by Don Hall

The movie theaters are experiencing the same fate as Blockbuster Video stores. The pandemic and subsequent safety protocols put in place put them on the ropes. Hollywood, desperate to reign in the loss of millions of dollars in investment into tentpole franchises, is sealing the deal.

The second-largest cinema chain in America is likely to close indefinitely all its U.S. locations, after reopening in August, according to a person familiar with the plans, escalating the pandemic-driven crisis faced by the entertainment industry.

Cineworld Group PLC’s Regal Entertainment Group’s potential decision to suspend operations at its more than 500 locations follows a cascade of postponements for big-budget Hollywood films, most recently the coming James Bond title “No Time to Die.” The studio behind the film, MGM Holdings Inc., on Friday said it was delaying the film for the second time, to next April, from this November. It had originally been scheduled for release in April of this year.

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I find it curious that, in the valley between peaks of pandemic, we grieve the loss of bars but not the loss of movie theaters. My wife asked if I had to chose movies or booze which would it be and my answer was instantly movies. I like booze, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve learned far more from the visual stories I’ve seen in dark rooms with a bucket of popcorn than from any beer or whiskey. Maybe I’m just not drinking right.

The last movie I saw in a theater was Impractical Jokers: The Movie. If movie theaters are truly going the way of Sears or bees, I wish it had been Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but who knew? 

I’ve spent a lot of my life in those sticky auditoriums. Star Wars: Episode IV twenty-five times one summer. Tim Burton’s Batman on opening night. Do the Right Thing in a theater filled with black faces as the sole representative of white. In movie theaters I watched Christopher Reeve fly, Michael Caine perform abortions, Edward Scissorhands create a beautiful ice sculpture of Winona Ryder. I watched Frodo struggle with his growing addiction to evil. 

I recall the electricity and raw enthusiasm as the title credits rolled Pulp Fiction and jaw-dropped silence when Brad Pitt looked in the box. My mother and I being in the neck-twisting front row seats to see The Postman and my sister and I laughing like loons at The Jerk. The Color Purple affected me so much that, as I sobbed, a woman in front of me turned and advised “Honey. It’s only a movie.” I finger-banged a girl I met in the lobby during my first (partial) viewing of The Empire Strikes Back and stayed for the next showing because I missed all that “I am your father” stuff.

During the pandemic, we now have streaming video to take its place. My wife and I don’t even have a television so most of our viewing is done on smartphones and my iPad. I’ve had a Netflix subscription since they mailed us DVDs and I’ve had Amazon Prime since there was such a thing.

As the streaming wars commenced, I jumped on Disney+ for the month to watch The Mandalorian and then promptly canceled until I purchase another month when Season 2 comes out. I stumbled upon HBO Max because I get it free with my phone. I needed CBS because of Star Trek. I subscribed to Shudder because, c’mon, horror films are rad. No Hulu because I’m not paying for service and still be subjected to fucking ads.

Recently I realized I was spending around $80.00 a month for streaming services. Then Apple+ (a service I received for free for a year) offered something I couldn’t pass up: bundled streaming. Now, for $20.00 a month I get AMC, CBS, Showtime, IFC, Shudder, HBO Max, and all the new Apple stuff. Add my Netflix and Amazon Prime and I have more viewing content than I’ll ever be able to sift through.

Netflix’s Away with Hillary Swank was excellent. I also loved Teenage Bounty Hunters.
HBO Max’s Lovecraft Country, Perry Mason, Raised by Wolves are all three superb.
Amazon’s The Boys is fucking awesome.
Movies? Christ, I have thousands of movies at my fingertips.

I do, however, miss the cinema. The experience of picking a seat, getting overpriced refreshments (Coke, popcorn, and Raisinets), and settling in. Michael Berson and I peeing twice before Endgame. Watching John Wick and the couple in front of me as they reveled in the incredible cartoon violence. Weeping at the first five minutes of Pixar’s UP through 3-D glasses in a room full of children. 

I think they’ll survive, at least some of them. It isn’t like the virus demolished the buildings or projectors. Maybe movie theaters will become like vinyl record stores or antique malls. As I age, so age the trappings of my life. The demands of commerce follow the younger demographics and they love nothing more than the mobility of on demand entertainment mostly via small, handheld devices. 

My guess is that the movie theaters of our future will be smaller art houses rather than multiplexes as those places with twenty-four screens and $17.00 buckets of popcorn are as dinosaur-like as the shopping malls they inhabited. Further, my guess is that Hollywood is going to go through a massive financial reevaluation and model itself to fit the streaming paradigm. The pandemic seems to have closed the curtain on million dollar paydays and billion dollar profits because ain’t nobody gonna pay $20.00 to see a first-run movie on an iPad.