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Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

I’ve seen a lot of explanations for this, but talking to most people my age, there’s only one that’s the real reason: the economics are terrible for watching a movie. The tickets are averaging $20-30 per person around where I live. In 2018, the same movies cost $7-13. Parking and food push the costs even higher. All for a couple of hours of entertainment. I can watch the same movie for $20 when it comes out on DVD. It simply doesn’t make sense to go to watch a movie in a theater, especially when everything else is eating up people’s budgets.

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Or stream it once for $4.99 or less if you're patient and are willing to wait a couple months after Blu-ray/streaming release.

It seems like after Endgame, there have only been a few 'event' movies like Oppenheimer, Top Gun Maverick, and Dune 2 that would be worth experiencing in a movie theater.

And even then, those movies are pushing 95-100 dB during some scenes, making me not really want to do the 'IMAX' experience again, it's just too loud and too big. A 40-60" OLED from 5-10' away and near my fridge and bathroom—with a pause button so I can get up halfway through a nearly 3 hour movie—is too tempting.

It'd be nice if there were 1.5 hour movies that cost $10 a ticket in a nice, normal theater.

Yep. I can watch it in a dirty, noisy theater where I have to wear earplugs to be comfortable, or I can watch it at home a few months later from the comfort of my recliner with a couple IPAs and a bowl of popcorn.

The only movies I reserve for the theater are real epics, and those seem few and far between these days.

The number of ticket sales has been flat to declining since the '90s: https://www.the-numbers.com/market/ and I've read that the heyday of movies was in the '40s and '50s.

The simple answer is likely the quality of TVs: 65" OLED TVs with good sound aren't that expensive any more. The quality delta of going to a theater versus watching something on TV used to be massive.

The only thing a theater really offers anymore is sharing the experience of a movie with other people. Which is definitely a benefit, but is it a $100 night out worth of benefit? Not to me.

this I think is exactly the reason, I was going 3-4x times a week to the movies in the 90s, but once I had more pocket change and "spending" money, really started investing in quality home theater gear, and over the years it fulfills 90% of my movie watching needs. Reducing my "going to the movies" to twice a year, if at all.

there is also so much content available, that there is no real urgency to watch the movie at release. "Waiting" for it be available on bluray/streaming, is not even "waiting" at all.

Obviously things differ by location, but I'm in a large, pretty expensive city (Seattle). I usually go to the Cinemark in Bellevue because they have IMAX. This is a nice theater in a nice area. A ticket to see Furiosa tonight, in IMAX, is $19.50. A ticket for a standard screen is $13.50. My recollection is that's pretty much what movie tickets cost 10 years ago.

I think the films just aren't enticing enough to steal eyes from streaming services, TikTok, etc.

IMAX used to cost $12.99 in 2018 in Bay Area. Tickets were way cheaper 6 years ago.

Movies are coming to streaming faster than they ever have as well. Its hard to want to go see a mediocre movie at high prices when it will be available in 60-90 days. When I was a kid, the VHS wouldn't appear for 6months to a year.

People will say "oh but we have proven that going to streaming sooner does not effect ticket sales", to which I say - how can we be sure that the compounding effect of every movie going to streaming after 45 days has not brought about a fundamental shift to the theater's value proposition?

Even bigger expense, bringing bedbugs back home from sitting in the nasty and never cleaned seats. Worth it to just see it at home. Times have changed and going to the movie theater is not what it used to be.

During covid a lot of households got equipped with better TVs and sound systems. Avoiding movie theatres also showed people that they can experience movies at home just by waiting for a couple of months. I personally been in a movie theatre once since covid lockdowns were over. It no longer makes sense to me neither from the economic or entertainment point of view.

Are you really watching DVDs on modern large screens though? Maybe you meant Blu-ray. DVDs look terrible on modern screens.

I watch DVDs on my 40-inch screen when the Blu-rays aren't available for rental from Redbox, but I haven't rented from Redbox in a while because of their terrible selection.

It’s still called a “DVD release” whether it’s 4K or blue ray or streaming on Amazon. You understood what I was saying. This was an unnecessary nit.

I'm sorry. I genuinely thought you might be watching DVD disks.

If you're a regular movie goer, you can get a monthly pass for a little over $20 at the big theater chains. It pays off if you see 2 movies a month, or just 1 if it's IMAX.

This creates the same "cohort effect" you see in Ski season pass pricing. People who get a good deal from the pass and pay relatively little to go a lot, and people....who just don't go anymore.

The whole model this is based on is basically creating a giant audience segmentation and aiming a big part of the funnel at your [competitors, alternatives, etc]

There's rarely if ever two movies a month I'm interested in watching let alone going to the theater to watch. Even if there were the ancillary costs for going to the theater push those costs up.

Theaters have to compete with my living room. I don't even have some crazy setup but I have a big screen and comfortable seating. I can not turn the audio volume to deafening levels. I can pause if I need to use the bathroom. I also have access to food and drinks that don't cost a small fortune.

Back when watching a movie at home meant a VCR connected to a 13" TV with an iffy coax signal, a theater was a very good option. Unfortunately for theaters my home option has gotten better and their offerings have gotten worse. At the very least their offerings have diverged from my interests.

That works well when you go to movies alone, for a family of 4, that cost starts going up to $100/month. And unfortunately, not enough good movies come up during the year to justify spending $1000+ every year on just movies. You’re better off watching a couple movies in theaters and then watching the rest on DVD.

That's a bit of a blanket statement because it's highly location dependent. For example here in the Bay Area, there's a decent amount of Cinemark locations available, and a subscription costs $11/mo for 1 ticket per month with rollover — and those tickets can be used for non-subscibers. They also allow additional ticket purchases at the discounted subscription price.

Even if one only goes to the movies a few times a year it's still a good deal over paying retail. A family of 4 can go to the movies 3x per year on $132 here in the SFBAY, which is a far cry from $1,000.

Yes, AMC has a much pricier subscription but they also hand out waaay more tickets.

Yeah, but how many people do that?

N people can watch the same movie M times for $20 when it comes out on DVD. You can pop your own popcorn, and put on the amount of butter and salt that you like. You can also rewind to watch any bit you want.

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