I'm really worried about the effect the pandemic is having on cinemas and theaters. The county to the north of me, which has a city plus county population of 120,000, just had it's 14 room cineplex permanently closed thanks to the pandemic, now the only movie theater serving the whole county is an old 2 room theater in the old downtown district. My county has been better off so far, we have a 10 room cineplex, a 3 room theater downtown built in the 1920's, and a 6 room theater in the mall, but they just announced that the entire mall is closing and being torn down to build a truck stop in it's place, so we just lost that 6 room theater. Now we have just 15 rooms to serve 2 counties with a population over 100,000 each, and it's definitely possible that we will lose the 10 room cineplex in my county as well soon, they're not doing so hot business wise, mainly only getting to air old movies.
Now these movie studios are all embracing digital releases for movies, which basically means that even when the pandemic ends, theaters and cinemas will not be able to recover to the way things were. I'm really going to miss the theater going experience, there is nothing like watching a huge new movie on a massive screen with good surround sound speakers while eating a bucket of movie theater butter popcorn (even if that experience is massively overpriced). Most of us normies can't afford to build a nice home theater that can even come close to replicating that experience.
On the plus side though, these digital releases are much cheaper for a family to see, most have been either $20 or $30 so far, which is less than the price of 2 or 3 movie tickets at a cineplex. For a family like my brother's, who has 6 kids and his wife, it could cost over $100 to see a new movie in theater, now he can watch it for $20 or $30 plus the cost of snacks at a grocery store. It's a huge price increase if you live alone though, from $12 a ticket up to $20 or $30.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 05 December 2020