My wife and I took our son to the movies this week. You may remember last year, when I wrote about the experience of taking then five-year-old Eddie to the movies for the first time, a wonderful day that, unfortunately, we’ve only been able to duplicate a handful of times since then. I love the movies, I love going to the movies, but we can’t do it as often as I’d like. This week was special, though. Every time my wife and I have taken Eddie to the movies, it’s been our idea. “Want to see Puss in Boots? Want to see Super Mario Brothers?” But not this time. No, for the first time in his life, Eddie asked us, of his own accord, to take him to see a SPECIFIC film, and there’s no way I was going to deny that request when he asked, “Can we go to The Garfield Movie?”

It was pretty good. It wasn’t great, of course. It wasn’t Up, but it wasn’t The Good Dinosaur either. There were a couple of good chuckles and some nice Easter Eggs as well. Most importantly, Eddie loved it, and that made the whole experience worthwhile. When we left the theater Wednesday, I went to post a picture of him in the theater (like parents are now legally obligated to do) only to see a shocking headline on Facebook: “Sony Pictures Acquires Alamo Drafthouse in Lifeline to Cinema Chain.” The headline stunned me. I knew the Alamo Drafthouse had been struggling – it shockingly shut down several locations just last week – but I didn’t know that it was up for sale. And for it to be sold to Sony was particularly jarring, because it’s not that long ago that this acquisition would have been illegal.

In the 1940s, the government banned movie studios from owning movie theaters on the grounds of preventing the rise of a monopoly. After all, in an era where a town may only have two or three theaters (if that), if those theaters were all owned by Universal Studios, then it would be pretty much impossible for anyone in that town to ever see a movie from Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, or anybody else. That law was repealed in 2020, and honestly, I get the reasoning. It made sense in the 40s, but the concerns that made it necessary don’t exist anymore. First of all, we no longer live in the era of single- or double-screen moviehouses, and there’s not a studio on the planet turning out movies fast enough to fill up a modern multiplex on its own. Universal was the highest-grossing studio in the world in 2023, and they released only 24 theatrical films. Can you imagine a modern movie theater surviving showing an average of two new movies a month?

The other thing that makes the fears of a monopoly a nonissue is that the greatest competitor of a movie theater is no longer another movie theater: it’s the world of streaming. Streaming was already a thing in 2020, before the Covid pandemic hit, but when movie theaters were forced to close studios and viewers alike turned to streaming as the primary alternative. Now studios are trying to bring people back to the theaters, but a huge percentage of the viewers have settled in on their couches and don’t want to get back up. The Alamo Drafthouse is by no means the only chain suffering. Theaters have been closing all over the place. Last week my family took a trip to Pittsburgh for our niece’s graduation, and my wife Erin noticed a new Busy Beaver hardware store had been built since the last time we were in town. A second later I realized that the Busy Beaver was occupying the former theater where Erin and I saw the last movie we went to before the pandemic on New Year’s Day in 2020. 

While I understand the convenience and value of the world of streaming, I am firm in my belief that there’s no better way to watch a movie than in a movie theater. I don’t want them to die. But in a world where their biggest threat is a thumb-sized device that everyone can plug into their television at home, how do we convince people to go back into a theater? How do we get them to pay for tickets and concessions and do battle with the jackass in the row in front of you who won’t turn off his phone and the jackass behind you who keeps kicking your chair?

My thoughts on this question have evolved several times, and they continue to do so. At one point, I thought that the best way for theaters to push forward is to make themselves more of an all-in-one destination. Don’t just serve popcorn, but have full menus, drinks, alcoholic beverages…take the old idea of “dinner and a movie” and put it in a single location. And make the films themselves events – don’t just show new movies, but have classics, retrospectives, festivals, host Q&As with actors and directors and writers. Make going to the movies an EVENT. It sounds great! Except that everything I just described is EXACTLY what made the Alamo Drafthouse chain a success in the first place, and clearly, that is no longer enough. Sure, this sort of thing caters to people like ME, people who ALREADY would rather be in a theater than sitting on the couch at home, but it doesn’t really do anything to draw in prospective viewers who are resistant to the idea. Even big chains like AMC have tried similar things, expanding their concessions from just popcorn and nachos to include things like burgers, salads, pizza, and chicken tenders. It hasn’t made enough of a difference. 

There’s also the problem that…well…“Dinner and a movie” is the classic date night, but in my professional capacity as a high school English teacher, I can tell you that kids today aren’t doing that. I don’t think they even GO on “dates” anymore. A typical teenage relationship in 2024 follows this outline: first they “talk,” then they “hang out,” then one of them asks the other one to “go out,” and then one of them “cheats on” the other, and then they “break up” and repeat the cycle with somebody else. At no point are they required to actually go on a “date.” In fact, thanks to social media apps, they can go through the entire cycle without ever even being physically in the SAME ROOM, sometimes during the course of a single fourth-period gym class. So how do you convince THESE kids to go to a movie theater? 

The answer – the ONLY answer – is to somehow make going to the movie theaters a positive experience that cannot be duplicated at home. Last summer we got a bright spot when the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon made it cool to go to a double-feature about the creation of the nuclear bomb and the life of a plastic doll. That was GREAT, and it made both movies hits. But we’re in a hitless world at the moment. Even the one-two punch of Furiosa and The Garfield Movie (or as I like to call it “Garfuriosa”) didn’t prevent Memorial Day Weekend 2024 from having the lowest box office in nearly three decades. This past weekend people were THRILLED to see Bad Boys: Ride or Die take in $56 million at the box office, which sounds great, but is it really THAT good, relatively speaking? The previous film in the franchise, which came out in January of 2020, opened with about $68 million. Then last year The Marvels opened with $47 million, only $9 million difference, and yet it was considered a dismal failure. Obviously, it’s relative: one is the latest installment in the multi-katrillion dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe, whereas the other is kind of a redemption project for Will Smith after the Slap Heard Round the World, but STILL. 

So what do we do to entice people to see a movie in a theater? Several things have been tried, to varying degrees of success. Merchandise, for example. After all, it’s what’s keeping touring rock bands alive now that CD sales have died. When we took Eddie to see The Garfield Movie on Wednesday, he IMMEDIATELY gravitated towards a souvenir concession bundle that included a popcorn bucket, collectible cup, and a plush Garfield doll. (Odie was also available, but come on.) Fortunately Eddie’s godmother gave him an AMC gift card a couple of months ago that went toward the bundle, because it cost as much as the two drinks and large popcorn his mom and dad split that same day. Although the price is an obvious concern, I like the idea of movie theater exclusive merchandise in principle. It appeals to the collectors and it gives you a reason to go to the theater. Popcorn buckets seem to currently be the most popular type of merch. The Dune Part 2 bucket was given a rather…suggestive design that turned out to be so infamous you HAVE to believe they did it deliberately. Not to be outdone, the upcoming Deadpool and Wolverine has similarly suggestive buckets that seem to mock the phenomenon, as befitting a Deadpool movie. Of course, you have other collectible buckets as well, such as a ghost trap for a Ghostbusters movie or an Optimus Prime bucket for TransFormers. It’s worth pointing out, of course, that they are severely stretching the definition of “bucket” by featuring full-on toys or models that are buckets only in that have a cavity theoretically large enough to hold a few pieces of popcorn, but the snack is really secondary, isn’t it?

Of course the problem with merch, as with anything else, is that if it proves too successful it will quickly get overdone. By the time the 97th Fast and Furious movie hits, people will be asking if they really WANT to eat popcorn out of Vin Diesel’s head. (Be fair, though, it IS more bucket-shaped than Optimus Prime.) Also, a lot of theaters will allow you to walk in and buy the merch without buying a ticket to see the movie, which satisfies the collector but rather defeats the purpose of using merch as a draw to get butts in the seats. 

At one point, theaters thought that going 3-D was going to be the carrot that lured in audiences. After all, you can’t watch a huge 3-D movie in your HOUSE, can you? Of course, we quickly learned two things. First: 3-D televisions were relatively easy to make so you COULD watch them in your house but, second, nobody actually wanted to watch 3-D at home. From there it didn’t take long to make people realize they didn’t actually want 3-D in theaters either. The studios loved 3-D because it was harder to pirate and created an excuse to charge more for a ticket, and while it hasn’t entirely gone away, the bloom is off the rose. 3-D has never had what I call a Wizard of Oz moment. In 1939, people who had never seen color film before had their minds blown when Judy Garland opened up the door to her farmhouse and bombarded them with the multicolor wonderland of the Munchkin City. If you watched the same movie on a black-and-white TV, you’d never know what the big deal was. The Wizard of Oz proved that color can make a movie better. Nothing, to my experience, has done the same for 3-D. In fact, with the glasses darkening the screen and lots of people suffering from headaches or eyestrain, in many ways 3-D makes going to the movies objectively worse.

What about getting rid of the things that make people turn away from movies? Easier said than done. High prices for tickets and concessions are a concern, of course, but when’s the last time you saw the price of ANYTHING actually go DOWN? Then there’s the frequent complaint about the glut of advertising before a movie starts. If you take your seat ten minutes before showtime, you’ll see an ad for Coca-Cola, then for Honda, then for the Fandango at Home service, then Rusty’s All-In-One Tire Salon and U-Pour-It Yogurt Emporium all before the trailers even begin. It absolutely can get annoying, but it’s also helping to pay the bills for the theater and preventing said ticket and concession prices from getting EVEN HIGHER than they already are. 

Okay, so the ads aren’t going anywhere…can something be done about the jerks in the movie theater with you, the ones who won’t shut up or turn off their phone? Several years ago AMC actually flirted with the idea of making some of their theaters “mobile friendly,” allowing texting and the like. Among the people who actually enjoy going to the movie theaters, this went over about as well as suggesting they sprinkle every third popcorn bucket with anthrax powder. Of course, if the idea is to corral everybody who’s going to be an asshole by texting in the theater into a single screen where they won’t bother anybody else, I see the merit in it. On the other hand, that would bring these people into contact with each other and increase the odds that they breed more assholes, assuming the relationship lasts longer than gym class. 

 What if we tried – and this is really going to blow people’s minds – what if we tried just making more movies that people want to watch? Look, I love superhero movies, and I don’t want them to go away, but not EVERYTHING has to be a life-or-death full-blown special effects spectacle set in a 20-film cinematic universe and starring people who make more per minute of screentime than you and your entire family will make in the next 30 years. Mid-level movies used to be a thing. When’s the last time there was a hit romantic comedy? An era-defining western? A non-animated family film that wasn’t made to satisfy the ego of some aging superstar trying to cling to relevance? 

People complain that Hollywood doesn’t have any new ideas, but that’s not true. The ideas are out there. The problem is that the studios (in other words, the people with the bank accounts) don’t want to take the risk on something that’s not a proven IP or that doesn’t have a huge built-in audience, so those risky, experimental movies just aren’t being made. We’ve got a sequel to Beetlejuice coming out this year, which is fine, but in the current cinematic environment it seems pretty unlikely that the original would ever be made today. Oddly enough, the only genre that seems immune to this is horror: there are still lots of horror movies made, lots of ORIGINAL horror movies made, and while they aren’t making Star Wars numbers at the box office, they’re doing okay. This is because horror movies are usually relatively cheap to make, but they’ve also got the most dedicated fan base of any specific genre in film. If the romcom fans came out for their movies the way horror fans do, Sandra Bullock could buy her own island by now.

This is one of those times when I’m just talking about a problem while recognizing that I don’t actually know what the solution is. I’ve got suggestions, of course, you just read over 2000 words worth of suggestions, but I don’t know whether any of them will actually WORK. That said, SOMETHING has to be done before the modern movie theater goes the way of the drive-in or vaudeville before it. The experience of sitting in a theater with a crowd of fans and enjoying a movie together is special to me, and I don’t want it to go away. I just want to make it better again. So if you’re one of the people who have given up on theaters, tell me why you quit and tell me what it would take to make you come back. If you’re with me, if you want to help theaters stay alive, then what lifelines would you recommend? How would you do it? Remember guys, there’s no wrong answer and it’s not stupid if it works. This is about ENCOURAGING discussion, not ENDING it. Join me, won’t you?

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. And he’s not kidding, give him all the suggestions you can think of. It will save him from having to come up with another column idea.