Comments about the importance of going to the movies made during Sunday’s Academy Awards sparked a larger conversation about the future of moviegoing.
With streaming services dominating the industry right now, many wonder if the experience of going to the theater and ordering a buttered tub of popcorn will become a thing of the past.
After Oscars night celebrated cinema, the question hangs in the air: Should we be streaming less and sitting in front of the big screen more often?
Sean Baker’s acceptance speech prompts discussion
Conan O’Brien opened the 97th Oscars with a satirical sketch mocking streaming culture. In the bit, he pitched a new business idea, “CinemaStreams,” calling it a “building for movies.”
“We took 800 smartphones and glued them all together and made one giant smartphone,” he said.
The skit poked fun at streaming and subtly reminded viewers to leave their couches and return to the theaters.
O’Brien wasn’t the only Oscars speaker to offer a pointed remark about the rise of streaming services. Director Sean Baker used one of his acceptance speeches to encourage audiences to prioritize the theater experience once again.
“Watching a film in the theater with an audience is an experience,” Baker said in his speech. “We can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together. It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home. And right now, the theatergoing experience is under threat.”
He went on to beg filmmakers to “keep making film for the big screen.”
Other directors are also dissatisfied with the rise of streaming. Quentin Tarantino has said that the definition of films hasn’t been the same since the pandemic in 2020, according to IndieWire.
In an interview with Variety at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Tarantino expressed frustrations about the far-too-quick transitions movies make from theaters to streaming services.
“By the second week, you can watch it on television,” he said. “I didn’t get into all this for diminishing returns.”
Is streaming the downfall of Hollywood?
Tarantino claimed the death of film began in 2019, when streaming surged and audiences started spending more time at home.
However, according to Fast Company, movie theaters have been experiencing a steady decline for even longer.
The article noted that French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have been capturing the demise of movie theaters through their photos. Having visited over 200 theaters in the U.S., they are tracking the slow crumble of once-famous venues.
Their collection “paints the portrait of a dying culture teetering on the edge of survival,” Fast Company reported.
Christopher Nolan, director of many box office hits such as “Inception,” “Dunkirk” and “Oppenheimer,” wrote an article for The Washington Post at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic about how movie theaters were faring.
He reported the B&B Theaters, a family run business bringing movies to audiences in Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, had never laid off a single employee for generations. Soon after the pandemic started, the company shuttered 418 theaters and laid off 2,000 employees.
“When people think about movies, their minds first go to the stars, the studios, the glamour. But the movie business is about everybody: the people working the concession stands, running the equipment, taking tickets, booking movies, selling advertising and cleaning bathrooms in local theaters,” Nolan wrote. “Regular people, many paid hourly wages rather than a salary, earn a living running the most affordable and democratic of our community gathering places.”
In other words, it isn’t just movie stars, directors and producers who are relying on people to buy tickets to movie theaters. Families, friends and neighbors are, as well.
An article by Forbes suggests the end of movie theaters isn’t upon us yet, but 2024 ticket sales aren’t inspiring confidence in their future of sustainability.
“Box office for the entire month of May was $520 million,” said the article. “You have to go back to May 1998 ($510 million) to find a worse start to the summer blockbuster season.”
The article goes on to explain that film critics who combine sociology with their economic analysis believe people simply prefer to stay home these days.
“Dinner out and a movie turned into GrubHub and Netflix,” Forbes reported. “The theater industry is in a competition with technology itself.”
Nolan wrote in March 2020 that he believes the decline in movie theaters can be corrected, as audiences begin to realize the cinematic experience is so much more than good audio and salty snacks.
“When (the pandemic) passes, the need for collective human engagement, the need to live and love and laugh and cry together, will be more powerful than ever,” he wrote in his article for The Washington Post. “Maybe, like me, you thought you were going to the movies for surround sound, or Goobers, or soda and popcorn, or movie stars. But we weren’t. We were there for each other.”
While streaming remains a popular option, movie theaters must remind viewers that the experience they offer cannot be replicated from the comfort of a couch at home.
Streaming vs. theaters: Pros and cons
Struggling to decide whether to go to a movie theater or stream a new film at home? Maybe these lists will help.
Streaming pros
- Subtitles
- Pause for snacks: Run out of popcorn? Pause. Want a bathroom break? Pause.
- Skip the previews. You’re no longer stuck with 40 minutes of trailers.
- No one judges you for talking during the movie — except your pets.
Theater pros
- No subtitles.
- Giant screen. Giant sound.
- That one person in the theater who laughs at all the same parts as you who can become your new best friend.
- Movie theater popcorn.
Streaming cons
- Distractions. As soon as the movie gets tense, Instagram suddenly becomes impossible to ignore.
- You may be “watching” the movie, but you’re also folding laundry.
- Poor sound systems.
- No shared gasps or laughs with a crowd.
Theater cons
- Audience members talking too loud. The live podcast you didn’t ask for.
- No rewinding. No pausing.
- Ticket prices. You’ll find yourself channeling your inner dad, saying, “I’m trying to see a movie, not buy the whole theater.”
- You have to put shoes on.