Many within the film industry these days have noticed the slow but steady decline of the movie theater. Things became more evident this year after box office reports showed that the 2017 summer movie season was one of the most financially disappointing summer seasons in about a decade. It looks like many movie goers aren't cramming the theaters like they use to.
The plight of the modern movie theater is rooted in several aspects of modern culture, most notably the rise in internet streaming services (duh) and increased competition from other forms of artistic media. While thinking on these aspects, I began to wonder if movie theaters still had a purpose within the rapidly changing and evolving digital world we all live in.
In one of my previous articles I discussed why many modern "would be" Hollywood blockbusters were failing at the box office and how Hollywood is relying more and more on big expensive gimmicks (3-D and big budget "event" films) to compete with new technological devices (internet) similar to what it did in the 1950s to compete with television.
Today, with the ease of access that internet streaming provides, movie theaters are fighting harder than ever to stay relevant in this day and age. However, this struggle reminds me of another social gathering place that "died" in the 1990s; the arcade. Similar to movie theaters today, arcades had their heyday from the 80s to the mid-90s. Like theaters, it was a place where people could socialize and play games with each other. Like theaters, arcades received stiff competition in the form of gaming consoles.
Consoles, mostly the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis, brought console gaming back in a big way after the decline of Atari. Now you were able to play video games with arcade-quality gameplay and graphics in the comfort of your home.
Mario and Sonic became widely known characters outside of gaming spheres and helped market the systems to all kinds of people. This ability to own a game, play it whenever you wanted, and not having to spend countless quarters to beat a game is what eventually lead to the decline of video arcades. However, video arcades did not "die" like we often believe they did in the 90s.
To this day, there are many video arcade businesses that do good business to this day, such as Dave & Busters and Chuck E. Cheese's. There are even some independently owned arcades that still exist. Arcades didn't really "die" they just declined from being the "bread and butter" of the gaming industry to filling a small but lucrative niche within the larger industry that came to be dominated by console and P.C. gaming.
Many people still go to arcades to socialize or to relive nostalgic memories with classic games. Arcades have become a smaller business than they once were but they still serve a specific purpose. I foresee a similar fate befalling movie theaters within the next 10 to 20 years (don't quote me on that, I'm not a psychic).
Similar to video arcades, I feel we are witnessing the first steps of the decline of the movie theater. Theaters will still be around in some capacity, but they won't be the "bread and butter" of the film industry like Netflix and Hulu will become. There will be fewer theaters than there is today, but they will still exist to fill the social and nostalgic desires of several people (specifically, people like me).
The best movie theaters can hope for in the near future is that there is a niche group of film lovers willing to go out to theaters and spend money on films for the "classic" experience. We witnessed it happen to video arcades, we witnessed it happen to vinyl records, and now we can hope the same fate will befall movie theaters because I am too much of a nostalgic sap to want to see them completely disappear.
