The End Of Movie Theaters
I preface what I’m about to write with I HOPE I’M WRONG.
As a small child, going to the movies was a BIG deal; therefore, I have always been in love with doing it. Before our son was born, Debbie and I went to the movies EVERY Friday night to see the latest film opening that week.
Hogan (the aforementioned son) was raised going to movies on opening day. Consequently, he’s got a love for it as well.
And in truth, there’s nothing like the shared experience of a movie. A comedy is funnier, a scary movie scarier, an action movie more thrilling when seen in a movie theater, on a huge screen with hundreds of other people.
In the last several years, the viewing experience at home (thanks to technology and streaming) has gotten really good and really easy and convenient. This has cut into the movie theater business significantly.
Now, with the Coronavirus, we’re being told to basically stay away from places like movie theaters. In a lot of states they’ve been mandated to be closed.
This picture was posted this weekend by our former neighbors who now live in California and went to see a movie on Saturday. The caption? “Wow…where is everybody?”
I’ve got a bad feeling that once we get through this crisis, the movie theater business will have a great deal of trouble recovering, and Hollywood will be replacing its delivery system paradigm.
And I will be sad.
I’ll be here to see the end of printed newspapers entirely (my father was a newspaper photographer). I figured I would live to see the end of shopping malls (it’s coming soon, y’all). I did not want to live to see the end of the movie theater.
Again, I hope I’m wrong.
