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Would you pay a premium to see a current movie at home?

I am very unlikely to pay for a current movie as I rarely, if ever, want to watch a movie in release timeframe. I find I enjoy movies much more when I watch them at least a year after they are no longer in the news or being talked about by my friends and colleagues. In fact, I put dates on my calendar to watch movies that really get my attention two years after their release so I don't forget about them and I still enjoy them.

The articles I read about this new option all state that every single studio wants to get this done, but there are disagreements about how early to offer VOD versions of the current movies, ranging from 7 days to 30 days after initial theatrical release. They are also considering waiting until they see the box-office performance - if a movie is killing it (like Logan did) they may put off the VOD release to maximize the ticket sales. If a movie performs worse than expected at the box-office, they may pull in the VOD release to get that extra revenue while the movie is still "fresh".

The theater owners had fought this idea aggressively in the past and are now admitting there is nothing they can do to stop it. As such, the studios are talking about potentially sharing some of the VOD revenue with the theaters, which I think is stupid because the theater isn't doing anything to enable me to watch a VOD movie, so why do they get paid? They are also talking about letting the theaters keep a bit more of the ticket price - today they get very little to nothing from ticket sales and earn practically all their money on food, drinks, and other things (sometimes selling T-Shirts or other trinkets).

I think the studios and the theaters should work together to make the theater experience something special with giveaways, events, or other things which cannot be provided in VOD or pirate-copy. Maybe something like live celebrities, performers, balloon clowns (for kids movies), and other things which can only be experienced in the live environment of the theater.
 
For me the answer would be maybe. It depends on the movie but it also depends on how many times I can watch the movie. Would I pay $50 to watch the movie one time? Unlikely. But if I could access it on a streaming service and watch it several times then I might consider it. We buy alot of kids movies on BD/DVD because my kids watch them many times. Especially in the car when we takes road trips, which is pretty frequently.

I have a great PJ setup in my basement but I enjoy going to the theater and so do my kids, so I doubt I'd ever give that up entirely. Everything there is expensive, but I get it, they have huge overhead costs.
 
Flint said:
I think the studios and the theaters should work together to make the theater experience something special with giveaways, events, or other things which cannot be provided in VOD or pirate-copy. Maybe something like live celebrities, performers, balloon clowns (for kids movies), and other things which can only be experienced in the live environment of the theater.
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You're about 80 years too late for that one. During the motion picture theater's heyday in the 30s and 40s, especially when the theaters were owned by the movie companies, money was freely spent on this type of thing. However the margins are too tight now to make anything like the above viable. I wish it were not so, as Hollywood was far, far richer in experience (not to mention creativity) in that era and a movie premiere was a huge deal. If the movie business were truly in great shape and the studios were raking in the money, they wouldn't have to even think about things like early releases directly to homes in order to make more money. The business has changed.
 
We have a theater in town. It is not new, it is not particularly spectacular, it doesn't have stadium seating and IMAX, but it does pretty well and stays pretty busy. It is a consistent source of sales tax for our community and a decent source of property tax.

We need people to go to the theater. BTW, said theater is not as nice as a lot of the newer ones in the region but they have the same current new releases as all the other theaters with ticket prices at between $4-$7 so it is also a relative bargain.
 
No interest in paying that kind of bucks here............

Last movie in a theater was last year in Delaware.............new Star Trek movie.
 
The theater business is in decline for a lot of reasons but I don't think it would be terribly hard to make the theater experience more pleasant in most instances to at least justify some of the high costs of going. If the experience is great, I generally expect to pay more. But at least have semi-clean seats and floors not all gunked up with candy and butter, have clean restroom facilities, enough staff to man most if not all the registers at peak hours and staff that can move at a somewhat brisk pace that says they give a damn if you make it to your seats before the movie begins. Our new theater generally provides a decent visit, but most of the others around here including the IMAX theater just isn't worth the $ most of the time.
 
Flint said:
The theater owners had fought this idea aggressively in the past and are now admitting there is nothing they can do to stop it. As such, the studios are talking about potentially sharing some of the VOD revenue with the theaters, which I think is stupid because the theater isn't doing anything to enable me to watch a VOD movie, so why do they get paid? They are also talking about letting the theaters keep a bit more of the ticket price - today they get very little to nothing from ticket sales and earn practically all their money on food, drinks, and other things (sometimes selling T-Shirts or other trinkets).
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The studios and theaters have been hand in hand ever since the dawn of motion pictures, but in recent years with large screen HDTVs and online streaming most people have a fairly acceptable (to them, anyway) and secure (as far as DRM goes) way to watch these movies. It's not like the days of my youth, where a 27" TV was pretty much the norm (if not on the large side) and watching a movie in a theater was a completely different experience. If I set up shop in my theater I have better bass than most theaters and a perfectly good surround system (if not state of the art, it gets the job done quite nicely). The theater experience is no longer the draw it once was.

Now, because of this hand in hand business relationship, any cut to the release window means the theaters lose money. Not necessarily ticket revenue (my understanding is that for a period of time all the ticket revenue goes to the studios and the theaters just make money on concessions, which is why a soda and popcorn costs $16), but revenue nonetheless. The studios want to protect this income stream and those they've worked with for generations, but it's starting to feel like we're being forced into supporting a middleman for no other reason than to keep the middleman from finding another job. As Randy points out, even local governments don't necessarily want to see this model go away- that big theater means real money for schools, roads, and other public services. But it's still money that is taken from the movie-going public.

Honestly, I'm not sure that anybody will be all that happy with this home streaming thing. It may be loaded down with a ton of restrictions (to watch this two hour movie, you have to sit through five minutes of unskippable commercials and previews and you can't even pause the movie itself). It may even require special hardware (a MPAA-approved set top box as opposed to it just being a channel on Roku or AppleTV). Piracy will take a jump- if I'm showing it at home, then nobody is policing my living room and I can set up a 4K camera to watch the TV screen perfectly and get a clean audio feed right off the receiver. And that's assuming I'm not cracking things to just record the feed directly to a computer (which would not itself be all that difficult). So studios may not be that pleased with the results. Theater owners for sure will hate it. So we may end up right back where we are now- if you want to see it soon, show up at a theater and fork over more money than you'd pay if you waited for a PPV, rental, purchase, or whatever.
 
Just out of curiosity, has anybody here experienced in person a mega budget classic film (like the _old_ Ben Hur), shown when it was actually new, in a road show release? The screen always had elaborate curtains which were closed while specially composed overture music for the movie played (no commercials or trailers). Then the auditorium lights dimmed, and the main theme music started playing while the studio logo was projected onto the curtains as they were opening. Then the opening credits and the movie proper started. It was all very spectacular, and is done only very rarely (if ever) these days.

I was the projectionist (while in college) for many such events, usually in Westwood in LA.

Anyone actually experience that?
 
No, my first recollection of movie going was in the late 70s when we still had drive-ins (I recall seeing several Disney movies) and then in the early 80s when the first Star Wars trilogy was massive and today's multi-plex didn't really exist, unless 4-5 theaters attached to the shopping mall counts. Even if I were older I dont know if I would've experienced the type of venue that you describe in Delaware.
 
rammisframmis said:
Just out of curiosity, has anybody here experienced in person a mega budget classic film (like the _old_ Ben Hur), shown when it was actually new, in a road show release? The screen always had elaborate curtains which were closed while specially composed overture music for the movie played (no commercials or trailers). Then the auditorium lights dimmed, and the main theme music started playing while the studio logo was projected onto the curtains as they were opening. Then the opening credits and the movie proper started. It was all very spectacular, and is done only very rarely (if ever) these days.

I was the projectionist (while in college) for many such events, usually in Westwood in LA.

Anyone actually experience that?
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Yes. I am old enough to remember such occasions.

There was a string of theatres in the Ottawa valley called O'Brien Theatres (Pembroke, Renfrew, Arnprior, Almonte, and possibly others) and they had actual stages. They did movies and some did Vandeville acts as well. My parents grew up in Renfrew. When they moved to Pembroke to start their family (with me) they continued visiting an O'Brien Theatre. Dad and I went at least once a week. We'd play "I spy with my little eye...: before the overture would start - because there was so much to see in the theatre.

By the way, you forgot to mention that for long movies there was frequently an "Interlude" - with real movie-specific music. ("It's a Mad Mad...World" had sound clips - police radio etc. - that advanced the plot while you were up reloading on popcorn!)

Also, the end credits were far shorter (I guess union rules etc. were not the same, so not everyone who had anything to do with a movie needed to be mentioned) and the exit music could be pretty amazing as well.

The Pembroke O'Brien was demolished some time ago - having sat empty for many years. But the ones in Renfrew and Arnprior, under different ownership, are still open.

Jeff
 
I started going to movies probably around 1955-56. My Mom would bring me to a movie while my Dad was working nights. I don't remember most of those early films.

When I was around 10 (1961) my grandfather would take me and my cousin to one of the big major theaters in downtown Cleveland about once a month. My experience was pretty much as ramms describes with the curtains and such. Much different experience than today.
 
While I have learned about and heard stories about the old movie theater formats, I was too young to really experience them. I do remember the lights dimming, the studio logo projected onto the curtains, and the curtains opening at the beginning of movies in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but in the mid-80s they started using revolving slides from a projector with trivia and stuff while a radio station played pop music before a movie started, much like today.

I also remember the excitement of seeing the trailers for next year's amazing movies, but that has become boring and they tend to run WAY too long before the movie starts. I can remember in the late 1990s when the excitement of trailers suddenly turned into a punishment where people complained that they paid money to watch advertisements.

I did attend a few classic screenings of old silent films with a live pianist, organist, or small orchestra. Mostly that was German modernist movies or Charlie Chaplin. I enjoyed those quite a bit, but mostly because I am a music nerd and I loved watching and listening to the musicians working to stay in synch with the movies.

That's what they should do, put a local comedian on the stage in front of the screen to tell jokes and practice their acts prior to movies. Or a songwriter with a guitar. or so on. Yes, those people need to be paid, but how much?
 
Batman said:
The theater business is in decline for a lot of reasons but I don't think it would be terribly hard to make the theater experience more pleasant in most instances to at least justify some of the high costs of going. If the experience is great, I generally expect to pay more. But at least have semi-clean seats and floors not all gunked up with candy and butter, have clean restroom facilities, enough staff to man most if not all the registers at peak hours and staff that can move at a somewhat brisk pace that says they give a damn if you make it to your seats before the movie begins. Our new theater generally provides a decent visit, but most of the others around here including the IMAX theater just isn't worth the $ most of the time.
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All of the theaters around here have comfortable power recliners, excellent picture and sound and a full service bar. Some have the ability to pre-order food and have it delivered to your seat. All of them have assigned seating. The experience is quite nice and the facilities are very clean and well-kept. The main reasons we do not do it more often are childcare and cost.
 
Oh! Good point! The Alamo Draft House effect has been completely ignored. Here in Austin we have plenty of Alamo Draft House theaters (since they are from the area), but there three other companies offering a food, beer, and fun experience to accompany movie watching. Those places seem to do really well, because people can combine dinner and drinks with the movie, and the cost isn't terribly more expensive, and most have their own micro-breweries for interesting fresh beer options.

That is one good example of theaters doing something to create a completely different experience which is difficult to recreate at home.

The nearest to me, a Flix Brewhouse theater, has several special showings every month, like a "Grease Sing-along" night or a "quote monty python with friends" night which are often sold out as soon as they are announced. I even saw an announcement for one Alamo location having a classic midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" which is right from my generation and I desperately wanted to attend.
 
Flint said:
Oh! Good point! The Alamo Draft House effect has been completely ignored. Here in Austin we have plenty of Alamo Draft House theaters (since they are from the area), but there three other companies offering a food, beer, and fun experience to accompany movie watching. Those places seem to do really well, because people can combine dinner and drinks with the movie, and the cost isn't terribly more expensive, and most have their own micro-breweries for interesting fresh beer options.

That is one good example of theaters doing something to create a completely different experience which is difficult to recreate at home.

The nearest to me, a Flix Brewhouse theater, has several special showings every month, like a "Grease Sing-along" night or a "quote monty python with friends" night which are often sold out as soon as they are announced. I even saw an announcement for one Alamo location having a classic midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" which is right from my generation and I desperately wanted to attend.
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Yeah, I was going to post about Alamo as that's the theater we now go to since it's within walking distance. We've attended a couple of sing-alongs and they're pretty fun. They also do quote-alongs and, as mentioned, Rocky Horror on a fairly regular basis.
 
I don't think I'd enjoy the distraction of people being served food throughout the movie, at least during a first viewing.
 
Batman said:
I don't think I'd enjoy the distraction of people being served food throughout the movie, at least during a first viewing.
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But that's it... if you own a home theater and don't like distractions, why would you ever go to a movie theater? The last time I want to a theater, it was an IMAX to watch the second Hobbit movie. Three people in my line of sight were on their phones, which was very distracting. The guy who sat two seats away was talking to his date loud enough I could clearly understand what he was saying and she, who I couldn't hear, was asking very basic questions like "why are they going there?" or "who is he again?" That's why I didn't go to the third movie in the Hobbit.

If the question is how to theaters stay relevant, the party scene makes sense to me. Have a hoopla while watching a movie!!! YAY!!!
 
Most of my experiences at the theater get dragged down my the facilities and staff, right up until they opened a theater within my hometown limits. That theater has provided overwhelmingly positive viewings.
 
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