Tag: our shrinking movie industry

Honk if you can name a “spectacular, brawling epic” made in this century.

Hollywood is drifting into panic mode. “Why aren’t people going to the movies?” studio execs wonder… frantically. “What can we do to bring them back into the theaters?”

They are amazed that movies based on comic books aren’t packin’ ’em in. It doesn’t even work to turn the superhero Gay, or Trans, or Whatever. They flat-out don’t understand how anyone could possibly have had it up to here with movies based on comic books.

So “Stupid Movies” has to be Factor No. 1. For Factor No. 2, I don’t think we have to look any farther than the price. Why shell out $20 for a ticket when you can watch the same movie at home, on a streaming service, for a fraction of the cost?

And Factor No. 3 has got to be “The Competition.” To bring people back into the theaters, you have to offer them something that they can’t get at home and are willing to pay for, to get from you. This is economics so basic, even I can understand it. But Hollywood doesn’t. They don’t want to be creative, they don’t want to be original. It makes their heads hurt.

I grew up on movies. Every town had at least one movie theater–plus the big theaters and the drive-ins, both of which have been erased from the landscape. Now you’re lucky if you can find one multiplex that’s only open half the time. And then there’ll be nothing there that you want to see, and who needs to spend a wad of money on a movie that might so easily turn out to be ca-ca?

Hollywood, you might try making better movies and not releasing them to cable for a while. I know, I know–you’re busy saying snotty things about America and the people you want to lure back to the theaters. We know you despise us. Are you really surprised that we despise you back?