REGINA – Today, my Cairns on Cinema column focuses on an issue that is becoming very noticeable at cinemas across North America.
At least, I’m starting to notice it. It’s about the lack of people showing up at the movie theatre. People are noticing there is a lot more choice in where you can sit inside your local cinemas, because hardly anyone is there.
Now, the knee-jerk reaction for most people is to say “it’s the costs, stupid.” We are in an affordability crisis, so they say. Movie ticket prices and cinema food prices are going up, and people are stretched for cash, so the public is staying home.
No doubt that is a factor some of the time, but it’s not the only one. That point was made clear to me this summer. I went to some movies on Tuesday nights, which is notorious for being “Cheap Movie Night” because of the discounted prices.
I dunno whether I showed up at the wrong times or what, but these cinemas were dead on Cheap Tuesday. I couldn’t believe it. And it wasn’t like these movies that I went to were bad or total flops. One was the new Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning starring Tom Cruise, and the other was F1: The Movie starring Brad Pitt!
Now granted, you might respond by saying “what do you expect on a Tuesday night when everyone has to go to work the next day.” True, theatres do usually see far more business on a Friday or Saturday when a new movie is premiering.
But it wasn’t all that long ago that I would go to movies on Tuesday nights and the place would usually be packed, and it was exactly because it was cheap. So here I am, sitting in this empty cinema on a Cheap Tuesday waiting for the movie to begin, wondering what in the heck is going on. This just flies in the face of all of the theories I’ve seen about how price inflation is supposed to be keeping all the movie fans away from the cinemas.
I scoured around the Internet looking for ideas on what is going on. Here are some of the theories I have come up with, and the first two of these actually go hand in hand.
COVID-19 changed our lives in a major way
Even today, the after effects of the COVID-19 lockdown are still reverberating. The lockdown forced everyone to stay home whether they wanted to or not. During that time, many people got out of the regular routine of going to the cinema, and into the habit of sitting in front of the TV with nothing better to do.
I would say cinemas are still feeling the effects. Many folks never returned to the cinemas after the lockdowns, simply because they got out of the habit of going. Which leads me to the next issue:
Competition from streaming services
Cinemas are feeling the strain of competition from streaming services like never before. Of course, it was during the lockdowns that the streamers did some big business, with Hollywood shifting their releases to digital-only.
That has continued on to this day, with people signing up for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, Disney+, Apple TV and their ilk. The other thing that happened in the pandemic, and this was a permanent change, was that major studios had to shorten the exclusive theatrical window for their releases, so they could get them onto the streaming services faster. That move has really killed the second run cinema business.
The cinemas are getting desperate
One thing I am really noticing is that movie theatres no longer feel like… movie theatres.
Back when I was a kid in Saskatoon you could go to a cinema and sit in these theatre-type seats, and at the old Capitol you used to climb up all of those stairs to sit up in the balcony.
Not only do they not have balconies anymore, but even the chairs are different. At these newer places, you now get to sit in those “comfy sofa-style” seats that recline when you watch a movie.
This seems like a true admission that Netflix is winning. The cinema chains feel the need to replicate the experience of sitting at home on your own sofa as much as possible, thinking this will lure people off the couch at home to their cinemas. The problem is folks might decide “why bother leaving the couch” if the theatre experience is essentially not much different.
The other thing that reeks of desperation is when you see these big cinemas chains offering various food options like gourmet meals and even alcoholic beverages like beer.
I’m sorry, I’m a traditionalist. The movie theatre ought to be the place for popcorn, soda pop and Raisinets. But this shows you exactly the pressure the cinema is under from all the other entertainment options where you can drink all the beer you want.
At least by offering beer, cinemas can at least try to address that issue. They’re also trying to cope by offering 3D, bigger screens and other gimmicks like video games. But on one item in particular, cinemas are meeting their match: mobile devices.
Cell phones
This is surely the biggest challenge facing the cinemas today: dealing with cell phone culture. At all these cinemas, they have to put up these messages on the big screen lecturing people to put their cell phones away because so many people are fed up with the distractions. It is a big grievance and major annoyance for the other patrons, and a prime reason why people stay away from the cinemas.
But if you go to a sporting event, or to a major concert, are people being implored there to put their cell phones away? No! In fact, they use them all the time — to check notifications and social media feeds and take pictures of what’s going on. No one seems to complain about it there or threaten to kick people out of the venue.
And that is the conundrum facing the cinemas. You can use mobile devices everywhere else — at events, in the mall, walking on the street, even at home on the comfy couch in front of Netflix.
But inside the cinema, you cannot. For those who cannot live without their beloved mobile devices, this is a dealbreaker.
The cinemas are in a lose-lose situation. The mobile devices repel the people who hate them, but the restrictions also turn off the people who love them. It’s a no-win.
Let’s talk about the prices
All of these factors are a major challenge for the cinemas all by themselves, even without mentioning the rising ticket prices and rising costs of concession food, and all the affordability pressures facing people today.
But let’s go back to talking about the other six days of the week besides Cheap Tuesday. On that note, let’s talk about a major storm cloud on the horizon, thanks to President Donald J. Trump.
Trump is yet again sabre-rattling about placing 100 per cent tariffs on foreign-made movies, thinking this will halt runaway movie production and repatriate movie industry jobs to America.
I guarantee you, absolutely no one in the movie industry is calling for this from President Trump. Surely, nobody with the cinema chains wants it, either, for all sorts of reasons.
If this latest stunt goes through, a couple of things will happen:
One, the ticket price for going to a movie will surely go up, whether the movie is made in the USA or not. The reason runaway production is happening to places like the UK, continental Europe and, um, Canada is because it is too darned expensive already to make a movie in the United States. Tax incentives and the facilities available in these other countries are much better. So even if you succeed in forcing American movies to be made in America, costs will go up and so will ticket prices, tariff or no tariff.
Two, you’re likely to see far fewer big-budget blockbusters, many of which are currently made or set in overseas countries. If you stick “tariffs” on movies filmed outside the USA, that will double the costs — so much so that in many cases the big blockbusters wouldn’t get made, because it just isn’t viable.
That would be a death blow to “summer blockbuster season” as well the Thanksgiving-through-Christmas blockbuster season.
If this happens, expect every day at your local cinema to turn into Cheap Tuesday, and I am not talking about ticket prices. Instead, I’m talking about the product you’ll be getting on screen.
I hope you like horror movies, every day of the year, because that’s what you’ll likely get. Who knows — maybe you think this might be a good idea to get you back to the cinemas.
Happy October and Happy Halloween, movie fans.
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