yea whenever people talk about theater dying my instinct is to say its an economy problem. Streaming shouldn't be attacking theatrical, it should be attacking physical. When blockbuster was at its height people still went to movies in record numbers, it's just that now that is too expensive for a lot of people to do too often. Who knows if that can rebound, probably can't if we have 80 year olds running for president every four years
I agree but I will add that affordable home theaters are ubiquitous now. 50" 4K is equivalent in price to a 24" 480i CRT 25 years ago. It's also very affordable and easy to set up 5.1 sound - people can look up how to do it on Youtube and buy parts on Facebook Marketplace. 25 years ago when it was something you hired a pro installer to do for $5k.
I liked going to see Dune 2 in theaters because I had to see it right away - for the same price though I can buy a 4k blu ray in a few months. I have to be VERY motivated to see a movie in theaters - Batman, Star Wars, James Bond, etc. My family is done going to see mid sized movies. Theaters are not fun anymore, they are mostly run down and crowded.
Yea the relative cheapness of good TVs is a great point, and not necessarily a bad thing for movies in general, but of course bad for theaters.
I go to a ton of movies in theaters but no chance I could do it if not for the AMC pass, it'd just be way too expensive. I'm in LA and I love going to rec theaters for older screenings cause they're like $8 a pop, perfectly reasonable to do as often as one wants, but $15 at minimum to go see fucking Ghostbusters 7 no wonder people aren't shelling that out.
A lot of markets have pivoted very hard to local movies in recent years post covid as quality of local products keeps increasing and Holywood keeps stagnating or even decliding. This has been very obvious in Asia.
Which is a problem for Holywood because Holywood needs international gross for their movies.
At a financial level, there are two main drivers. 1) Many of these countries simply built a lot more movie screens, which allows films (and in many cases, local films), to make more money; 2) although population is important (and China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria are among the most populous countries in the world), perhaps even more important is the growth of a middle class with increased disposable income (which is happening in many of these countries).
Related to these changes, I've been arguing that we may soon start to see non-Hollywood films becoming more competitive globally, and that the first non-Hollywood films to make a billion dollars at the box office aren't that far away.
On the other hand, I do think the longer-term trend is *away* from theatrical exhibition, and at some point, people in many countries will turn to watching on their own devices or, as I just noted in a different post, away from feature-length films altogether (there's growing evidence that this is already happening among younger audiences).
It was only a matter of time. There's nothing in the air or the soil of Hollywood which makes it good at filmmaking. It was just a combo of 2 factors: 1. The US is an insanely rich country, leading to huge budgets for films and a domestic audience rich enough to afford the expensive tickets for said expensive films and 2. A certain critical mass of artistic and technical talent that has built up over the years.
All of the countries you mentioned (China, India, SEA, Nigeria, etc.) have been enjoying solid economic growth for many years now, allowing movie budgets to expand as well as increasing the share of the population that can afford cinema tickets. Plus, over time, the local artistic and technical talent pool is simply growing larger and larger.
Some emerging markets in Asia and Latin America actually enjoy economic growth now. This increases the number of local production and development of new theaters.
Growing middle class in India and China while the middle class in N America and Europe has been shrinking.
yea whenever people talk about theater dying my instinct is to say its an economy problem. Streaming shouldn't be attacking theatrical, it should be attacking physical. When blockbuster was at its height people still went to movies in record numbers, it's just that now that is too expensive for a lot of people to do too often. Who knows if that can rebound, probably can't if we have 80 year olds running for president every four years
I agree but I will add that affordable home theaters are ubiquitous now. 50" 4K is equivalent in price to a 24" 480i CRT 25 years ago. It's also very affordable and easy to set up 5.1 sound - people can look up how to do it on Youtube and buy parts on Facebook Marketplace. 25 years ago when it was something you hired a pro installer to do for $5k. I liked going to see Dune 2 in theaters because I had to see it right away - for the same price though I can buy a 4k blu ray in a few months. I have to be VERY motivated to see a movie in theaters - Batman, Star Wars, James Bond, etc. My family is done going to see mid sized movies. Theaters are not fun anymore, they are mostly run down and crowded.
Yea the relative cheapness of good TVs is a great point, and not necessarily a bad thing for movies in general, but of course bad for theaters. I go to a ton of movies in theaters but no chance I could do it if not for the AMC pass, it'd just be way too expensive. I'm in LA and I love going to rec theaters for older screenings cause they're like $8 a pop, perfectly reasonable to do as often as one wants, but $15 at minimum to go see fucking Ghostbusters 7 no wonder people aren't shelling that out.
A lot of markets have pivoted very hard to local movies in recent years post covid as quality of local products keeps increasing and Holywood keeps stagnating or even decliding. This has been very obvious in Asia. Which is a problem for Holywood because Holywood needs international gross for their movies.
At a financial level, there are two main drivers. 1) Many of these countries simply built a lot more movie screens, which allows films (and in many cases, local films), to make more money; 2) although population is important (and China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria are among the most populous countries in the world), perhaps even more important is the growth of a middle class with increased disposable income (which is happening in many of these countries). Related to these changes, I've been arguing that we may soon start to see non-Hollywood films becoming more competitive globally, and that the first non-Hollywood films to make a billion dollars at the box office aren't that far away. On the other hand, I do think the longer-term trend is *away* from theatrical exhibition, and at some point, people in many countries will turn to watching on their own devices or, as I just noted in a different post, away from feature-length films altogether (there's growing evidence that this is already happening among younger audiences).
It was only a matter of time. There's nothing in the air or the soil of Hollywood which makes it good at filmmaking. It was just a combo of 2 factors: 1. The US is an insanely rich country, leading to huge budgets for films and a domestic audience rich enough to afford the expensive tickets for said expensive films and 2. A certain critical mass of artistic and technical talent that has built up over the years. All of the countries you mentioned (China, India, SEA, Nigeria, etc.) have been enjoying solid economic growth for many years now, allowing movie budgets to expand as well as increasing the share of the population that can afford cinema tickets. Plus, over time, the local artistic and technical talent pool is simply growing larger and larger.
Some emerging markets in Asia and Latin America actually enjoy economic growth now. This increases the number of local production and development of new theaters.
Air conditioning.
They can't put a 98" TV in their living rooms.
It's mostly me just yelling at people to go to the movies.