8 Hyperbolic, Improbable and Unrealistic Ways to "Save" Movie Theaters

Amid a smaller-than-hoped slate and streaming competition, behold a handful of tips for how exhibition and distribution can help recreate a healthier theatrical ecosystem

Photo by Geoffrey Moffett on Unsplash

Hollywood has, I’d argue, realized that chasing Netflix was a quixotic quest that threatened to turn the entire entertainment industry into Captain Ahab at the climax of Moby Dick (mixed metaphors for the win). Tech companies like Amazon and Apple are offering their big flicks like Red One and Napoleon to theatres as a means of promotion for their streaming premieres. Studio executives like WBD’s David Zaslav and Paramount’s Brian Robbins are turning streaming-bound features like Evil Dead Rise and Mean Girls into box office hits. Even Disney, now again under CEO Bob Iger, offered up Soul (and will soon release Luca and Turning Red) into domestic theaters for the first time as a reminder that Pixar movies can best be appreciated in a darkened auditorium while recommitting to a real theatrical window for Marvel films like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Pixar toons like Elemental.

There seems to be, finally, a renewed communal understanding that releasing films into movie theaters is of prime importance both in terms of cash-in-hand revenue (from theatrical grosses as well as down-the-line post-theatrical streams like DVD, VOD and licensing) and in terms of raising awareness and creating library value. Great, wonderful, welcome to the party. But the theatrical experience isn’t yet wine and roses, due to a slew of factors related to theatres themselves, the films they are offered and what audiences will and won’t still show up for. So, rather than complain and pontificate, I’m going to try and be optimistic and suggest eight pieces of advice, both friendly suggestions and potentially insane experiments, which could at-best help return theatrical to something approximating the pre-streaming “glory days” and at-worst make the experience more enjoyable for those of us still keeping the faith.