Movie theaters are dying. Do you care?

This episode explores the decline in movie theater attendance and its impact on the film industry.

1. Consumer Shift: There's a significant shift in how audiences consume media, with a growing preference for streaming from home.
2. Economic Impact: The economic downturn for theaters is severe, with a notable decline in box office sales post-pandemic.
3. Future of Theaters: Theaters may need to transition to offering more boutique, premium experiences to survive.
4. Impact on Film Production: The types of films produced may increasingly cater to genres and formats that are more likely to draw audiences into theaters, like blockbuster franchises.
5. Cultural Shift: There's a cultural shift potentially redefining movie-going as a niche activity rather than a common social outing.

1: Introduction

The episode opens with a discussion on the nostalgia and current state of movie theaters.
Alyssa Rosenberg: "This week we're talking about movies and especially going to the movies at theaters."

2: The Decline of Theaters

Panelists discuss the decline in theater attendance and its causes, including consumer habit changes and economic factors.
Matt Bellany: "The domestic box office is down... People are watching more at home."

3: Future Predictions

Discussion on how theaters must adapt to survive, predicting a shift towards premium, experiential offerings.
Chris Solentrop: "It's going to be more like opera or Broadway for a specialized audience."

4: Industry Implications

Exploration of how changes in the movie industry impact what films get made and how they are released.
Matt Bellany: "They have to create theatrical experiences that people will say, I need to see it in a theater."

1. Explore Local Boutique Cinemas: Consider visiting theaters that offer unique, premium experiences to support diverse cinema offerings.
2. Stay Informed on Streaming Releases: Balance theater visits with streaming to keep engaged with both modes of movie consumption.
3. Support Genre Diversity: Advocate for and support a variety of film genres in theaters to help sustain their presence on the big screen.
4. Engage in Community Discussions: Participate in forums and discussions about the future of cinema to stay connected with community and industry trends.
5. Cultural Participation: Embrace movie-going as a cultural activity, similar to attending live sports or theater, to help preserve its societal value.

It’s been a rough few years for movie theaters, and the dismal start to the summer blockbuster season hasn’t helped. If people go to theaters less often, will that change the type of movies that are made? Is the future of moviegoing a boutique, high-end experience? Matt Belloni, host of “The Town,” joins The Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg and Chris Suellentrop to talk about what’s going on with the movies and what, if anything, will get people out of their living rooms and into theaters.

People

Alyssa Rosenberg, Matt Bellany, Chris Solentrop

Companies

The Washington Post, Puck, Post Opinions

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Speaker A
We all know Kit Kat bars taste delicious, but what about how they sound? It's not just a catchy jingle, it's the satisfying crack of breaking off a piece of Kit Kat followed by a crisp crunch. Oh, we forgot one other sound that accompanies Kit Kat bars, too.

Speaker B
It's.

Speaker A
Or maybe it's more like altogether, Kit Kat bars are music to our ears and yummy flavors to our mouths.

Speaker B
Have a break.

Speaker A
Have a Kit Kat.

Speaker C
What movie are you looking forward to seeing in an actual deep freeze? Air conditioned a giant bucket of popcorn? Survey movie theater this summer. Is there anything you're excited to see?

Speaker B
I think the quiet place sequel day one. I think that looks pretty good. I like alien invasion movies. I like Lupita Nyong'o. The rest of it is just kid stuff. I see whatever my kid's interested in, and it's really just a scale of tolerability for me.

Speaker D
I'm gung ho about inside out, too. Still haven't forgiven the original inside out for wrecking my daughter, who I took to see it at the time, and now she's 14. So however old she was then, it introduced all these ideas she'd never thought about, like running away from home. It was a nightmarish experience to take a young kid to that movie, but.

Speaker B
Now, that was nine years ago, so she was five when she saw that. That is traumatizing.

Speaker D
Don't take your five year old to the original inside out, but take your.

Speaker C
14 year old to inside out, too. There you go. I have to say, it's twisters like Glenn Powell, cowboy hat, white t shirt, big screen like. That's my jam. That is summer to me.

Speaker E
This is impromptu from Washington Post opinions. It's a podcast where we bring you conversations about topics we can't stop thinking about. This week we're talking about movies and especially going to the movies at theaters. Remember those inside out two? An animated sequel to Pixar's smash hit from 2015, just had a big opening weekend at the box office, but that.

Speaker C
Was one of just a few small.

Speaker E
Right spots amid a dismal start to the summer blockbuster season. And it doesn't cover up the deeper issues going on with the movies. There are all sorts of very valid reasons why Americans are going to the theaters less. But today we want to talk about whether a prolonged downturn in the industry could change the kinds of movies that are actually being made and what makes the movie worth going to the theater for. I'm Alyssa Rosenberg, the letters and community editor here in post opinions. And today I'm joined by two very special people who think lots about these questions, including a first time impromptu guest.

Speaker B
Hi, I'm Matt Bellany. I am a founding partner and a writer at Puck, and I host the podcast the town about the entertainment business.

Speaker D
I'm Chris Solentrop. I'm the politics editor for Post opinions here. In my capacity as a guy who goes to the movies and I guess a former professional arts critic, I was once the video game critic for the New York Times.

Speaker C
Matt, to start, give us a little context. Last year we had the very hyped Barbenheimer two wildly different movies that opened on the same weekend and helped drive each other to huge box office tights. And it felt like maybe the movies were back. Baby. What's going on with the movies this summer? How bad is it?

Speaker B
The movies are not back this summer. The domestic box office is down, depending on which survey you look at, between 20 and 30% down, about 40 something percent from pre pandemic numbers. And there's a bunch of reasons for that. The box office overall has been down since COVID Moviegoing habits have changed. People are watching more at home. They just haven't gotten back in the habit of going to movies, if they ever will. But more pressing, the writers and actors strikes of last summer. It caused the entire production pipeline of movies to be shifted, and a number of movies that were being prepared for this summer were pushed into next year. Specifically the Mission Impossible movie. Tom Cruise. There was an Avengers Captain America movie. There was a Pixar movie called Elio that got pushed to next year. The entire summer schedule kind of got honked up by the writers and actors strike, and we're now feeling the effects of that.

Speaker D
But aren't the summer movies already good and people aren't going to see them anyway. Like I saw Furiosa, it's not as good as Fury road, but it's excellent. I saw the fall guy. It's a hugely entertaining summer movie. And isn't it true that very small numbers of people are going to see these movies?

Speaker B
Yeah, fall guy, disappointed. But the interesting thing about that is it was moved into that early may slot, which typically kicks off the summer with a big pre branded Marvel movie and the fall Guy, even though it is based on intellectual property, a tv show from 40 years ago, that's not.

Speaker D
Really what, a hugely popular intellectual property.

Speaker B
That's not really what people knew. You know, they saw it as Orion Gosling action movie. And that's not the same lure as a Marvel movie. So from the get go this summer was going to kick off to a lower number. The Furiosa thing, I think that's just a miss. I think that would have likely missed most summers. It was hugely expensive. It didn't feel new and different enough.

Speaker C
So I want to back up for a second. What does it mean for the business as a whole if a lot fewer people are going to movies? I mean, look, I am at my local Alamo Drafthouse every week. I am on first name basis with the woman who regularly works the specific afternoon ticket shift. But that makes me a total weirdo. As american moviegoers go, a lot of people are happy to be able to watch good movies on their gigantic 4k tvs without having to schlep to a theater. So, Matt, as a professional analyst, Chris, as a movie lover, do you think it still matters if people go to the theater, or are we going to see sort of structural changes to the business? If theater going becomes kind of a niche cultural activity, like bringing out your opera glasses and going to the opera house?

Speaker D
Right. That's my question for Matt. Like, why am I supposed to care about this? Is it an existential threat to Hollywood, the way that journalism is in crisis because of the Internet and changes in habits? Will it change the kind of movies we see? Why do I care about this?

Speaker B
I think you care about it because there will be a time, likely in the next five years, where you do decide to go to your local multiplex to see a movie or go on a date or spend some time with your kid, and it's not there anymore. Because what we are likely going to see is a contraction in the theater business. The United States in particular is over screened. The construction of movie theaters in the eighties and nineties went completely bananas with the rise of the Cineplex and the tentpole business, which is what the studios are in now. They know that to compete with streaming, they have to create theatrical experiences that people will say, I need to see it now, and I need to see it in a theater. And for the most part, that means rebranded intellectual property, stuff you already know, sequels to movies you've already seen and loved, or certain genres, like horror, like the end of year awards movies, although that's debatable now. And big action movies, that is what's called theatrical in the business now. Everything else goes to streaming. So the kinds of movies that are going to be offered in theaters, I think it's evolving to where it's just the big movies. And then the decline in box office is going to translate into fewer theaters because they're just going to go out of business. They're not going to be able to support these lower performing theaters. And what you're going to see is the business transition to more of a premium, boutique, higher end experience, where there's more imax, there's more Alamo drafthouse, there's more dine in, there's more experiential theaters, and there's fewer of the 21 screen multiplexes at the mall, where it's really not that different from what you have in your living room.

Speaker C
But I want to drill down on a couple of things you said there. You mentioned horror, for example, as one of the sort of few kind of theatrical bright spots. But those movies are also often much cheaper than the, you know, bad boys, ride or die is not a movie with a lot of special effects. It does have an alligator themed abandoned theme park, which must have cost some money to build, but that movie cost $100 million to make, and. Horrible.

Speaker B
That's what they say, by the way. Yeah, I'm told it's much more, but that's what they say.

Speaker C
You know, when you hear a movie's budget, you sort of have to assume that that should be doubled to include the marketing spend, right? I mean, that's sort of a rule.

Speaker B
Of thumb, not double if it costs 250 million, but you typically add $100 million on for a global marketing campaign. That can be more these days. It can also be less if you don't go nuts. And then keep in mind that the studios only keep about half of the box office. About half of it goes to the theaters.

Speaker C
So if you can make certain genres of movies that are less expensive and get more money out of them, do you think we're going to see some stuff that is cheaper because the risk is lower?

Speaker B
No, no, no. Outside of the horror genre, those movies don't perform comedy, which was a staple of movie theaters for decades, that has been deemed non theatrical because one after another, comedies that come out in theaters have not done well. I mean, we saw a Jennifer Lawrence comedy last summer. No hard feelings. That movie got only to 80 million worldwide. With Jennifer Lawrence. I mean, we had a bunch of bombs last summer. We had bros, we had joyride. We had all these sort of low budget comedies that were trying to lure audiences back and just didn't work. People watch that stuff at home. They don't feel like they need to see it now, and they need to see it in theater. Horror has been somewhat more resilient because there is this sense that you like to be scared in a theater with a bunch of other people. And it feels like an event for young people that they can get out and go experience this horror. But even this year, horror movies are down. So there's some debate in the industry as to whether this theatricality issue is finally catching up with horror or whether the movies this year just haven't been great and there will be an audience when there's a good one.

Speaker D
So we're going to have fewer movie theaters. We're going to have an older, richer audience. Sounds like what Alyssa said is going to happen. It's going to be more like opera or Broadway for a specialized audience that loves these things, not teenagers going to the dollar house every weekend. Oh, this is what my life was like. Oh, nuns on the run is out. Okay, I'll pay a dollar to go see that. And you see more kind of like repertory. You see this already. My local theater is always showing studio Ghibli films. Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Phantom Menace was showing when I was a kid in the eighties and nineties. It was extremely unusual, except for Disney, to see an old movie get, get trotted out. But it feels like the business is different now.

Speaker C
It's a whole different kind of pre existing ip. I want to get more into the movie going experience and what it is that we're heading for, but we've got to take a quick break.

Speaker A
We all know Kit Kat bars taste delicious, but what about how they sound? Its not just a catchy jingle, its the satisfying crack of breaking off a piece of Kitkat followed by a crisp crunch. Oh, we forgot one other sound that accompanies Kit Kat bars too. Its or maybe its more like altogether. KitKat bars are music to our ears and yummy flavors to our mouths.

Speaker B
Have a break.

Speaker A
Have a Kitkat.

Speaker F
Start your summer road trip at Midas and get up to dollar 30 off your next repair service. Plus get a free closer look vehicle check to make sure your road trip ready. If you need brake service, an alignment check or tune up, hit up midas for up to $30 off. For more details, request your appointment@midas.com. dot.

Speaker C
Welcome back. I'm Alyssa Rosenberg and this is impromptu. Let's get into Sony buying the Alamo drafthouse chain because I think this is really interesting and for some quick context for our listeners who are not lucky enough to live near a draft house, this is a theater chain that started in Texas and it offers a kind of premium experience. You can order food and drinks from your seats. There are really comfortable chairs. They actually get like the screen masking and the sound right in a way that is really appealing if you have been to a multiplex where your movie is sort of half projected on the screen and the floors are really sticky. But it also went into bankruptcy proceedings during COVID And while it emerged from bankruptcy last year, it was just bought by Sony Pictures. And I've sort of been wondering whether Disney would snap up AMC, which has been very depressed and has sort of kept itself afloat by, you know, doing sale shares based on the fact that it became a meme stock. What do you think Sony's purchase of Alamo means for the future of movies, if anything? Does it tell us anything about what's going to happen?

Speaker B
Well, I think it says a couple things that are good news for theaters. It says that one of the major studio companies believes there is a future in the theatrical experience, or at least a certain type of theatrical experience. They are not buying regal or AMC. They're buying a boutique 35 location premium cinema chain that's located mostly in big urban centers. Now, Sony has been the only studio not to have its own streaming service. So Sony is very much invested in the theatrical business in a way that maybe some of the others have these dual allegiances now. So it makes a little bit more sense that Sony would be interested in that. But I think it's a good sign for theaters that someone cares about this business. They've sort of been left for dead since COVID and Sony saying, no, no, no, we actually think this could be good for us.

Speaker D
I mean, I would say for my, most of my youth, the movie going experience got better and better and better. I'm not old enough to be like when I went to the movie palaces, but we went from single screen theaters to twin screen theaters to fourplex eight plex 1630, we seem to have topped out at 30. No one built a 64 screen theater, to my knowledge. You know, they introduced stadium seating. They introduced cup holders on your armrest. They introduced armrests that lift. That innovation seems to have totally stopped. And I don't know if that's because the bottom has fallen out, but the closest thing is they put in the comfy chairs. Sometime in the past ten years, the.

Speaker B
Chains would disagree with you a little bit. They say they have invested, and they've all converted, largely because of the success of places like Alamo. And I pick they've put in bars that most, many of them now serve food. They are trying to make it a more premium experience. But I agree with you that the innovation in the theater business has been pretty lackluster, and they've sort of relied on this steady stream of bigger and bigger Hollywood movies to make their numbers each year. But the reason I think the investment isn't there lately is they don't have the money. They're all teetering on the verge of bankruptcy or in bankruptcy, and Covid just absolutely destroyed these companies. The only reason AMC didn't go bankrupt is because it became a meme stock and it was so big that it was able to raise money. Something like Alamo Drafthouse. It's just not big enough to raise enough money to stay open when the entire business is shut down. They don't have the money to invest.

Speaker C
Aren't we also seeing something kind of interesting happening in the movie business with the rise of interest rates? Right. I mean, streamers like Netflix and Disney were spending just. I can't even describe what boatloads of money they were spending on content. And that's a lot easier to do when money's basically free. It's also easier, I think, to buy a distressed movie theater chain if money is basically free. But I'm curious if you see the content spigot getting kind of tightened, not just because people aren't going to theaters, but because the money with which to attract people to your suspiciously low priced streaming service is no longer as readily available.

Speaker B
Yeah. The big content boom during the low interest rate years was mostly for streaming. All of these Hollywood studios spent outrageously to try to catch up with Netflix. Because Netflix had such a big head start in streaming around 2018, 2019, the other companies all decided, oh, we should probably be in this business, too. And they launched these money losing streamers. That was fine because they were gaining subscribers. And at the time, Netflix was being rewarded by the stock market for growing its subscribers. Around 2022, that all changed. Netflix missed its numbers one, one quarter. And the market basically said, okay, games over, interest rates are going up. We want you guys to be profitable now. So all of the streamers have pulled back on their spending. Even Netflix isn't growing at spending anymore. And that has created a huge correction within the business. And I think it's trickled down to the movie theaters as well. These companies are less willing to take risks on theatrical movies, but it was primarily a streaming correction.

Speaker C
But at the same time, streaming kind of collapsed the business model. Right. It's like now, instead of having multiple revenue streams from, like, your VHS, your DVD's, your rental business, your syndication business, everything got streamlined down to this single stream of revenue.

Speaker B
Yeah, I mean, there was a point where the companies went, quote, all in on streaming in 20, 2021. Remember, in 21, Warner Brothers put its entire slate of movies on its streaming service the same day as they were in theaters. Now, many theaters were closed, so it made a little bit more sense to try to capture whatever you could. But that was a big warning shot to the movie theaters like, whoa, they can just do this, and it would decimate the theaters. Now, I think the studios have realized that that's not a great business. When you spend $200 million on a movie, you kind of need that theatrical window to generate box office to make your money back. You can't really do it on a streamer alone, unless maybe you're Netflix and you've got, you know, 270 million subscribers around the world. But the others have pulled back on streaming only movies. And are, they do believe there is value to putting their bigger movies in the theaters. And I think that's good for the theater business, but I think it's also good for the consumer, because they want these theaters to survive. And if movies were just available the same day at home, chances are many of these theater locations will not survive.

Speaker C
So I'm curious for both of you, how do you think this shakes out? Like, what's the optimistic version of the future for theaters, and do you think that's actually even likely or possible?

Speaker B
I think there is a future for theaters, but it will necessarily be a smaller, more boutique, more niche, and likely more expensive experience. This whole notion with, when the movie started in the twenties and thirties, it was for everyone, it was the, the populist art. If you had a quarter, you could go to the movies. I don't think that's going to be the case. I mean, people nowadays, they don't go to the movies. They go to a movie. A movie will pique their interest and say, okay, I want to see that in a theater. It's not the same as it once was, where it was Friday night, it's like, okay, we're going to the movies. What's playing? So I think that will turn it into a more. I don't think it's gonna be Broadway, I don't think it's gonna be opera, but it might be, you know, like sporting events, where people who care go, and people who don't just don't go and don't care.

Speaker D
I think that's right. I think that bigger screens, because a small, crummy theater now is basically approximates your home theater. But without the sticky floor, I hope without the sticky floor and the crying baby depending on your house. But a big Atmos screen with a bunch of people is a fundamentally different and great experience. I don't know that I would have enjoyed watching hitman more at the movie theater than I did at my house, but I did enjoy watching Furiosa more at the movie theater than I did at my house. The thing I'd layer into that, I guess, is 50 year old movies now, like, if you go and watch jaws, jaws doesn't look very different from a movie that comes out right now. In 1984, a movie made in 1934 looked like a totally different thing. And so it's a more mature art form, and you can re screen those old movies for new audiences. And the backlist, I think, is much more valuable than it used to be. And movies are gonna become maybe if not more like opera, more like books, in that it's not just the new stuff, but the old stuff.

Speaker C
And, Chris, also, since you used to be right about video games, it's also the case that movies are competing not just against streaming at home, but against video game streamers. TikTok.

Speaker B
YouTube. YouTube. Yeah. We haven't talked about social media.

Speaker C
So what do movies have to do? How do they have to change to compete?

Speaker D
Look, the rise of video games is obviously a huge a consumer of not just the entertainment dollar, but the entertainment minute and hours and weeks of young men. Especially, though I would underscore that people of all ages and genders want play video games. But, gosh, I sure hope the one thing that kind of terrifies me that Matt has been saying is that we're only going to see sequels. We're only going to see action movies. We're only going to see branded content. I loved Barbie, so if we get movies like Greta Gerwig's Barbie, then that's a great future. But if we get nothing but mediocre Marvel movies for the rest of my life, I think that's a horrible future for film.

Speaker C
Yeah. And I think my hope is that as people kind of resocialize themselves coming out of the pandemic, which is turning out to be a longer process, I think, than a lot of people thought, that people just rediscovered that going to the movies is really freaking fun. Right. Like you said, Chris, there is really nothing like being in a theater full of people who are just reacting to something in an incredibly pure way. And I think if studios want to sell us on going to these movies, they have to think about what's going to produce that kind of feeling. And I hope theaters can remind people just how much fun it is to be in that big, dark room altogether, just seeing something that you have never seen before. The ability of movies to do that places they can take you are just more varied and wild than they've ever been, thanks to all of the technology we have at hand. So I hope people just remember that it's fun to be with other people.

Speaker D
Can I give you my hot take about the latest innovations in the movie business? It's that the introduction of those giant comfy chairs has made us more the desire to make the movie theater more like your basement has made the movie theater experience worse, not better. It's made it more isolating, less together. I don't want to return to being crammed into an uncomfortable seat with a sticky floor, but I think the communal aspect of the theater has been diminished. And I also think the introduction of waiters is a terrible nightmare at movie theaters and should be banned.

Speaker B
Oh, speak for yourself. I love that.

Speaker C
Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry.

Speaker D
Comfy chair or the waiters?

Speaker B
I love them both. I want make it give me a blanket. I want to bring my blankie from home. I wanted to recreate my living room as much as possible.

Speaker C
Okay, we will reconvene for round two to fight over the state of modern theater service and infrastructure. But right now we've got a wrap. I want to thank you both for being here for another episode of Impromptu thank you.

Speaker D
Thank you.

Speaker C
This episode was produced by Hadley Robinson, edited by Damir Marasik, Chris Sullentrop and Alison Michaels, and mixed by Emma Munger. Chris Rukhan designed our art. Special thanks to Millimetra and Nick Safin. Thank you for listening to impromptu. We're still relatively new, so please continue. Continue to tell your friends and spread the word about us. And feel free to tell us your thoughts on any episode of Impromptu. Email us@impromptuachpost.com.

Speaker A
We all know Kit Kat bars taste delicious, but what about how they sound? It's not just a catchy jingle, it's the satisfying crack of breaking off a piece of Kit Kat followed by a crisp crunch. Oh, we forgot one other sound that accompanies Kit Kat bars, too.

Speaker B
It's.

Speaker A
Or maybe it's more like altogether, Kit Kat bars are music to our ears and yummy flavors to our mouths.

Speaker B
Have a break.

Speaker A
Have a Kit Kat.

Speaker F
Start your summer road trip at Midas and get up to $30 off your next repair service. Plus get a free closer look vehicle check to make sure your road trip ready. If you need brake service, an alignment check or tune up, hit up Midas for up to $30 off. For more details, request your appointment@midas.com.