Movie Theater Nostalgia
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Humans love going to places. The idea that we will one day wear a pair of VR googles in the home in lieu of actually going on vacations, visiting family and friends, or just simply going out to social gatherings is a fantasy.
Although humans like going to places, the list of failed social gathering ideas is long and storied. Dance halls, arcades, pool halls, and roller skating rinks once defined culture. Today, these venues are nothing more than relics with a few owners trying to keep the memories alive for the select few willing to pay for the nostalgia.
The list of social gathering places that have lost out to time and technology will only get longer. We see the latest addition before our eyes: movie theaters. Some think movie theaters will be fine postpandemic. Others are convinced movie theaters will go the way of the dodo bird. Reality is found somewhere in the middle. There will be physical movie theaters in the future, but they will look like a shell of their former selves. Movie theaters will become the new arcades - still around if you search hard, but irrelevant.
Most movie theater screens will either meet the wrecking ball, contractor’s hammer and saw (for conversion into something else), or they will be bought by families that feel a calling or duty to keep the nostalgia alive.
Movie theaters aren’t in decline because video streamers are seeing success in grabbing eyeballs. Netflix, Amazon, or Apple are financially able to purchase a movie theater chain tomorrow and give away free tickets to subscribers to watch exclusive films. This may seem like a great idea to some. However, a growing portion of the population would feel differently. Movie theaters face a very difficult future because society is moving on from the idea of traveling outside the home to sit in a dark room to consume video content. It’s telling how everything from reclining chairs to steak and lobster have been used as carrots to get people inside a movie theater. The problem with movie theaters isn’t a suboptimal food selection or uncomfortable seating. Instead, fewer people want to venture out the home, sit in a dark room, and spend two hours watching a movie that began at a time not of their choosing.
As for what is driving this trend:
The rise of on-demand consumption. The thought of needing to pick out a specific time to go somewhere to watch video content will seem as foreign as needing to leave the house to play a video game. It simply isn’t going to register to people.
New-age communication. Turning the smartphone and wearables off for two hours is becoming unconscionable for a growing number of people.
It certainly doesn’t help that the rise of streaming is causing some blockbuster movies to be watched in the home at the same time that they are being watched inside theaters. However, blaming that development for the demise of movie theaters is misplaced. It does little but leave an opening for nostalgia holders to think “if only tech companies would support movie theater operators.”
Unfortunately, these developments aren’t confined to movies. A similar trend is slowly occurring with theaters in general. Don’t let Broadway’s commercialization overshadow what are deteriorating economics found with operas, plays, and other performance art that take place in (large) dark rooms at a time not of our choosing. It’s telling how such activities increasingly need to be supported by cities and states. The logic is that such institutions are part of culture. The real purpose of such funding is to keep the nostalgia flowing.
Movies aren’t going anywhere. Theater isn’t going anywhere. Instead, the way we consume these art forms will change. Selling tools for retrofitting basements into “video consumption” rooms contains more upside than owning a chain of movie theaters.
Nostalgia is a powerful drug. While it is possible to sell nostalgia, one who does is ultimately stuck selling old ideas into a society that is always forward looking.
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