Okay! We all know that the MPAA ( The group of people hired by the Mafia who represent their wholly owned industry of Hollywood) whines that online piracy is causing them huge loses, but as Newsday stated so well, Shed no tears for the motion picture industry
The facts are that no matter how many press releases they shove down the throats of their news subsidiaries they are not losing money on any measurable scale because of people downloading video camera captures of movies online. If they ever cleared the system of book keeping they use so that stars, writers, producers etc did not have to sue to collect actual profits Excerpt from How the Movie Wars Were Won by John W. Cones and even going so far as to try to tell Stan Lee that the movie “Spiderman” made no money forcing him to sue for revenue, then MAYBE I might have some sympathy for them. Were you aware that based on Hollywood bookkeeping four of the top ten movies of all time…LOST MONEY!!! So they have no idea what their actual revenues are versus costs, so at this point no one can say if they are losing money. I think the entire problem is that the massive amounts of money generated by this industry have resulted in one overwhelming problem. Greed.
So, lets talk about why there is a decline in movie attendance, based on the assumption of it NOT being piracy. Well, first lets examine the fact that, “In 2004, domestic box office sales were $9.2 billion (with three-quarters going to the major distributors, who must share the box office gross with the theaters), up slightly from 2003. DVD sales and rentals came in at $21.2 billion, up almost a third from the previous year.” -Newsday
Hmm so they made MORE money in 2004 than 2003, okay well what about the current 2005 movie year?
“Blase adds that 2005's gross reflects that 10 fewer films have been released by the studios so far this year. And, she says, if you eliminate 2004 anomalies like “The Passion of the Christ” and “Fahrenheit 9/11″ – the highest-grossing religious and documentary films ever – 2005's box office is actually up by 2 percent” -Newsday
So in 2005 the box office is lagging and they have released fewer films, and have not produced any automatic sellouts like those based on a religion held by a majority of the nation or those based on propaganda that would make Leni Riefenstahl happy. It is easy to see the real truth is that the evil online pirates sharing second rate views of movies are the problem here, isn't it? The problem is the MPAA and their watchword. Greed.
So aside from those numbers, let's talk about a trip to the movies. I have a rather 50'sesque Nuclear Family with a Y2K twist, my wife and I have two children half the week and they spend the other half with their father, but we have them weekends. So for the sake of argument I will assume a Saturday evening viewing of a movie and at regular price. Before someone asks why not go to a matinee and save money, locally the regular versus matinee pricing is not really that different, $9.50 evening, and $7.00 matinee. But in the interest of fairness, when I hit my totals cost for the evening subtract 10 bucks if you want matinee pricing. Why have mostly empty daytime showings and not reduce the price to attract more customers? Greed.
So lets go step by step through what it runs my family to see a movie, and I will pick something harmless that we all attended as a base. Charlie and the Shreking Nemo is about as white bread as they come in the movie field, we look it up to find out times, and we pack up the car. Now nearest Gigantagoogplex of screens is in the suburbs because Showcase/AMC etc fear urban areas so much that Magic Johnson is making a mint setting up theatres in cities. My city has 105k people and not a single screen in the city limits but immediately outside of them we have 30 plus screens. So we have to drive a minimum round trip of 22 miles. That is a gallon of gas to start so we are at $2.33 by the national average. Counting wear and tear would be petty but it would be nice to see some downtown areas revitalized all over the country by some new screens. Not to mention in a few years when the 1.4 people per square mile around those suburban screens become their major market because gasoline is 7 bucks a gallon, they will wish that they had taken my advice. So $2.33 and Greed.
We pull up and have to park a 175 meter (575 feet for the metricphobic, or a little over 1/10 a mile for the real throwbacks) walk from the nearest non-handicapped spot, that is fine, I am not afraid of walking and neither is my family. But you can bet it hurts the box office in December when it is 10 below 0 (Fahrenheit) here in Michigan. We get inside and run into the ticket booth, and I pull out my wallet, now if I did it online as the commercials I have seen before every movie for the last few years want me to, I pay $35 bucks. But I save a bit by buying locally, so I pay 9.50 each for the adults and 7 each for the kids. $33.00 plus our earlier $2.33. I am now out $35.33. Greed.
Okay here comes the snack bar, I am not going to rant about this that much, because it would be a case study all in and of itself. But because my wife is intelligent as well as sexy she is raising good people and it limits our costs to much lower than that paid by little Exstacy Jade's (the future spoiled stripper) mommy in front of us (she was whined into buying the Megaplastic cup bearing the cartoon character of the moment, 2 types of candies and a popcorn). My wife and I each get a drink ($3.35 small, $3.75 large) and the girls each get a drink ($3.35 small, $3.35 small) and we split one mega-freaking-insane sized popcorn ($4.50). Of course I see kids being lured by the amazing amount of in your face advertising displays around us, and the bins of months old candy, and the 2 bucks a play video games, but our snacks run $18.30. Do not whine to me that we could sneak stuff in and do X, Y, and Z to save on this part, some of those suggestions are illegal and in some states it can be a felony. I am now out $53.63. Greed.
So now we get to see the movie right? It is with 1 minute prior to the scheduled start we sit down to a lame slideshow of local advertising and advertising about local advertising. www.didntialreadypayforthismovie.com has a great rant angle, they are sick and tired of viewing commercials for as long as 15 minutes before the PREVIEWS even begin. I am in complete agreement with them, it drives me nuts to have some Madison Avenue version of a “sk8tr boi” screaming about some new cola product, or the Army desperately recruiting because in the 90's they reduced the force to mostly paper pushers who could run two miles and had no muscle mass. Even worse is the room temp IQ level being catered to by those making the commercials, maybe that is why movies are so pathetic… They assume they need to use the same level of repetition for the story that ads possess, I get really tired of movies that explain things so the dumb can catch up. When I am at home I can choose from Commercial or Cable television, you know why it is called Commercial? Because it is paid for by Commercials! My movie experience is paid for by a 10 spot, so why am I being advertised to in addition to paying? So even though they (the MPAA) already have conned $53.63 out of my pocket, they want to make an additional EIGHTEEN CENTS EACH by subjecting us to these ads. Greed.
Then we hit the previews, my gods, the previews prior to Charlie and the Shreking Nemo ran 14 minutes, so I had been in the theatre for 30 minutes BEFORE the movie started to play. The movie starts but they keep the lights up because in the interest of cramming every possible heinie in a seat they are catering to the people who have arrived 30 minutes after the published movie start and causing us to have less of an experience as a result. Movie Theatres should be required by law to stop selling tickets after the start time of the movie, especially since the ads and the previews give a half hour of time to buy popcorn and get in your seat. Also, anyone who has spent more than one day in a movie theatre knows that Americans are happiest when the theatre is about 10% empty, no one wants to sit next to the three 29-year-old geeks in the Harry Potter shirts who have not bathed in a week. Just as no one wants to be stuck next to little Exstacy Jade's mommy who overcompensates for her miserable life and spoiled child by weighing in at a poorly washed 360lbs. So rather than try to sell every spot, maybe they could give us a break? Oh wait, these are the people willing to subject us to 15 minutes of ads to make 18 cents each. Greed.
We all know movies are more comfortable to watch at home because we maintain our furniture while the theatres do not, and in addition, they start out with much less comfortable seating.. I really feel for Exstacy Jade's heavy mommy, because my 6'3’, 250lb frame maxxes out the capability of most theatre seats and I am in the acceptable BMI range. So we now have 200 or so people, in uncomfortable seats for the next 100 plus minutes with strangers elbowing them. The inevitable group of people who think it is cool to talk, carry on cell conversations, run in and out, scream randomly, talk at the movie, and one of my pet peeves let their child/baby scream for the entire time at the top of their lungs. I hate to break the news to little Exstacy Jade's broodmare that the rest of us cannot tune out her screaming. What kind of an idiot does it take to bring a baby to a movie? The only realistic answer is that their pleasure is more important to them than the inconvenience to the other 200, I recommend they be voted off the island, and any responsible theatre owner would ask them to leave and give them their money back. But of course they do not, and we all know why by now…Greed.
So post movie, we go out the exits they push on us, and find out they are not even on the same wall as the parking lot, so we journey around the Gigantagoogplex back to the car and ride home.
As an alternative I can wait 4 months, and buy the DVD at Best Buy or Amazon for $14.99, and for another $14.99 order delivery of 2 pizzas, a 2 liter of coke and some breadsticks, and make a houseful of popcorn for pocket change. So at the theatre it runs $53.63 to see a movie, and at home a total of $31 but I gain the added benefit of no screaming, no uncomfortable seats, no drive, no traffic, no poorly maintained parking lot, clean bathrooms, no frozen walk, no questionable cleanliness in food preparation and handling, no crowding and best of all we get dinner, movie, and a pleasant night with the girls for 3/5th the cost of a movie trip with no dinner. If I drop the dinner the MPAA should be ASHAMED of the difference.
Then I read an interview with the head of the MPAA at USA Today proving that someone too ignorant to pee on their own shoes can aspire to that position. It is the industry not the online piracy that is the heart of the problem. I could talk of the fact that you can go to most Asian countries and buy any movie within days, minutes or before its release on DVD that is professionally silkscreen printed and comes with all the extras for less than a quarter. Instead of going after those producing 500,000 perfect copies for sale, they want to create an artificial problem of piracy to allow them to enact draconian laws that remove the rights of fair use we have in the United States.
Oh yeah, forced ads and previews on DVD’s, yep, Greed. I OWN IT! DO NOT MAKE ME WATCH THE ADS!