The bigger my TV gets, the less likely I’m going to the cinema. But I do actually prefer original films and I pay to rent them digitally once they release. The FOMO is not as strong anymore, I can wait. Letterboxd will remind me when it’s time.
They keep dancing around the obvious. No one wants to go to theaters anymore for various reasons; too expensive, people on their phones, people talking, head lice, and oh, too expensive.
Have they tried putting a tariff on them to motivate the public?
Back when I was a kid, if you didn’t see it in the cinema you’d have to wait 6 months to a year for the VHS to come out and then you’d watch it on a tiny poor quality TV. Cinema was amazing.
Now I have big enough TV and surround sound and I can watch whatever is released a few months later in the comfort of my own home for practically free. The huge amount of content now means unless I really really want to see it in cinema there’s just no point. Most movies aren’t worth it.
When I was a kid you saw it on the big screen or you waited several years for a truncated version to hit one of the three networks. Saw Star Wars in 1977 at 6-yo, didn’t hit broadcast TV until 1984.
Movie theaters are really expensive, so I’m not paying attention to what Hollywood is making right now.
This is one of the main reasons that I started the trailers community. There absolutely are unique, original films being released all the time, they just rarely get noticed. I hope that surfacing their trailers right along side the big boys will help get them in front of curious audiences.
Thank you for your work on that community!
That’s pretty cool.
are they marketing them thoug?, because the only things i hear about are disney remake bullshit and mcu slop
Mickey 17 was well advertised imo with big names attached. Still bombed.
I’m still confused by what happened with this film. I knew it was coming out, but I didn’t get around to seeing it opening weekend, then by Wednesday of the next week the headlines stated that it was leaving theaters and heading to streaming.
I would have seen it in theaters, but once the streaming was announced I didn’t mind waiting another week or two.
I just saw it and enjoyed it.
I feel like it didn’t have any time to build momentum, just kicked almost straight to streaming.
I had the same thought. How were they calling it a bomb after like 5 days? Keep it in theaters long enough for word-of-mouth to spread and things would be different.
The problem is the short time windows in theaters and yeah it was a good movie. The fact it was a trump analog hurt it and Paterson is a great actor fuck twilight but the Batman was a great movie and the penguin is a masterpiece of television.
Black bag didn’t get any advertising. The problem is studios have trained their audience to expect slop then they put out a few good original movies for a short time window then point at it and say see audiences don’t want original films.
– guy that watches original movies every weekend in the theater
Also studios don’t want original movies they want shit that they can make toys for or tie-ins with McDonald’s. They also don’t want directors with their own vision messing up their synergy with their marketing partners. They want people to put out content not art.
I liked the movie, but it had no chance. The budget was way too big. It should never have been given such a big budget.
I want more mid-budget original movies that actually have a chance of financial success.
I liked it more than i thought i would. But i hate movie theatres way way more to ever go there.
Things are kinda invisible if they don’t trend on social media. Hence, meaning no offense to OP, they have not show up in OP’s feeds.
This is a shame too, because it was for all intents and purposes a good movie. And I say that as someone who did not like Pattinson as an actor (thanks Twilight).
I didn’t hear about that one almost at all and I go to the theater every week.
I only knew about it because I like the director and go out of my way to look up interesting movies.
Maybe they need to tell theaters to calm the fuck down with their pricing and ads. Do one or the other. If I’m paying $15+/ticket to see a show, then don’t lie to me about the showtime and include half an hour of commercials.
I used to like trailers. But just as I was starting to feel like the trailers were getting too long, the new thing became to splice the trailers with ads. So you think you’re watching trailers and then suddenly there’s a Ford commercial. So now they’re too long AND they’re less entertaining and relevant.
My local cinema now plays older movies too. I got shocked by walking in a few minutes late to the opening of LOTR: The Fellowship of The Ring because it started at the listed showtime! So I’ll support them by going to their older movie showings now. It’s nice to not get ramrodded with ads and movie spoilers.
Cinemas absolutely should be going semi-arthouse at this point in time. You don’t have to cater to a high-brow crowd to not constantly swim with the latest big-studio mainstream, plenty of people who’d totally go to a screening of Reservoir Dogs and you could actually make money off the tickets. The whole back-catalogue of popular stuff, especially so if it benefits from a big screen. Play it again, Sam.
That said I’m totally a fan of shoddily produced local ads. Like a (back in the day) 9mm recording of the interior of a local hair stylist and some cheesy dialogue so bad it could be from porn. Replace 9mm with a phone camera, same thing.
Also, throw in some student project short films. Do list the proper starting time, with a different starting time for the pre-show, “you won’t be bored if you come early and won’t miss anything when not”, avoids everyone rushing to their seats at the same time.
Side note why aren’t there drive-in cinemas with EV chargers.
Movie trailers playing before a movie made sense to me. You like movies? Here’s some that are coming up, in case you’re interested.
It was a movie trailer that made me go all-in on adblockers. One of the Mission Impossible movies, I forget which one, I lost count after the third. This trailer had that annoying “Ready or not, here I come” “song” in the background. And it played ahead of every single Youtube video I watched for a week.
I will never watch a Mission Impossible movie ever again, old or new. I will never watch another Tom Cruise movie ever again. Old or new. I might avoid the spy/action/thriller genre entirely for the rest of my life. I won’t go see James Bond ever again because of Mission Impossible’s marketing. There’s a strong and growing possibility I’ll never walk into a movie theater ever again. And I aggressively block ads now.
They went from letting me know what movies were going to be released soon to trying to beat my personality out.
I used to be a movie buff. I grew up in a house with a lot of VHS tapes, movies were important to my social life in my teens and early twenties, I went to work for a couple years basically living at the airport and sleeping at home, and when I came up for air it was all a cancerous mass, a tumor of its former self.
I would rather watch RedLetterMedia make fun of 40 year old movies than go watch a new one.
Insane response to mild annoyance honestly
I also haven’t bought a game made by EA since 1992. I don’t like their behavior as a company so I have completely stopped buying anything from them. This you label “insane.”
Yes
Does the phrase “vote with your wallet” mean anything to you?
Don’t let the irritation take that away from you. I used to be a movie buff. But I also still am. My solution is just to ignore the previews. I don’t let it bother me because I am in control of my own life and feelings. So if I am going to a theater with someone, I wait outside until the movie starts (if possible… hard to do with kids). Otherwise I’m fine with streaming.
And even though Tom Cruise is the public face of shitology, those Mission Impossible movies are pretty good. Better than the last few Bond movies for sure. Learn to find things that you like. stoicism
Yeah this feels like another thing that’s downstream from low wages.
Movies are a luxury. If most people are struggling to get by in debt, they’re less likely to splurge.
Basically everything that made being middle class fun has turned into another race to the bottom in terms of quality and enjoyment because of capitalism.
It’s at least $100 bucks to take the family. More if the kids want popcorn.
Awhile back, I started tracking the time between the listed showtime and the actual start time of the movie. I logged them all and I would post it on Twitter. Then, Elon bought Twitter and I sort of abandoned the project (and Twitter).
At AMC (where I see most movies because it’s near me and they have a monthly pass), pre-roll/previews are 15-30 minutes long. The bigger and newer a movie is, the longer it is. Most tend to be around 20-25 minutes.
I started showing up 21 minutes late to most of them but I would usually be right on time for the start of the film.
Tbh, I don’t even hear about any movies anymore unless something happens, like Snow White bombing. I run an ad blocker, so most of what I get is just word of mouth.
Hollywood needs to step up their game
I see the same with adblock. I don’t watch TV, see no ads in youtube. How could they up their game and reach me?
I frankly think it’s too late.
I think they’ve successfully rewired the American demographic to only want Iron Man 8 and the Minecraft-Star Wars crossover. I talk to people in my family and they just cannot show any interest in films outside these major franchises. I think even something like Oppenheimer was only popular because Nolan did it and they know him from Batman. It’s like their brains are broken to the possibility of anything else or a new story.
But also theaters suck now, people show no consideration for others in the audience.
Heh, looking at the article and the cesspool of WSJ comments:
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The elephant in the room (that the website dances around) is algorithmic attention. If people are glued to feeds on phones/at home, that’s less time to chat about (and go to) movies that don’t have the critical mass to pop into your feed. That sucks, as there’s nothing movie studios can do about our toxic information environment.
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Going by the comments… Seems modern movie goers have a thin skin. Even the slightest hint of something woke is apparently unwatchable? But themes and conflicts that make you uncomfortable are what makes fiction interesting. This may cut both ways too (with, for instance, military-themed movies turning off more leftist moviegoers? I feel that way to some extent).
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Wanting to watch at home is a major contributing factor, but I think its overstated compared to the above two. Like, our local Movie Tavern isn’t super luxurious, I have crazy technical family with OLED/surround setups, but going out is still a fun social excursion. Most peoples’ home setups… aren’t great.
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Maybe this is more personal to me, but I am way more into TV series than movies these days. There’s just so much more time to worldbuild and assemble characters, and more room to run and play once established. But I would totally pay for a restaurant booth to, say, watch some TV episode I can pick with buds.
But themes and conflicts that make you uncomfortable are what makes fiction interesting
Most moviegoers want to shut their brains off and escape and be entertained for 90-120 minutes. Not be challenged or be uncomfortable.
I own thousands of movies on 4K and Blu-ray. I’ve had a surround sound setup since the mid-2000s. I have complete collections of many directors’ entire filmographies. Even in my case, the ratio of entertained to challenged that I want most nights is about 90% to 10%.
Eh… I think most viewers like compelling characters when they find them, even in comfort entertainment. And putting them in interesting situations is part of what makes them compelling.
I guess this is why influencers (using that term very broadly) are so popular. That format cuts out all the plot and fluff and goes straight to characters.
I mean, sure, but compelling characters and interesting situations is not what you said. You talked about making the viewer uncomfortable. It’s not hard to identify characters and situations that are compelling and interesting and yet don’t particularly challenge the viewer or make them feel uncomfortable.
military-themed movies turning off more leftist moviegoers? I feel that way to some extent
I suppose that depends on how war is depicted in the film. War is hell, but sometimes it’s necessary. I don’t love the idea of war, but Slaughterhouse Five lives on as one of my favorite books about war. Understanding war and its impacts are important, even if we don’t like a world in which we have to resort to war.
Sure, a lot of American film makes war movies all “RAH RAH RAH USA USA USA,” but that doesn’t mean all films about war have to be that way, especially films about war made in other nations, who perhaps don’t have their military so deeply ingrained in the film industry.
Hell, Three Kings is still an underrated war film which has an undercurrent of themes regarding capitalism and consumerism and how it relates to war.
Seems modern movie goers have a thin skin
Yeah, these MAGA babies can’t handle anything at all that challenges their worldview. Even things that are supposed to challenge their worldview, like The Boys, instead re-enforces the same views because they simply have no media literacy.
Sure, a lot of American film makes war movies all “RAH RAH RAH USA USA USA,”
Here are the 3 “original” movies in my local theatre, to get more of what I mean:
Levon Cade left behind a decorated military career in the black ops to live a simple life working construction. But when his boss’s daughter, who is like family to him, is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he ever could have imagined.
harlie Heller (Malek) is a brilliant, but deeply introverted decoder for the CIA working out of a basement office at headquarters in Langley whose life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack. When his supervisors refuse to take action, he takes matters into his own hands, embarking on a dangerous trek across the globe to track down those responsible, his intelligence serving as the ultimate weapon for eluding his pursuers and achieving his revenge…
Written and directed by Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland (Civil War, 28 Days Later), Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy SEALs in the home of an Iraqi family, overwatching the movement of US forces through insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare, told like never before: in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.
The last one (Warfare) kinda stands out, but see the pattern? “Ex black ops protag” is super popular, and I posit that, on average, it’s a turn-off for leftists.
Oh, I don’t dispute any of that. There’s tons of media in that vein, and it is indeed all a turn off. I just meant there’s occasionally a diamond in the rough, but they are indeed a rarity.
Hell, most of these just seem like movies that all want to be 2008’s Taken with Liam Neeson really badly. Even Taken was honestly very silly and absurd. Like, he just walks away from these situations where he fucks up half the city and the cops somehow can’t find him? It just cuts away and suddenly he’s fine and on to the next bit.
However, it was an incredibly popular film, spawned multiple sequels, and there’s definitely a whole genre of films in this vein. Nobody said Hollywood was very original, even when it comes to an original film. They still want formulas that they think will sell. Action tends to be the most popular, and to make action believable you have to have some backstory that makes these guys top tier fighters.
At least the John Wick films didn’t rely on him being ex-military, I guess.
Yeah. I mean, there was stuff before Taken (Bond, Die Hard, many more I’m sure), but in terms of movie plots, Taken has to be one of the most influential movies of the millennium, lol. It’s even leaking into TV (Reacher, and many others).
military-themed movies turning off more leftist moviegoers? I feel that way to some extent
Maybe but not because I’m liberal, because we’re shit. The fact that “The Covenant” exists is FUCKING INFURIATING to me. I signed up to put my ass on the line, knowing any flight out of CONUS had a return ticket. We not only told the terps we’d take them to the American dream but made them put their lives on the line…then flew away and made a fucking movie about how it’s too bad they’re all stuck in the suck.
All quiet on the western front was a pretty good war film
You nailed it and the minecraft movie proved them right. I’m predicting now that movies will be engineered to be memeable for TikTok videoing stupid dances in the theaters not to watch the movie you paid for but to make a 6 second video for the feeds.
Minecraft is only technically an original movie. Video game “franchise” popular with kids is usual “formula slop” leveraging past pop culture.
Bingo.
Ugh, that’s exactly what’s going to happen, isn’t?
Also, I hate how people ponder why stuff like this is happening and miss the elephant in the room. Guess engagement optimization isn’t a trending topic…
I’m the opposite with TV. Most seasons are too long and just get filled with pointless interpersonal drama that feels far too contrived. I think mini series length is usually better.
I also personally feel that as series go on past the first, maybe second season, the story has been told and now they are just having to fill it with slop because the studios want anything making money to continue indefinitely even if there isn’t a good story needing to be told anymore.
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Another thought, when 80% of cinema movies are based on franchises you don’t care about, you kinda stop following cinema schedules. Movies that are not expected to do well are also given less time in cinemas and worse time slots. I did watch Mickey17 because I knew about it beforehand but usually by the time I learn about a movie I actually want to watch it’s already on its way out of the cinema.
I can’t afford the ticket and concessions, let alone the gas to drive there. $200 for one night’s entertainment or 4 days of food for a family of four and a dog?
Your dog is lying, they don’t need the finest steak every meal time.
Those prices sound utterly insane. I spend less than that on food in a month and going to the cinema is under £10. I usually don’t buy any of their food and bring my own water.
Yea, but let’s say you have a spouse and kids. You probably aren’t going to the theater by yourself. Now you’re buying 60+ in tickets, and probably 40+ in popcorn/soda if you have kids there.
That being said, you could go on a discounted day and tell the family no snacks/soda. Then you’re looking at 40ish bucks for a family of 4.
Just looked it up, £23 family ticket without any discounts. But if you are going as a family you are looking at different kinds of film.
China’s announced reduction in big studio releases can place a positive influence on original/independent films.
It drives me nuts when people complain there are no original movies. If you care enough to complain, you should care enough to be informed about what movies are out
