MARSHA LEDERMAN, The Globe and Mail
There’s a good chance you returned to an old flame over the holidays, figures suggest. But was something awakened in you?
I’m referring, of course, to Star Wars: The Force Awakens – a force in the universe so strong that it drew people back to that old love, the movie theatre, after years of neglect. This week it became the highest-grossing film of all time in North America.
Many of you have probably been involved in a new, comfortable situation – holed up under the covers at home with Netflix (and perhaps BitTorrent, shame on you). In 2014, attendance at North American movie theatres hit a nearly two-decade low. Things are expected to bounce back somewhat this year; The Force Awakens is obviously a factor.
The film presented an enormous opportunity. Here was a chance for theatres to woo back audiences, by showing them what they’ve been missing. Think midnight mass: You’ve got a once-a-year audience packed into the pews and you want to be welcoming and impressive enough that they’ll consider returning on some regular Sunday.
So this reunion with the theatre for Star Wars should have been an easy and spectacular encounter. Perhaps you discovered that it wasn’t.
You may have wondered what the heck D-Box 3-D UltraAVX Atmos was, and why it cost $23.50 per ticket – or how it differed from UltraAVX 3-D, regular 3-D, or just “regular.” Perhaps you balked, as I did, at the $46.38 spent on popcorn and sugary drinks – a total that did not seem to reflect the fact that you ordered family members to share, and even applied your Scene Card discount.
That’s when you, who have not been to the theatre in some time, were introduced to the fresh hell of the self-serve beverage machine. (Depending on your location.) You may have been surprised, after lining up for popcorn, when the person behind the counter handed over paper cups that were, alas, empty and directed you and your brood over to yet another line-up.
There you performed a balancing act – popcorn, children, movie tickets – while you searched for space on the inadequately sized counter and selected from infinite flavour offerings on a touch screen that may have thrilled your seven-year-old, but probably provoked a different reaction in you, the thirsty adult breaking out into a sweat as the queue behind you grew ever longer.
There are some aspects of the movie-theatre experience that are beyond the theatre’s control: the bathroom stall spoilers (it happened to us), the play-by-play plot-breakdown whispers from the couple behind you, the last-bit-of-pop slurpers at key emotional moments, the Tommy Texters.
But 15 minutes (approx.) of commercials? After living through those inane interactive quizzes? Followed by a similarly long block of trailers? While I did thoroughly enjoy a mock trailer for Chicken Squad – an ad from the B.C. Chicken Marketing Board – one line from it seemed to sum up the endurance test of this movie-going experience: “Oh, cluck.”
It seems to me if they want to lure audiences back to the theatres and away from their couches and all the binge-watching they can manage for $9.99 a month, exhibitors are going to have to do better. Otherwise it’s just too easy to stay home and watch Making a Murderer or 134 episodes of The Good Wife.
A film diet consumed entirely at home is a viable option, with a film and TV landscape that is pretty much unrecognizable from the previous time a Star Wars movie whisked us to a galaxy far, far away.
On iTunes, you can already order recent blockbusters such as The Martian orMad Max: Fury Road – both of which are up for Best Picture awards at this weekend’s Golden Globes and are likely to score Oscar nominations when they’re announced on Thursday.
In 2015, Netflix subscribers watched 42.5 billion hours of programming. This week, Netflix announced a huge global expansion into more than 130 new countries (with the notable exception of China – and they’re working on that). “You are witnessing the birth of a global TV network,” said chief executive officer Reed Hastings.
That birth comes with all kinds of potential carnage. In Canada, pick-and-pay, cord-cutting (and cord-nevers – people who have never subscribed to cable and don’t plan to) are of grave concern to cable and satellite providers and the television industry. A report out this week predicts funding and job losses with the great cable unbundling to come – even a threat to the survival of some Canadian channels.
Sure, giant releases such as Star Wars and 3-D technology you can’t get at home will always be a draw. But if it’s unpleasant at the multiplex, it’s pretty easy to just stay home; there’s always something to watch. I love going to the movies, and I hate being a Marsha Moaner, but I fear the industry is losing the plot – and is in danger of losing the audience, too.
