Iger wants to slam the window shut

Concession lines at theaters are bad enough. Do you really want to be behind the guy thats buying DVDs?

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Hopefully fewer films means fewer bad films...

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IMO, there are a simple things that can be done to bring people back to the theaters:

1.) Lower prices: By lowering the prices of tickets and concessions, the theaters will bring back people who don't want to spend $40 taking their date to the movies. Most people say this is a major reason why they don't go to the movies as much as they used to.

2.) Extend, don't shorten the DVD window: With the window getting shorter and shorter, people know they can just skip a given movie in the theater since it will be on DVD in under four months. If the window was 9 months, people may be more likely to see the movie in the theater, since that's a long time to wait.

-also-

3) Remakes: Another thing that slightly discourages people is the insane number of remakes we've been bombarded with this year.

Amityville, Dukes of Hazzard, The Longest Yard, Herbie, The Honeymooners, Bad News Bears, Bewitched, King Kong, Assault on Precinct 13, Yours Mine & Ours, The Fog, Fun with Dick & Jane, House of Wax, War of the Worlds.

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Lowering prices overall is an impossibility, especially with nearly all theatre chains facing bankruptcy. There is a chance to bring down ticket prices, if studios own up more to the fact that box office gross is such a low percentage of their intake these days.

As for concessions, its not likely to get better. Only if the multiplexes can eliminate the already minimum wage employees and install automated machines. I've seen everything being tested from hot food vending machines (with chicken fingers and fries) and a DIY popcorn dispensing gadget. Since I no longer see any of these innovations, I'm guessing they were just not well represented. The only cost effectiveness problems would either be in the quality of the product or in the maintenance of the machines.

I'm choked up when I think about it, but many theatre companies will disappear, soon, as profit businesses. The few non-niche places that will prevail are the non-profits. Not limited to art houses like Film Forum, which depend on beneficiaries even while selling out most showings, community-run theatres are a great addition to the market, recently. The one I'm most familiar with succeeds by employing volunteers from the junior high, selling tickets for $3 on second-run, independents and cheap prints of old films, and having more bearable (but still not too cheap) concession prices.

I'd like to see more of the old, downtown cinemas that went out of business during the mulitplex boom, bought up by their towns and turned over to the people, rather than being torn down as many are.

I'm curious to find out how many community theatres are popping up.

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