:
| 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.
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| 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.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-03-15 23:00 UTC)