As more local cinemas close, residents are forming nonprofits to buy them | Hacker News Reader

As more local cinemas close, residents are forming nonprofits to buy them

nytimes.com

30 pointsmarban10 comments

I live in the Danish equivalent of Hollywood and TV production. The local movie theatre is run by volunteers, and costs about 30-50% less than what the commercial cinemas do. As far as I know, it has been community run for as long as I’ve lived here, or about 10 years.

You can rent a theatre for you and your friends. You can sponsor a chair and have your name on it.

It’s incredibly wholesome to have a Danish grandma handle the confectionary stand.

They typically run their movies much longer than commercial cinemas. They’re trying to maximise the revenue for each movie they pay for, I guess. This also means that even if a movie gets review bombed, we can typically still catch it for a good few weeks.

Given the choice, I would much rather go to a community cinema than a commercial one. Yes, the sound setup isn’t as good and the screen is a bit smaller, but the price is much more reasonable and the model is much more sustainable.

Community cinemas usually also run a lot more fancy pancy artsy movies, which can be interesting. Also, more reruns of classics.

One of the commercial cinemas recently screened The Abyss and Seven on their anniversaries. I was too young to see The Abyss on the big screen when it released, first time was on VHS.

Both screenings were >90% full, and it was really fun getting to watch them on the big screen.

I'm baffled as to why they don't do this more often. There are tons of movies I love which I've only ever seen on TV because I was too young or somehow missed.

And the younger people who was in the audience with me might have just heard of these classics.

For example I'd love to see the first two Terminator movies on the big screen for the first time.

There is an classic movie theater here but it mainly shows more art films. There are no other cinemas showing reruns on a regular basis.

Ye it is really strange. Why is there like no "Top 52" rotating the cinema. Taxi Driver one week. Platoon the next. And so on.

Former college movie theater operator here, Because of copyright law in the USA, to project a movie in public you need the permission of the copyright holder, usually given as a 'public performance license' available through a couple avenues. https://www.criterionpicusa.com/about-us It costs per day through the way we did it, so we could do a couple performances and had to report ticket revenue as they also got a % sometimes. Big commercial theaters have complicated deals with the studios involving a huge percent of ticket sales, sometimes 100% for weeks, and they're even trying to strongarm some of concession sales, along with bundling like if you want say big sci fi movie, you have to carry our other product too, and limiting prints per market so theaters have to bid per region and bigger chains get more. It's a crazy crazy business with logs of legal history where studios used to have vertical monopoly owning theaters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic.... If only a few people show up you'll lose money. They usually do these in the chains near me a few times a month though. Classics.

This is very timely. I took my kids to see the Dog Man movie this past weekend at a great, small, storied theater and ... we were the only ones there. Walking around inside the beautiful old building, I had a distinct feeling of being in a place that's not long for this world and it made me very sad. Hopefully this is a viable path forward for these places still clinging to life or even new ventures.

Not only are these cinemas priceless resources of art, culture and community but they're also natural conduits to other local businesses. After we left the theater, we walked to the ice cream shop and then to a coffee shop -- both locally owned. It really is in everyone's interest to keep these places around.

If you have a "local" option, even if it requires you going out of your way and past the megaplex, I would suggest making a concerted effort to support these cinemas -- in whichever form they're operating in.

Feels like COVID was the final nail in the coffin of cinemas, but phones and audience behavior had been eroding the concept for a while. Maybe they can survive better as enthusiast clubs.

I went to see Nosferatu at the opening weekend here, at the local IMAX. It was completely packed, and I was a bit worried when I saw >60% were teenagers.

To my pleasant surprise everyone was quiet. I didn't see or hear a single phone, and only the occasional muffled crumpling of some snacks. During the long quiet parts I'm sure you could hear a pin drop.

So at least here in Norway it's still possible to enjoy a movie at the theater.

https://archive.is/DXVCq

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