A Growing indifference to Cinema Going

[AlexH]

Have anyone heard of Quibi? Episodes are a maximum of 10 minutes. It was intended for commutes, but the creators have gone ahead and released it anyway.

I imagine there will be some packed screens when cinema returns.

 

[Parson]

That said there's a few negatives:
1) The experience is less for most. Streaming on your PC is nothing like the cinema.

I cast Prime Video and Disney Plus from my phone to my 60 in. High Def. It's less than a cinema for size and perhaps clarity, but more in that you don't have to have the volume set at "air raid siren" and you don't have to start at 7;05, and you don't have to buy popcorn for $.03 a kernel.

I imagine there will be some packed screens when cinema returns.

I would imagine this as well. But the real question is what the same cinemas will look like 6 months down the road.

 

[Vince W]

you don't have to buy popcorn for $.03 a kernel.

Your wife must really like you then.

 

[BigBadBob141]

There are a couple of posts by a You Tuber (I forget his name) who reviews films in america, basically he says that the magical experience of cinema going is being ruined by thoughtless people, people using i-phones with the screens turned to full brightness, people talking out loud to each other with no regard for anyone else, basically being idiots and treating the cinema as if it was their own living room, which if true is a great shame.

P.S. Would just like to share something that happened once, my parents had taken me to see the film "Old Yella", at the end of the film when the boy is forced to shoot his dog because it has rabis, just after he shoots it a quivering voice of a young child which sounded on the verge of tears piped up and said " that boy is naughty ", not sure if anyone laughed or not, I think a few did, but the reason I heard it was because the cinema was so quite!!!

 

[AlexH]

I can't wait to see a film at the cinema again.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Current pandemic situation has certainly the breaks on cinema attendance. One wonders if the movie theater will ever recover from this.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

How can you ever social distance in a cinema, impossible.

 

[AlexH]

How can you ever social distance in a cinema, impossible.

You should see how far apart the seats are in my local Vue. Forget about getting intimate with your date!

I think cinema will always have a place, but perhaps on a lesser scale to currently. I'm missing seeing the big cinema blockbusters.

 

[BAYLOR]

How can you ever social distance in a cinema, impossible.

And how can they be portable with fewer seats ?

 

[Parson]

I think the cinema will survive. But in a trimmed down state. I don't usually go to a show on "opening night" and often you social distance in the local theater without trying to. I've been there many a time when the total crowd was less than 2 dozen. As low as 5 I think, counting my son and I.

What I suspect will eventually happen is that instead of metroplexes the predominate theater will be old style. One HUGE screen absolutely top notch sound and amenities, and a price tag that will keep most of us from going more than once a year, but will appeal to the rich and famous and will therefore be a destination event.

 

[Judderman]

It will be a struggle for cinemas but social distancing won't go on forever. It some places it may go on till a vaccine, in others perhaps it will be stopped in a few months.

 

[Overread]

Cinemas have weathered the home TV.

I think their biggest issue is if film groups get hooked on subscription services delivering films direct to the customer. For film makers there's a few big bonuses with that:
1) The lack of overpriced popcorn and having to "go out" means that with the right marketing they could potentially have bigger launch days in terms of number of customers.

2) The lack of needing to fit into specific time slots means that directors are more free with how the film is cut. It also means no cinema group cutting bits out that later only appear in directors cut editions - often years later if ever. There's more than one film (Aliens 3 and Kingdom of Heaven to name two) which gets torn apart in a bad way like that.

3) The juicy potential to cut out DVD sales and have a direct streaming service only!

4) Levels playing field between big budget films and "direct to DVD" films (provided that the latter can get onto the mainstream streaming services)

Of course there are downsides too;
1) You have to pay monthly or one-off to multiple services. Thus your new film isn't just competing against the other half-dozen major films out; but against people who might have several subscriptions to on-demand services already and don't want to sign up to "yours" just for one or two films every so often. This might not be an issue for giants like Disney, but could be an issue for any middleweight studios who might otherwise make a very solid film, but aren't in the major streaming services.

2) Lack of making an event out of it might see dwindling box-office nights in the future. Where's the pressure in watching something on launch day when it will be discounted through the same service and experience a few weeks/months later. DVD's devalue fast

3) Potential lost revenue from repeat visits. For major blockbusters and franchise films there's likely a significant number who pay to see it more than once at the cinema. On a streaming service whilst you might have to pay to rent/access its unilkely people will pay more than once.

4) Because you don't pay per-person potential to lose revenue. A family who might each buy tickets for the cinema are now sharing a single account to view a film; that's before you get to family sharing (both as approved features and families/friends sharing accounts). As a result you're only getting one payment where at the cinema you could be getting 4 payments or more.



For fans there's a few downsides
1) Loss of the cinema experience -as jaded as we might be some things ARE better on the big screen.

2) DVD potential loss. When you buy a DVD (or VHS or whatever) you have a physical copy of a film that won't change. On the downside this means if a directors cut comes out you've got to buy it again. On the plus side the director can't change your copy. If a film is only streamed chances are they'll only keep one version up, which means if a director makes changes in a "directors cut" that are not popular, yep you could be stuck with it with NO way to get access to the "original".

3) We might see a rise of limited-lifespan films with things like short term sports name contracts/franchise contracts. Once the contract is up the film vanishes. We already have PC games like this.
Similarly we could see this happen with propitiatory content within the film such as musical tracks.

4) Doesn't work on a weak/no internet connection. A DVD will run as long as you've a player and electricity. Streaming services not only require payment, but working internet; without it you can't stream.

 

[KGeo777]

People like to go out.
Revival cinemas were doing well--showing movies decades old which people had already seen.
Disney deprived these cinemas of archival material-especially from the FOX library. It was assumed they did it to have the screens available for their own new films (those who speculated refused to speak on record-which is alarming in itself-that they were presumably afraid of Disney reprisals).
And yet, look how easily and effortlessly the big corporations shut down their movie business without a fret. I do not think smaller companies would have been so eager or enthusiastic to shut it all down.

On a related note, I read that someone who had a 35mm copy of SONG OF THE SOUTH had it telecine scanned to digital and fans cleaned it up. It is now a super pristine copy of a film that Disney had put in the vault and was only available through a Japanese laserdisc.

 

[Narkalui]

I thought Song Of The South was one of the most racist films ever made and probably best left dead and buried...

 

[KGeo777]

I thought Song Of The South was one of the most racist films ever made and probably best left dead and buried...

I haven't seen it (you make me curious now to check it out lol) but I remember it was re-released to cinemas in the 1980s and one of its songs was used on the Wonderful World of Disney.
The star got an Honorary Oscar. I wonder how he would have felt if told his work should be forgotten.

 

[Narkalui]

Yeah, you may want to check out the Wikipedia page, pretty awful. Today it would probably get banned and only the KKK would object...

 

[KGeo777]

Well since you brought it up, it is very subjective and the double standards are so blatant.
CASABLANCA has a demeaning black servant character Sam yet the film is a "classic."
Why isn't that film worthy of a ban?
A case of "do as I say, not as I do."
Walt Disney gets the heat because he presented independent black characters instead of making them servants for diversity sake. Uncle Remus it seems is the star of his movie, not a plot device like Sam.
The crows in DUMBO choose to show him how to fly, their own choice, they weren't instructed to by a Humphrey Bogart.
ZULU ends with the Zulu army saluting the British-as if they were happy to have their soldiers killed--in reality they left when the relief column came.
That forced harmony message is not only a lie but rather insulting--but where's the outrage? That movie has a weird bit where the Belgian cripple is defending Zulu bravery in one scene and then we see him hopping around on one leg killing as many Zulus as he can.

 

[Narkalui]

And North West Frontier has a few agonisingly racist moments too.

I think the outrage against Song of the South lies more in its portrayal of slaves who are happy to be slaves and in the fact that Disney hired a consultant who was a prominent civil rights spokesperson at the time and who quit when repeatedly ignored. Then Disney lied and said that he'd quit because they wouldn't cast him as Remus.

Anyway, I think this is starting to get far too political...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Yep, too political - let's get back to cinemas.

 

[BAYLOR]

I don't think cinema will every quite get back to what ot was before Covid 19 . I suspect that that streaming become ever more dominant as a result.