Most theater execs believe the moviegoing experience will be dead in 20 years...

I believe it. It's relatively "dead" and a complete different experience now than it was 20 years ago. Granted I think a lot of it can be contributed to covid, my point remains the same.

Movie theater execs exaggerating their risk so that they can get exclusive releases and make more money

Seems like a foregone conclusion. People are gonna be watching their own AI content rather than some big budget movie intended for a general audience.

It's why i find it funny how often posters repeat stuff along the lines of
how they need X movie to fail.

Movies failing isnt gonna reset the industry to how it used to be, it will just cause funding to dry up quicker and speed up the death spiral

I go on Monday afternoons when I get a discount. I have recently been to see Thunderbolts and Final Reckoning. I usually wait until the movies have been out about 3 weeks. If I had four other people in the theater with me both times that was plenty.

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Real talk - the moviegoing experience has simply become too expensive for families.

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I was coming here to post this. People still want to see movies in theaters...it just has to be worth it. So couple the dramatic drop in quality over the last decade plus with the fact that it costs upwards of $20 per person to go to a movie (and that's without introducing concessions), and people don't want to do it that badly to drop that kind of money on it.

Now couple THAT with the fact that home theaters, even simply just home televisions, have come such a long way that you can watch movies on a relatively big screen with surround sound and whatever food you want, all in the comfort of your own home. And movies at home cost significantly less than they would if you went to the theater. If my wife and son want to go to a theater to watch some new release, we'd spend about $50 on tickets, and likely another $20-30 on concessions. Or we can wait a month or two until it hits streaming, and we can rent the movie for like $19.99 and watch it at home and eat food or popcorn that we already have. And on top of that, we wouldn't have to deal with the annoyances that sometimes come with the theater as well (although my experiences with that have been pretty low for the most part).

The bottom line is that the theater experience is just not really worth it these days. And sure, there are some exceptions (TG: Maverick, for example). But all in all, that holds true.

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It’s the studios fault. They are making total shite.

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I think this is a pretty big factor. Better movies would do wonders to get butts in the seats. Too much today is recycled, rehashed, and/or highly tinkered-with by non-creative bean counters.

I've seen three movies at the theater in the last month, more than I have in the last five years. I have mixed feelings about the experience. The theater near my house was recently renovated and is really nice, has reclining seats, reserved seating, etc. The biggest problem for me is that taking my wife and a couple of kids, after popcorn, a few drinks, etc is that the tariff was $150. That's fricking insane. I'm willing to go to the theater to see certain movies, but the pricing for the concessions is just totally out of control. The other thing is that like many businesses, post covid, there's no one working there. The whole place has 2-3 employees and just feels weird. Finally, the big advantage seeing a movie in a theater has over watching at home is the engagement of the crowd. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie in a theater and there were more than ten people in the theater.

I don't think the theater experience will be dead in 20 years. It's already dead.

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and full of morons who don’t know how to behave.

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This. Along with almost every other community viewing experience. Concerts are full of people talking and/or screaming off key.

Even the finer theaters experiences show signs of deteriorating, with phone usage, talking, etc.

Weeknight 530 pm movies with my kids are still great experiences. The problem in my eyes is two-fold: the cost is high and the movies good enough to see in theaters are few and far between.

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Despite the efforts to make them nicer with better seats, food, and sound systems, theaters still feel like gross-arse bus stations for the most part. Dirty, smelly, and full of morons who don’t know how to behave.

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Damn, I'm glad I have a nice theater to go to. Mine is nothing like you described. Clean and never once had a problem with any of the people attending. We are lacking a certain demographic where I am though