#21 ·
Henry Bennett53 said:The decline in movie theater attendance—and this isn't just an American issue, it's a global phenomenon—is undeniably linked to one major culprit: Hollywood.
Audiences everywhere have grown weary of the relentless Hollywood formula: the same recycled tropes, those predictable happy endings, the polished faces, the curated aesthetics, and the endless barrage of explosions and spectacle...
Precisely.👍
When you look at ticket prices relative to income, they aren't actually any more expensive than they were a decade or more ago. In fact, if you compare them to ticket prices in major hubs like New York City, they’re practically a steal. Yet, people are heading to theaters less frequently in both New York City and Washington, D.C.
As for the closure of theaters in smaller American towns—it wasn't some conspiracy to spite the locals; it happened because the locals simply stopped showing up.
We are witnessing a genuine crisis in the film industry. I don't mean to suggest the primary issue is that movies are bad—God knows the masses have a profound affection for terrible cinema—but rather that even those bad movies are recycled so aggressively that people feel downright foolish paying money to watch the exact same thing fifty times over. Beyond that, these films relentlessly peddle a philosophy of instant gratification. Consequently, audiences (who are, by their very nature, essentially a herd easily swayed, especially when gathered in groups and labeled "the public") dutifully absorb the instant-gratification lifestyle served up in these hyper-cool productions. They stay home because, frankly, who cares? There is also a subtle connection to the growing trend of societal passivity; people would rather sit on their couches, picking their noses in front of the TV and pausing the movie every time they want a snack. This sociological shift toward a modern individual who prioritizes primal instincts above all else mirrors what happened during the initial rise of television, which the film industry managed to survive once before. It seems to defy human nature itself.
The Hollywood slate is catastrophically uninspired and dull—that is the catch. Far more investment goes into mindless tabloid gossip about actors than into ensuring their actual contributions to film are of any quality. The industry has begun "catering" to audience tastes by pandering to even the most intellectually stunted segments of "the public," while distributors fail to realize that sophisticated cinema exists far beyond the realm of Hollywood junk. It is truly remarkable, given that Hollywood junk has recognized this and has spent over a decade attempting (rather clumsily) to remake the best works from those international cinematic traditions. Though, as I noted earlier, with rather mediocre success.
In short, theaters are merely reaping what they sow. In more ways than one.