Coming Soon (Hopefully) to a theater near you: What’s next for movie theaters.
The future is bleak and void of bright color. The seaside city of Bexhill holds illegal immigrants who try to sneak into England. The immigrants rebel and the government sends in troops to quell the rebellion. None of this matter to Theo, though. He is looking for Kee, who has been kidnapped by a group called the Fishes. Moving his way through the war-torn city, Theo finds Kee in a building a blown-out apartment. Kee holds onto her newborn baby, who cries nonstop. The crying stands out in the violence. It stops the fighting. The fighters on both sides look in awe at this baby. It’s quite a sight to behold since the human race has been infertile for nearly two decades. The fighters and civilians look on with tears in their eyes, reaching out to the baby’s foot to see if he is real. As Theo leads Kee out of the building, an explosion stops the ceasefire and the fighting resumes.
This scene from Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (2006) is one of the most stunning moments in the entire film. For me, a 17-year-old moviegoer expecting a cool action movie left me in tears. It was a new experience for me. I rarely recall ever crying over a film. The scene wasn’t sad. It’s almost cathartic. The entire movie shot by Emmanuel Lubezki (for which he received an Oscar Nomination for his cinematography) is a roller coaster of action that rivals anything made today. It’s single-shot set-pieces envelop the viewer. To get to that scene where Theo and Kee walk out with the crying baby is such a cathartic and human moment. It’s beautiful. For a moment, this dying world has hope. I left the theater with my father, forever changed. That moment made me think that film can be just more than entertainment.
This wasn’t the last time I felt an experience like that, though. A few months later, I went to see 300 (I was young and developing my taste), where an audience of bros cheered at the scenes of Spartans slaughtering the enemy. In a dark theater, I saw Zodiac and felt enthralled and disturbed by the investigators chasing down the Zodiac Killer. Years later, I saw Inglorious Basterds and was sucked into the evil of Captain Hans Landa and cheering on the buffoonish heroics of Lt. Aldo Ray. At the end of Captain Phillips, I heard my father choking up next to me. Afterward, he told me how Tom Hanks’ character breaking down reminded him of his experience in the hospital after his first stroke. I was left in tears after seeing Leave No Trace, when Tom says goodbye to her father, Will. I just saw this after my own father’s funeral. Last year, I saw Avengers Endgame with my friends and the entire theater cheered when Captain America lifted Mjölnir to fight Thanos. It got crazier as the heroes “Snapped” by Thanos in Infinity War came through portals to finish the fight. I even heard people crying when Tony Stark sacrificed himself.
To me, those experiences show how powerful film can be. Film, like all great art, can open the heart of cynics, the minds of the ignorant and the soul for the hopeless. All of this in the holy church of the theater. I’ve been a film student for almost all my life, and I have only heard of how the movie theater is dying and television is the future. It was something that even George Lucas and Steven Spielberg suggested.
Chris Cagle, an associate professor of film and media arts at Temple University, points out how filmgoing can become a niche experience. “I’d suggest a museum/nonprofit cinematheque might be a more likely model. Since film is a distributable format, it lacks the immediacy of the live performing arts and the economics might not sustain Broadway prices.”
We might eventually see a convergence of film and TV. Back in 2017, Cahiers du Cinema named the Twin Peaks revival the best film of the year. Streaming services have hosted films and TV shows and make their own shows and movies. Da 5 Bloods, the best film of the year, hasn’t screened in any theater and the director is saying he won’t go back to one until there’s a vaccine. But theaters in America are finally opening up after six months, and Hollywood productions are going back to filming.
Tenet is finally set to bow at the end of the month, God willing. Pandemic or no, I am going to see it on the big screen, even if I have to dress up like Jude Law in Contagion. I’m so starved for big-screen entertainment, I’ll take the risk. 2020 has left me anxious to go back to the theater and afraid of its future.
SAFE & CLEAN
In a normal time, an audience shouldn’t have to worry about the risk of going to the movies. But the idea of being stuck in a dark room for two to three hours with people on top of each other. And how would theaters monitor the audience to see if they are wearing masks? The National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) has released a guideline called CinemaSafe. Phil Contrino, NATO’s director of Media & Research point’s out how the association has helped create the campaign. It’s filled with the usual COVID Guidelines that we all know by heart. Stay six feet apart, wear a mask, and so on.
Another interesting addition that many theaters participating in this program are reduced capacity and air filtration whenever possible. One of the 300+ theaters participating in this program is the historic Music Box Theater. For Ryan Oestreich, the general manager of The Music Box, his staff had a lot of work to do before reopening on July 3rd. “We looked at the CDC guidelines and the looked at the best practices of opening,” says Ostreich. Oestreich told his staff that they were going to go above and beyond what the CDC said. The Music Box then sent out a survey to customers asking what kind of experience they wanted to have. “In the end, a majority of our customers said they were gonna come back in the first three months.”
Another factor for theaters is the reduced capacity. The Music Box is a one-screen auditorium that can seat 700 people. The Illinois guidelines only allow for a gathering of no more than 50 people. So, what can be done to fill in this gap? Outdoor screenings and Virtual Cinemas. The outdoor screenings for The Music Box are held out in the garden behind the theater bar. As Ostreich explains, “We started showing movies to about 25 people spread out in this garden on the weekends starting back at the end of June. We only charge $5, since we’re showing a DVD or Blu-Ray. We’ve sold out every single show. People love sitting outside on a summer night, watching a movie, and having a drink.”
VIRTUAL MARKETPLACES
As for the Virtual Cinema, it’s a pretty ingenious way to show movies beyond the Chicago market. Anyone can log onto The Music Box website and see what films are available to rent and the profits are split between the distributors and the theaters. The Virtual Cinema is also playing a big part in other theaters. AMC has also set up its shop that gives on the feel of walking down a virtual Blockbuster. From classics to new releases, the shop has it all. Even Trolls World Tour, which caused a huge rift between AMC and Universal when the studio decided to release the movie On Demand. But I guess that’s all water under the bridge now. For Katey Rich, deputy editor at VanityFair.com with an interest in movies, the most interesting turning point in this paradigm is Disney’s release of Mulan. “If it works, we might see other studios copy the same model [of releasing on their own streaming platforms.]”
Then we have the Alamo Drafthouse, the best theater chain in America. It’s rapidly growing from its Austin, Texas roots to more locations across the country. They’re famous for its strict no talking policy, quality screening, delicious food, and programming of big blockbusters, independent films, and classics that envelope the viewers. Going into one of their lobbies, you can tell they have a love for the art, from the classic movie posters hanging in the hallways and the over the top décor. It’s no wonder that their digital storefront goes above and beyond. The films they offer vary from foreign action films, cult classics, and Oscar nominees. Rich also pointed out that the Drafthouse will rent the theater to groups of people to play a film. “They make so much money from the food that they don’t really have a choice. Theaters are going to struggle once they reopen and being able to serve food will probably be a major lifeline–whether or not that’s actually the safe choice.”
THE OLDEST BATTLE IN A NEW PHASE
But what if we didn’t have the pandemic to deal with? What would be the biggest threat to the theater-going experience? Television. The battle between these two cornerstones of visual entertainment has been going on since the 1950s. Domestic box office revenue from 2009–2019 has grown, but it’s been bouncing up and down. We’ve seen a change where studios depend on remakes, reboots, and franchises of big blockbusters or low budget horror films and comedies that are immediately profitable. The middle of the road, adult-oriented blockbusters are gone.
What seems funny to me is the standards of Film and Television have changed. Films like the Marvel Cinematic Universe tend to create multiple storylines that last throughout multiple movies, while premiere TV shows like Breaking Bad, Eastbound & Down, and Mad Men have a definitive ending in mind. Even some of the best filmmakers working today have jumped back and forth. David Fincher, of The Social Network and Se7en fame, produced and directed episodes of House of Cards and Mindhunters for Netflix. Cards redefined original content made by streamers and would go on to earn Netflix’s first Emmy Nominations. Then there’s Steve McQueen, the director of 12 Years a Slave and Widows making his first foray with Small Axe. The first three episodes of his anthology will premiere at the New York Film Festival this September. For Derek Cianfrance, who made the jump from film to make HBO’s I Know This Much Is True, he said that his filmmaking process “didn’t change at all between making moves and making TV. I’m just dealing with larger [character] arcs and more of them.”
Where it gets interesting is that we are now seeing films made and acquired by the streaming services. Like other studios, Netflix releases an abundance of original or acquired movies. So where does the line blur? For Rich, she explains it happens with awards. “The Emmy’s and the Oscars, which draw a really firm line between film and television, still have their strict rules in place,” says Rich. “When the Oscar nominations happen early next year we might finally get a reminder of what actually counts as a movie.”
Netflix broke through in 2018 with Roma winning three major Oscars at the ceremony. Just last year, The Irishman and Marriage Story earned a combined 16 Oscar nominations. To even qualify for awards, Marriage Story was released at the Egyptian theater in Los Angeles and the Paris Theater in New York. It was difficult to actually find a theater that would play their films, since theater chains like AMC refused to screen Netflix films that won’t honor the traditional model. We may also see the rise of more theaters owned by streamers like Netflix and Amazon. For Ostereich, he isn’t too worried about that. “We are independently owned and we can do whatever we want. We have a great relationship with them. We’ll give them a two, three week run. We know what our audience wants to see and if we get quality films that look and sound great, I shouldn’t be told that we can’t screen it.”
LAST PREVIEW
We’re far from over with the pandemic. The theaters are opening up and health experts are saying it’s not safe to go and I completely agree with them. I want to be entertained, but I don’t want to put my life on the line. This is a difficult time and I look back on many difficult times and have found going to the movies to be a form of comfort. But there is a change happening. Drive-Ins are coming back. Festivals are going digital and we’re seeing an industry who has survived bombings, fires and shootings adapt to a new threat. I’m still going to see Tenet, but maybe in a place with fresh air.
