AMC Says ‘Almost All’ U.S. Theaters Will Reopen in July

[ahalpert]

What's sort of interesting is that the narrative material that gets popular online is pretty much the sophistication level of Georges melies and stuff from 100 years ago, like this guy who makes a living doing vfx joke videos like this one where he pulls the giant donut off a donut shop and takes a bite: https://twitter.com/zachking/status/1164627948835446784?s=20

 

[NorBro]

The vast and never-ending digital landscape has not only had an effect on the younger minds, but I believe it has changed many of the older ones too.

I don't have much of an attention span anymore either, and to sit through a 2+ hour movie would require mental dedication.

But being able to watch 150-175 short videos on YouTube within 24 hours of anything and everything is a great luxury to me.

IMO, theaters' main competition is indeed accessibility (as pointed out above). Playing video games online for people to watch may not be understood by many (it's a big business, btw), but the main observation here is that this activity is just another replacement. Another digital interest theaters have to compete with.

Months ago, I compared theaters' ultimate destiny to theme park experiences...and I think that's how it will become.

 

[Batutta]

Mind you, this was a Saturday matinee with a long line and a nearly full house.

PS. This is not Photoshop. It's the actual marquee from this past spring.

Since we're sharing--



This is what the main theater looked like AFTER it was cut in half.

 

[DLD]

My weirdest theater experience was "Superman" (1978) in Ladispoli, Civitavecchia, about 30 miles up the coast from Rome. Besides being in Italian (go figure, in Italy most movies are in Italian), they allowed a bunch of little kids to sit on the floor right underneath the screen. And kids screamed and yelled as if they were at a soccer game. Luckily for me, I spoke virtually no Italian, so the youngsters provided a series of sound effect similar to the 2020 sports broadcasts.

But I agree with Abe and NoBro to an extent - as we age we become a little jaded. This is outside of the theater experience : I first visited the Red Square when I was 13 and it was very impressive. I visited Venice when I was 17 and it was kind of, "Nice but the water kind of stinks". My next "wow" experience was Manhattan, when I was 29. Now, I see a bunch of skyscrapers from my window and I am absolutely nonplussed.

 

[IronFilm]

I'm not sure that actually happened.

Nearly 11% reported having seriously considered suicide in the 30 days before completing the survey compared with about 4% in a 2018 survey who said they’d considered suicide in the past 12 months.

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronav...0200906-ehpgsdrigrejjikobfego23odu-story.html

4% to 11% sounds like a huge increase! Until you realize you're comparing over 30 days vs 12 months, then it becomes MASSIVE!! Yikes

Male suicide rate hits two-decade high in England and Wales
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/01/male-suicide-rate-england-wales-covid-19

Record high. :-/

 

[DLD]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-mulan-140401544.html

Warner Bros. may be moving its 2021 films to streaming services, but Disney has been playing with the concept all year. The studio premiered the live-action Mulan exclusively on Disney+ in the U.S. on September 4, 2020, as a premium add-on, for $29.99. But as of December 4, 2020, Mulan moves into the catalog of Disney+ films available to all subscribers without the premium fee.

https://www.ign.com/articles/did-mulans-vod-sales-beat-tenets-global-box-office

While Disney has not officially shared numbers on Mulan's performance, the analytics firm used by Yahoo! misinterpreted the data and now says Mulan only made between $60-$90 million from its digital-only domestic debut.

https://deadline.com/2020/11/mulan-pvod-bob-chapek-revenue-viewership-1234613878/

If you’re dying to know what the total revenue reap was from Disney’s combined PVOD/Disney+/overseas theatrical release experiment of Mulan, well, we just have to wait for the studio’s investor day on December 10. That’s when they’re reportedly going to tell us more.

https://deadline.com/2020/12/att-john-stankey-warner-bros-hbo-max-streaming-windows-1234650649/

AT&T Boss John Stankey Says Movie Theaters Will Always “Have A Role In Society”, But Streaming “Horse Left The Barn”

 

[ahalpert]

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronav...0200906-ehpgsdrigrejjikobfego23odu-story.html

4% to 11% sounds like a huge increase! Until you realize you're comparing over 30 days vs 12 months, then it becomes MASSIVE!! Yikes



Record high. :-/

Amigo - that two-decade high is reported for 2019. The data they have for 2020 showed a decrease, although they said it was provisional and more may be reported later.



The other article mentions people who considered it, not committed it. But let's assume that the suicide rate triples. In the US in 2018, there were 48k suicides. So, let's say theres an increase of 100k suicides and they're all 30 years old and would have expected to live another 50 years. That's 5 million years lost. Versus the 1 or 2 million potential covid deaths - let's assume those are all 80 years old and can only expect to live another 5 years. The number of years lost would be comparable.

I'm not willing to assume there's an 11% suicide rate every month because that gets you over 100%. seems more likely that anyone who would have had suicidal ideations during the year would have had them during lockdown.

I'm not saying that the increased suicide hypothesis isn't plausible, just that I haven't seen it borne out. And there are social policy ways to help it. and you have to consider the scale of the competing problems to make a determination of greatest harm

 

[groveChuck]

The US lost about 400,000 in WWII in military related casualties, ~ 300,000 in actual combat.

But I agree that it's marginally less tragic when an 80-year old dies instead of an 18-year old.

Follow these contradictions, or at least inconsistencies:
The US is a youth focused culture, elders are not as valued as in many societies.
Elderly in US nursing homes will be among the first 2 groups to get the the vaccine.
18 yr olds are who we send into war, because (along with health), they're considered "expendable"...

 

[DLD]

... 18 yr olds are who we send into war, because (along with health), they're considered "expendable"...

Not really. There's a term "economy of force", which accounts for the irrecoverable losses on the battlefield. Once, on the old AOL boards, I exchanged a few emails with a US captain, who was aiming for some high tier officer courses and he told me it was very important to both maximize the results and minimize the losses. We talked about the Soviet losses in WWII also.

But we did not mention Putin-approved Covid vaccine that is being tested on the Russian enlisted cadre as we speak. Putin, btw, so far has refused to take it.

 

[Run&Gun]

Follow these contradictions, or at least inconsistencies:
The US is a youth focused culture, elders are not as valued as in many societies.
Elderly in US nursing homes will be among the first 2 groups to get the the vaccine.
18 yr olds are who we send into war, because (along with health), they're considered "expendable"...

Off-topic but one of the contradictions I've always thought was stupid and unfair, as well: 18 year olds are considered "mature", "responsible" and "smart" enough to be given powerful and sophisticated weapons to defend this country and sent off to fight in wars in other countries, but they're not considered mature enough, responsible enough or smart enough to legally drink in their own.

I mean, what's the thought process? "Well, we think this group of kids that just graduated high school is completely capable of manning this aircraft carrier that is one of the most expensive, complex and advanced weapons systems on planet Earth, but we still don't think they can handle a Bud-Light."

 

[ahalpert]

I don't know if the drinking age should be lowered. Maybe. I always thought 18-year olds were sent to war because they're old enough to follow orders and they are at peak stamina and agility.

I keep hearing from everywhere that teens are more impulsive and more responsive to immediate rewards whilst considering long-term consequences less than they will when they're older. As a hormonal or brain development facet. (Makes sense to me: make your babies while you're young and your genes survive even if you die young.)

So, in that sense, the issue is not that teens aren't smart enough to drink. But they may be more vulnerable to alcoholism, to overdoing it, to making bad choices about when to do it and what they do when they're on it.

Like how auto insurance is more expensive for men under 30. It's not they're bad at driving, they just take a lot of risks

 

[DLD]

Having posted a photo from Whitefish Bay's Fox Bay theater means that I was living in Wisconsin at one time. And it's no secret that Wisconsin, Milwaukee especially, has a huge beer industry - Miller, Schlitz, Pabst were the one time US heavyweights, with a lot of smaller breweries dispersed around the state. And Wiscosin likes to drink beer and go bowling and it had set a legal drinking age at 18 when a lot of neighbors, especially to the south, had it at 19, 20, 21. And that resulted in a lot of kids driving in from Illinois and Iowa, getting hammered and then driving back ... but never getting where they came from. And taking a lot of other lives with them.

As to the military - if you're 18 and enlisted or drafted, then you're cannon fodder at war time. And so are a lot of combatants up until the rank of a major, where one becomes a battalion commander and is no longer involved directly in a ground war.

And to operate a more complicated weapon - an APC, AFV, AH, ASF, etc. - one needs to go to an officer school or a military academy in his particular branch of service. You don't get to fly a fifty million dollar aircraft fresh out of high school.

 

[JAMedia]

You don't get to fly a fifty million dollar aircraft fresh out of high school.

You have crushed all my dreams....

 

[lambert]

You do if you’re doin the pilot.

 

[JAMedia]

You do if you’re doin the pilot.

Having seen the beach volleyball scene in Top Gun that ain't going to happen

 

[lambert]

Had my first legal beer in Wisconsin at 13.

 

[Run&Gun]

I don't know if the drinking age should be lowered. Maybe. I always thought 18-year olds were sent to war because they're old enough to follow orders and they are at peak stamina and agility.

I keep hearing from everywhere that teens are more impulsive and more responsive to immediate rewards whilst considering long-term consequences less than they will when they're older. As a hormonal or brain development facet. (Makes sense to me: make your babies while you're young and your genes survive even if you die young.)

So, in that sense, the issue is not that teens aren't smart enough to drink. But they may be more vulnerable to alcoholism, to overdoing it, to making bad choices about when to do it and what they do when they're on it.

Like how auto insurance is more expensive for men under 30. It's not they're bad at driving, they just take a lot of risks

So “we” will protect them from themselves and possibly becoming alcoholics, but “we’re” fine with letting them get their heads blown off at 19 in some third world country for a reason they probably don’t even understand(or were even told[truthfully])?

My philosophy, reasoning and argument is the exact same one that has been said millions of times before, “If you’re old enough to serve and die for your country, you’re old enough to drink a beer”.

 

[ahalpert]

When I was 18, I wished the drinking age were lower. Now, I'd rather raise the age of enlistment to 21. But I'm relatively anti-alcohol in general and think it causes a lot of harm. I wouldn't mind banning it altogether but sure, it's been around for thousands of years and is integrated into numerous cultures

 

[ahalpert]

A piece in the Atlantic on the WarnerMedia move: https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/617306/

Last few paragraphs:

WarnerMedia wouldn’t have made this decision lightly. Its earlier announcement that Wonder Woman 1984 would debut on HBO Max likely led to a big subscriber boost, giving executives confidence that other big films such as Dune could bump numbers even more. But these movies still all need major marketing campaigns to roll out, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce. The first Wonder Woman made about $820 million worldwide in theaters alone; to “gross” that for a streaming service, any one movie would have to add tens of millions of monthly subscribers all by itself. HBO Max currently has about 57 million subscribers worldwide; that kind of growth would be hard to achieve, and even harder to sustain.

For all the promise of streaming services, which are vital for any major media company’s future, they cannot deliver the massive profits of a successful global theatrical release. Netflix, the biggest streaming site, relies more on consistent mid-budgeted TV and movie releases than it does on mega-budgeted event films, and has gone billions into debt to do so. That could be the future for a company such as WarnerMedia too, but it wouldn’t likely be able to make the kinds of tentpoles it does now if it emphasizes streaming.

If theaters do somehow survive the hammer blows of the pandemic—the lack of government help, uncooperative major studios—the entire industry will look different than it did at the start of 2020. Cinemas could become even more of a boutique experience, charging much higher premiums for a big-screen experience to people uninterested in viewing movies at home. Big companies such as Amazon or Disney could swoop in to buy the foundering chains, then use them to promote their own releases.

The main variable that remains impossible to predict in all of this is human behavior. People in the U.S. have largely been cooped up at home for much of 2020, and will continue to live pandemic-limited lives for much of 2021. Even in states with little to no restrictions, cinemas have failed to pack the house; audiences have too much anxiety about sitting inside a windowless room with a bunch of strangers. Once a vaccine is widely distributed, a pent-up desire to return to normalcy could be unleashed. I, certainly, crave the collective experience of movie-watching; I’m sure I’m not the only one sick of seeing things from my couch. If other studios go the way of WarnerMedia, theaters will be hanging their hopes on that nostalgia.

 

[Run&Gun]

When I was 18, I wished the drinking age were lower. Now, I'd rather raise the age of enlistment to 21. But I'm relatively anti-alcohol in general and think it causes a lot of harm. I wouldn't mind banning it altogether but sure, it's been around for thousands of years and is integrated into numerous cultures

I drank way more alcohol when I was in that 18-25 range than now. Now, I can go easily a year or more and not touch a drop and never think twice about. It’s not something I have to have(the same with coffee). I’ve probably had more beer in the last two months since my best friend moved-in down the road, than I have in the last two years. If I have a drink, 99.9% of the time it’s in a social setting. I think my grand total for this past week was one.