Theater movies are a rarity right now
The release of the trailer for the third Avatar movie (dear Lord) got me thinking about the current state of the movie industry.
James Cameron is really going for it after The Way of Water made a boatload of money at the box office a few years ago. As a ten year old kid, I loved the original Avatar when it first came out in 2009.
The story wasn’t original, but the setting was imaginative and the visual effects and animation was outstanding. It was truly a theater movie.
What is a theater movie? A theater movie is simply a movie that demands a viewing in the theater. This means two things:
It’s a subject and/or a style of movie that requires a large screen and sound system to be fully appreciated
It’s a movie worthwhile enough that I’m willing to bear the costs associated with going to see it in the theater.
This includes monetary costs—the 20 per ticket, plus the cost of any snacks (in my case, movie theater popcorn, one of the greatest snacks on the planet)—plus the emotional and psychological costs of having to watch said movie with members of the general public, i.e. enduring at least a small handful of inconsiderate nincompoops who paid to sit in a dark room on their phone or talk to their friends when they could have done that at home for free.
As it stands, very few movies rise to the level of a theater movie, especially in the current state of the film industry.
As a concrete example, here are the current listings in the movie theater near me:
- The Fantastic Four: The First Steps – Hollywood just cannot stop milking the superhero thing, even though Marvel killed it dead at least five years ago.
- Superman – see above. BTS Army: Forever We Are Young – the K-Pop boy band documentary, not a true movie.
- The Bad Guys 2 – a sequel (shocker) to a movie that didn’t need one. Let’s be honest, the world probably didn’t need the first one.
- The Naked Gun – A remake/sequel, just with two recognized actors (Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson) swapped in.
- Jurassic World Rebirth – Another sequel! The classic series is back for the 19th installment of “gotta fight the big bad dinosaurs while getting some help from the nice, smaller ones.”
There are more, but I can’t go on. It’s too painful. Remake, sequel, horror film (no thanks), sequel…the cost-benefit analysis is swift and clear. None of these movies are theater movies. By my scorecard, the last theater movies released was the “Barbenheimer” combo a couple summers ago.
I know some people like to just go to the movie theater as a thing to do, regardless of the movies playing. They just pick one; for those people, it’s more about the experience of the theater. I respect these fine theatergoers. They’re just fans of the game, no matter the players.
But for all our sakes, I hope Hollywood shapes up soon. I love going to the theater when I see a great movie. They are a spectacular form of art that’s really come into its own era in the past decades. That’s a blink of an eye compared to other art forms like books, dance, or paintings. Film has almost limitless potential. Hopefully this rut is over soon.