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Description
I drew this comic strip about a month and a half ago. I thought that by now things would be different, and I mean in regards to being isolated with all the cinemas closed. Lo’ and behold, things are indeed different but in the worst possible way. This blog, and this DeviantArt gallery in question, has always stayed away from all the problems that happen in the World, not just out of lack of knowledge on how to tackle them in the format of artwork, but also for the sake of taking a break. We’re always constantly getting bombarded with information about the state of the World, I don’t want to turn this place into another place to keep the discussion going. I want this place to be a bench, somewhere you can stop to catch your breath and don’t think about anything else other than to have fun and discuss things that aren’t all that important in the long run.
In that regard, and to discuss things, what do you make of the current situation the entertainment world faces regarding distribution of movies and shows? Now that people are indoors almost all day, with access to streaming services, do you think cinemas are very much doomed?
My two cents on the matter are rather brief. I think multiplex cinemas are very much dead. These cinemas will only remain open if they become home for the big studio movies that are guaranteed to bring in an audience. There is no other way to sustain such a big surface without barring all smaller movies from being premiered. We’ve been seeing this trend a lot lately, what with our local cinemas becoming the House of Disney with nothing but Star Wars, Marvel or the latest animated sequel on the box office posters. But with streaming now taking the brunt people are realizing something. Now they can watch movies, with proper movie quality, in the comfort of their homes. So what would be the point of seeing a movie that’s in the theatre if I can also see it at home, and if I need to take a bathroom break I can simply do that in my own place, pausing the movie, and also lying on my couch without anyone coughing on my ear?
Did I say my two cents are rather brief? Sorry, I lied.
In that regard, and to discuss things, what do you make of the current situation the entertainment world faces regarding distribution of movies and shows? Now that people are indoors almost all day, with access to streaming services, do you think cinemas are very much doomed?
My two cents on the matter are rather brief. I think multiplex cinemas are very much dead. These cinemas will only remain open if they become home for the big studio movies that are guaranteed to bring in an audience. There is no other way to sustain such a big surface without barring all smaller movies from being premiered. We’ve been seeing this trend a lot lately, what with our local cinemas becoming the House of Disney with nothing but Star Wars, Marvel or the latest animated sequel on the box office posters. But with streaming now taking the brunt people are realizing something. Now they can watch movies, with proper movie quality, in the comfort of their homes. So what would be the point of seeing a movie that’s in the theatre if I can also see it at home, and if I need to take a bathroom break I can simply do that in my own place, pausing the movie, and also lying on my couch without anyone coughing on my ear?
Did I say my two cents are rather brief? Sorry, I lied.
Disney has been abusing its size to push that initial share up, even up to around 60% in the most egregious cases like The Last Jedi. Add to that abusive practices like forcing theaters to run their movies for a set number of weeks, and stipulating that their movies have to be run on the largest screens for a set number of weeks, with the contractual provision that Disney can extract a fine from any theater violating its dictatorial terms. For instance: The Last Jedi was released under terms that forced theaters to run it for no fewer than six weeks and it had to be on their biggest screen for all six weeks. And Disney took an outsized cut of the ticket sales on top of that.
If you’ve ever wondered why concessions are so expensive, it’s because the concession stand is the only reason your local theater is still operating. Before Disney started leveraging its monopolistic power to squeeze them, theaters were already running new releases at a loss. They don’t make money on tickets until later in the run and they need you to buy their overpriced food or they’ll be insolvent. In fact, you can kind of track how bad things are going behind the scenes by watching concession prices. To really support your theater wait until late in the theatrical run to go see anything and buy at least a small something from the concession stand.
That isn’t even getting into shadowy practices like the ticket situation with regards to Captain Marvel’s empty seats and Rise of Skywalker and Solo both miraculously breaking ticket pre-sale records and launching to partly filled cinemas. Theaters schedule their people based on projected need. It can already cost over $3,000 a night to operate a big theater before calculating employee wages. The practice of tricking theaters into staffing heavily on dead nights just drives their operation deeper into the red. Disney has been devouring theaters from both ends. Many of them were already on the slow road to closing before Covid hit due to the ever worsening abuse coming from the studio side of things.