Here's M Night Shyamalan on the recent lack of interest in Hollywood movies:
Art is the ability to convey that we are not alone," Shyamalan told the gathering of more than 800 theater operators and suppliers at the convention's closing night dinner. "When I sit down next to you in a movie theater, we get to share each other's point of view. We become part of a collective soul. That's the magic in the movies."
*Sigh*. I guess that's just proof that even the writers/directors are as clueless as the movie executives. As Kip Esquire explains, it's just that 'collective soul' experience that most are hoping to avoid:
Whatever. If movie theater chains (which almost rival the airlines in their ability to repeatedly go bankrupt) want to get people back into their theaters, it's really quite simple:
--Stop pricing tickets on the elastic portion of the demand curve.
--Ditto for concessions.
--Have adult-only showings (not adult movies, but adult showings) for those of us who neither have nor like children.
--Bring back ushers to expel cell phone users who are "ringer-off challenged."
--Oh, and make some good movies for a change.
I would echo Esquire's sentiments. Hollywood has always left me baffled by its attempts to explain declining ticket sales by referencing the economy, or reduced consumer confidence, increased holiday travel, or whatever. The reasons aren't that complicated, and pointing to the steady stream of poor quality flicks coming out of Tinseltown doesn't quite capture why fewer and fewer are venturing out to theaters. Yes, in recent years movies have been jaw-numbingly bad. But as far back as I can remember, Hollywood has produced mostly bad movies (anyone remember 'Weekend at Bernies'). Besides, people are still watching movies - just not in theaters. Services like Netflix have proven remarkably popular, as have on-demand movies. And people still flock to Blockbuster and other neighborhood movie rental stores on a weekly basis.
The reasons people don't want to go to the movie theaters are simple enough: namely that ticket/concession prices continue to rise as the quality of the movie-going experience declines. No one wants to shell out $40 (movie and concessions for two) to sit in a filthy theater, watch an out of focus projection screen, and listen to cell phones and the prattling of the other movie-goers. In an effort to keep their profits high, theaters typically employ minimum wage level employees which mean surly or indifferent teenagers - bad employees who could not care any less about the patron's movie going experience. Is it any wonder that most would rather sit home with surround sound and a nice screen?
Hollywood can still make money. People will always pay for more crappy movies like Taxi or xXx: State of the Union. They would rather just watch them on their own terms.