Box Office Bombs: Springsteen and Smashing Machine Struggle at Box Office

> “The 40- to 60-plus-aged crowd used to attend movies on a frequent basis. They wouldn’t just go to critically acclaimed movies but programmable ones like Woman in Gold ($33M) and Hello My Name Is Doris ($17.7M). That demographic has been lost to the convenience of Netflix, and the arthouse exhibition track for these movies which included the Landmark and Arclight Cinemas isn’t in the same shape as it was pre-pandemic. The cinemas that made these movies pop on opening weekend are gone, and with it the audience.”

I'm in this age group, and I'm also someone who has basically stopped paying any attention to movie releases anymore. I used to be an avid movie-goer, but that stopped years ago.

The reason isn't streaming services (I don't watch movies on streaming services either), it's that there was a very long dry spell where everything seemed to be remakes, superhero movies, Star Wars and Star Trek franchise movies (those franchises lost me about when JJ Abrams and Disney got involved) and the like.

The industry seemed to largely stop making movies that entertained or compelled me and/or were actually very good. At the same time, the experience of going to the theater became both crazy expensive and increasingly unpleasant, regardless of the movie.

So I stopped going and, over time, I simply lost the habit. When I'm planning a night out now, going to the movies isn't even an idea that I reject -- it's an idea that just doesn't occur to me.

Could I get into it again? Anything's possible, of course. I have new habits now, though, that don't include movies. I honestly have no idea what the path to getting me back in the movie theater would look like.