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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1464866
Suddenly we had a eureka moment! They may be sleezy (our opinion), but pirate viewers still know quality when they see it. No true movie fan would admit to watching a low-quality cam movie from a pirate site as TorrentFreak’s data has confirmed. Pirate viewers may be cheap, but they have taste. Industry folks have said that early streaming (PVOD, day/date, 7 days) hurts ticket sales but they had a little wind taken out of their sales with Halloween Kills. Jamie Lee Curtis showed up simultaneously in theaters and on Paramount+, totally ripped off Michael’s mask, did him in after 40 plus years and made theater owners/goers and streaming viewers happy. Yes but… It’s a rarity that horror flicks do well at the ticket booth or at home, so we’ll see if the joint Universal/Peacock appearance was a sign of people’s desperation to get outta the house or the wave of tomorrow. There are about 200,000 screens worldwide with hundreds of new ones scheduled to open this year. Even as they overbuild movie houses, NATO (North American Theater Owners) members have said the steady drop in ticket sales since 2002 is due to studios “cutting them out” by giving people a choice of going to the cinema or watching the stuff at home. True, the big chains – AMC, Cinemark, Regal, Cineplex and others – still showed steady box office increases. Of course, the average ticket price at chains, which account for 70 percent of the screens, climbed from $5.39 in 2000 to $9.16 in 2020. And yes, concession costs, including the cost of faux butter popcorn, increased even more. As a result, theater CEOs rack up tens of millions in annual bonuses for making brilliant business decisions … raising prices. The smaller cinemas, mom/pop and art house theaters occasionally get a tentpole film, but most eek out slim profits on the mid-range, specialty projects tailored to their regulars’ tastes. “Everything sort of gets taken care of when you have the appropriate number of people,” a small-town theater owner along the Atlantic coast observed. “I’m confident that if we’re supplied with movies, we’re going to be fine,” she added wistfully. “Movie theaters will be back.” They are bouncing back and have their place in the entertainment spectrum because some projects are just too big, too dynamic to be fully appreciated even on a 55-in QLED screen. The new wave of superhero/super villain works are okay at home; but for people who really want to appreciate the film, they must experience it on an ultra-large screen with controlled sound in a darkened room with near-perfect strangers. How long should they be exclusively available in the theater? The great (expensive) stuff should be in the movie house for 45 days so the diehard seat in seats folks have a chance to enjoy it, convince the occasional moviegoers to see it and immerse themselves a second time. Then there’s the really good stuff from studios/streamers that