Are Movie Theaters Dying?

[Fester]

Does anyone remember field of dreams? We need to be the ones to keep the theatres alive. If we use digital screens, they need to learn to make the movies look more like the old films, to keep alive the nostalgia.

Which Field of Dreams?
The Fantasy novel Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella?
The fantasy movie Field of Dreams Starring Kostner, etal?
Or the movie set turned tourist destination, now corporate owned and about to become a 24 field commercial sports complex?
Who are "they" and why would they want to use modern technology top make movies look old?  The market isn't there.
Granted, movie theater attendance is at a 16 year low. 
But the movie makers are still raking in billions of dollars.
For better or worse, the old days of usherettes, newsreels, overtures, intermission carts, and no cell phones are gone. 
Maybe somewhere there might be a small movie house or restored movie palace that might on occasion run a classic picture.  But those places will always an exception--not the rule.
The Death Of Movie Theaters has been reported for many years.  I recall in 1973 seeing petitions posted in every movie theater in Salt Lake City (where I grew up) opposing "Pay TV."  Cable TV was just getting started in the region and everyone wanted to trade in their aerials and rabbit ears for HBO. And the movie houses were certain the end was nigh.   Guess what? There are more movie screens in Salt Lake Now than there were in 1973.
Here are some of the numbers:
I don't think theaters are an endangered species yet.

Drive-ins on the other hand . . .

http://www.the-numbers.com/market/

[marsattacks666]

Definitely, the Drive-in is becoming scarce.

[Monster Bob]

Giant screen, 3D plasma keeps me home. Picture better that at my local digital theater. Hallelujah. 

[jimm]

It's more a lack of anything worth seeing IMO....

[Haunted hearse]

My family likes to go to our local theatre once a week.  If I still lived in So Cal, I definately would want to see films in the "El Capitan". 

[Fester]

It's more a lack of anything worth seeing IMO....

That is why the last first-run movie I saw in a theater was Troy

[bigbud]

People are digging deeper into their cocoons.  I wonder what we'll be like in another 20 years.

Maybe in our cocoons.....6 feet down....ha!

[marsattacks666]

My family likes to go to our local theatre once a week.  If I still lived in So Cal, I definately would want to see films in the "El Capitan".

Good Theatre. The Egyptian Theatre, also cool.

[The Batman]

My wife and I will still go to movies once in a while, ONLY when I know it's a LOUD movie.

Also see a show just before dinner, which almost always has the least number of people and talking idiots.

Only ONE theater we have been to recently enforces people getting thrown out for phone usage and they have a 2 min trailer about it, SHOWING someone being escorted out of the show.

[Scatter]

It's more a lack of anything worth seeing IMO....

Word.

[Scatter]

That is why the last first-run movie I saw in a theater was Troy

Yeah...........seeing THAT would have put me off theaters too.

[Hepcat]

If theatres all close, big budget movie production will cease as well.

Considering the product we're getting versus the expenditure, that seems like a bonus.

I personally think they should go back to the lower budget studio format of making movies anyway.  They can re-use sets, costumes, and props over and over again.  Use contract players for the actors, and contract directors, writers and every other crew positions.  They should work hard to find every way to shave dollars off the production cost.  And, or, give more opportunities to the low budget independants.  As I predicted, that would mean those super mega high paid actors would be dinosaurs and extinct.

I just don't care if a movie features big name actors or complete unknowns. In fact, I couldn't tell you what movies most of the "big name" movie stars played in anyway. To me they all might as well be unknowns.

I think that you have to be a star-struck Hollywood fanboy to care about big name actors. And I don't exactly hold Hollywood fanboys in high regard.

[Hepcat]

All social outlets in public places are dying.  People are digging deeper into their cocoons.  I wonder what we'll be like in another 20 years.

Giant screen, 3D plasma keeps me home. Picture better that at my local digital theater. Hallelujah.

Yes, that's probably a major part of the reason why people have taken to cocooning more often these days.

My family likes to go to our local theatre once a week.

For better or worse, the old days of usherettes, newsreels, overtures, intermission carts, and no cell phones are gone.

Maybe somewhere there might be a small movie house or restored movie palace that might on occasion run a classic picture.  But those places will always an exception--not the rule.

It's precisely the neighbourhood theatres with those features that I miss. Those features made for a small-town community feel even in big city neighbourhoods. The massive multiplexes in suburban shopping centres just don't deliver the "going out to the movies" experience for me.

[Hepcat]

i don't go nearly as much as I use to and I never buy anything from there no matter how hungry or thirsty I may be. Theaters were once very cheap and for the "common" person. That's how they survived during the great depression, they were air conditioned and were cheap enough that almost every one could still afford them.

I agree. And that ties in with movies being over-budgeted when it comes to how much the big name actors are paid. The movie studios as a result take a higher percentage of the box office receipts for first run movies these days leaving the theater operator to survive on concession income.

While I'm willing to patronize the concession stands at the surviving neighbourhood "repertory" theatres in Toronto, I resist doing so in multiplexes.

[Hepcat]

Plus I can drink adult beverages freely and at will. Win win win!

Indeed. Most young people just want to get bombed/plastered/zonked. They just don't appreciate the finer things in life: