@MuseZack I’m pretty pessimistic. A movie like Sideways being a big hit today is kind of inconceivable.

@rkylesmith My wife and I saw Richard Linklater's Bernie in the theater and it was delightful. If nothing else, being forced off your phone for a couple of hours is a net good.

@MuseZack I know Covid protocols have made things more expensive but 55 million to make She Said seems pricey. Is it the price for filming in NYC?

@PhillyAx I think they're including P&A but yes, that should have been a 12 million dollar movie or gone to streaming.

@MuseZack Or the audience doesn’t want to watch two hours of woke preaching

@crashcolucci The centerpiece scene of Tar is the title character ripping apart a non-binary POC Zoomer Julliard student for not wanting to listen to Bach or Beethoven. Which is kind of the opposite of woke preaching?

@MuseZack For me, it is a simple case of not wanting to get covid. I used to do cinemas 2-3 times a week. Any kind of film. I would love to big-screen Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, Avatar 2, which are all coming around Christmas. But I don't see it happening.

@OMearaShauna What if I told you that three years into the pandemic, there still hasn't been an outbreak traced to a movie theater, anywhere in the world? Theaters are actually remarkably safe places, given that everyone is facing the same direction, largely in silence.

@MuseZack I thought "Tar," a complex movie about Cate Blanchett as an orchestra conductor, was better to see at home with closed captions on and the remote in hand, so I could pause it and fill in my wife on who Furtwangler was, and she could explain subtle points of music to me.

@MuseZack Decades ago "Oscar-type" movies opened throughout the year & not just late Fall & at Christmas. Look at how much money Everything Everywhere All At Once made opening in March! Older audiences won't pack theaters during flu/cold/Covid season anymore.

@MuseZack I think it's because home theatres are now so good. It's much more convenient to watch at home & lower risk if I don't like the movie, so the theatre is only for the immersive experience. That's less important in a thoughtful movie as opposed to action movie.

@MuseZack @JoshKraushaar Maybe they just want good, entertaining, SJW free movies. How did Top Gun, Maverick do?

@MuseZack Color me nostalgic or too simplistic, but the great movies told really big stories. The epic’s were of epic characters. Most of these movies seem to be anti-epics. So, they get small, movie house numbers. Best movie of the year was Top Gun 2. Will it get an Oscar? Nope.

@MuseZack I think, given that many people have very nice large TVs and have made very comfortable spaces at home to watch them in, made more comfortable by the three years of staying home enjoying AAA entertainment, these types of movies are not “need to see it in theaters” movies anymore.

@MuseZack Starting with millennials, adults have become t-shirt wearing walking encyclopedias of Star Wars. A huge segment of the adult demographic has simply failed to separate itself from the 'young adult' one, thus 'no one' is seeing adult movies.

@MuseZack Few details about the economics of streaming. If artsy movies continue to be made, but mostly recoup their costs through streaming, that's not so bad except to IRL purists. The nightmare scenario is that supply of movies that require some patience and sophistication plummets

@MuseZack doesn’t help that a lot of these theaters closed, too. Many of them around here had older patrons who would just go see every movie.

@MuseZack I had to drive 30 minutes to see THE FABELMANS. A movie by one of the most well known and successful directors of all time. I think we might be at a breaking point with "small" movies. If Spielberg can't get traction, outside of lightning in a bottle luck...non-IP is dead

@MuseZack More time, safety, and persuasion, yes, but also, oddly, more theaters. Locally, losing our Landmark theater (and Pacific) really diminished the options available to go see non-big budget films. Still places, of course, but fewer options + other reasons ...

@MuseZack It is pretty grim. But why did She Said cost that much? It seems like it still would’ve flopped but maybe the hit wouldn’t be quite as hard if it had cost like $30 million less?