this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Okay, I could get in my car, spend $3 in gas driving to and back from a theater, $30 on a ticket, $40 on popcorn and a soda, to watch The Continuing Adventures Of Scarlett Johanson's Very Tight Pants, once, for maybe 2 hours? Or spend $15 on Stardew Valley and receive over a decade of content.

Why'd we even bother manufacturing projectors after 1977?

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

For me, it was when I finally started to go back to the theaters after COVID and I found out all of the sudden, I have to actually pick a seat and if I don't show up early enough or pick the seat early enough, the seat is going to be absolute hot garbage and then I just paid 20-some odd dollars for a ticket for absolutely nothing. and then have to pay another $60 or $70 for a soda, popcorn, or maybe nachos for me and the kids.

For less than that, I bought a professional gourmet popcorn maker, made popcorn that was actually fresh. I took all of the savings and used it to buy a NAS.

[–] dogdeanafternoon@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago

Regarding the picking your seat part, isn’t that much better?

The old system you absolutely had to get there early to get a good seat, as it was first come first serve. New system I can buy tickets in advance, and pick the perfect seat. If there’s no good seats, I won’t go. Or at least I know what I’m getting beforehand.

Totally agreed on pricing though, it’s fucked.

[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Ain't nobody going to watch one movie for 16-20 bucks when they can pay the same price per month to watch a bunch of horrible movies and shows and free video streaming sites

[–] iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

$28 ticket might have something to do with it. That's what I just paid for a ticket to Project Hail Mary.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago (2 children)
[–] figjam@midwest.social 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

The book was great so....maybe

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

Amazing book

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 hours ago

Probably presale. Not out yet

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago
[–] Sarmyth@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I haven't seen any movies worth watching on streaming in the last 6 months. I dont know what people are finding to watch in theaters right now.

Scrolling the list right now I guess all the money was from: Avatar Sinners Bugonia Zootopia 2

I dont see Goat making good money and Send Help will probably do decent streaming but poor theater numbers.

I dont see enough for a strong Q1, and as lame as AMC is, I dont think its their business as much as the product available right now.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

You forgot Wicked, that was probably responsible for a big boost around the holidays.

[–] Sarmyth@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Oh yeah, I did. Its not longer at my theater so I didn't have the reminder. Tons of chatter about that one too.

[–] Railcar8095@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Every one will have their reasons, but for me it was

  • No movie interested me enough
  • High prices
  • I live in a different continent

Not in that order

[–] dogdeanafternoon@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago

Just take your private jet to the cinema, it’s not that big of deal

[–] DragonAce@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

Every time I see a new movie trailer I like, seeing "Only in Theaters" immediately kills all interest I may have had in that movie.

I'll just look it up again in a few months and stream that shit for free. Thanks.

[–] arcine@jlai.lu 1 points 11 hours ago

Say no to franchised theaters !

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 50 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Consistently crappy theaters, other customers who don't care about the movie, on their phones and talking, and staff that are both not paid enough and told not to deal with those problems.

All of that for now 20 per ticket, double that if you want snacks. My local indie house shows movies with none of those problems.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 30 points 1 day ago

And half an hour of ads

[–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I also don't have any of those issues at home. Relative screen size is comparable (probably bigger at home, in terms of viewing angle). No annoying people at all. Snacks cost supermarket-prices. I also don't have to travel there and back at specific times, can pause to pee, good stuff!

Movies may be a few weeks or months later, but who cares. If anything I got a backlog to still watch anyway. I can no longer see any advantage to going to a cinema.

[–] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

I think that's who they lost- casual viewers. The die hards still go but the casual viewers just simply prefer the home setup. I count myself very much in that due to all the reasons you listed.

[–] neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago

AMC had exclusive distribution rights to Arco in my area and decided to make zero screenings available with the original French dialog audio, just the English dub.

So I'm waiting for streaming, avoiding traveling across town, paying to park, paying a premium for mediocre snacks and drinks all for the pleasure of sitting through 30 minutes of ads before the movie I paid $20 to see in a language not fit for the movie. 👍

[–] Gerudo@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I regularly go to the theater. There hasn't been a movie released in months that I'm willing to go pay for

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago

I'll go to any Christopher Nolan and Edgar Wright movie. The rest..ehh

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

One Battle.... was my last "go to the theater" show.

[–] Zirconium@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Only iron lungis is the only movie I've been to in 6 months and all the trailers that played in theater for other movies were boring. Odd it is though that a bunch of them were squid game style "what if the government/the elite was hunting people for sport"/other conspiracy tropes coming out around the time of the Epstein files

[–] doug@lemmy.today 30 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

My spouse has gone all in on the gd rumble-seats in Cinemark theaters. Even dumb movies we’d never go see, they’re like “does it have rumble seats? ‘cause I’m there.”

For me it’s just the comfy-ass recliners. One of the Regals near me swapped out all of the chairs with comfy recliners and— my god— sitting through a 3 hour movie was a comparative cakewalk to how it used to be.

I haven’t got any AMCs near me, but it sounds like they haven’t put in the same efforts on seat situations. You can have all the Dolby, XD, THX etc stuff you want, but the chairs are a big part of it.

—that said, we also have a lovely historic theater near us that’s oozing character and ambience, so… it’s an uphill battle for all chain theaters in our area afaic

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

I put my feet up in a recliner at the theater once... Zzzzzzz. I can't do it.

[–] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If only they'd upkeep the recliners.. my theather converted around covid, and half of the them are non functioning now. Broken buttons mostly, but it's especially bad around the center positioned seats everyone always takes.

[–] doug@lemmy.today 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I used to be an usher a while back and cleaning the basic foldy seats are no bueno, especially on kid/family movies— people are slobs. Shrek 2 was the WORST by far to clean up after, and it was in theaters for so long.

I cannot imagine how long and how much work it would take to thoroughly clean some of the recliners I’ve seen.

Coupled with that, nearly every chain cinema near us has cut staff/concessions down to combining concessions and tickets into the same booth/register, and the ushers are a skeleton crew.

They’re looking for a quick-fix/lowest effort draw for an audience and are only halfway there ‘cause uhhh ineptitude or greed or both. And it sucks ‘cause I’d hate to see all of these places shut down.

…although, one of them shut down near us and got bought by a local guy who has spruced it the hell up, so. We’ll see what happens.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

I've heard from a few friend's kids that cleaning the recliners is basically easy mode. They're not cloth like the old founding seats so everything just wipes right off.

Dunno if that holds for all, just local anecdotes

[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Came here to say pretty much the same thing. There are a few AMC theaters near us that my wife and I enjoy going to from time to time. But it’s clear they aren’t doing anything when it comes to maintaining & repairing their seats. They were awesome when the theaters were newly renovated, but the last time we went one of our seats was broken so badly we couldn’t sit comfortably in it. Luckily there were plenty of empty seats so we could move easily.

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago

[off topic]

I've had it happen twice. I'll be in an airplane, watching a movie, and there's a big battle scene. The plane hits turbulence and the fight becomes much more exciting.

I can understand the appeal of the rumble seats.

[–] reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

the landmark “4d” seats that move/rumble make any movie with flying so fun. They still haven’t gotten the technology precise enough for well timed jump scares in horror movies though.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

You should probably buy her a vibrator.

[–] binarytobis@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I found the rumble seats very off-putting, so I turned it off after a few minutes. Turns out, you can’t turn these ones off, just down. Very frustrating two hours.

I will say the small 10 screen AMC near me has nice seats. It has a bunch of small theaters that are pretty comfortable.

The giant AMC at the mall 30 minutes north of me has huge theaters full of crappy seats.

It depends on where you go.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

More annoying that AMC bought out basically every local theater and then shot themselves in the foot, so there's not many alternatives.

Local theaters usually do community events and have a play theater for live productions that keeps the business going.

AFAIK AMC only does latest releases and sometimes reruns during low traffic.

[–] starchylemming@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

small independent cinemas are such a joy.

many of the few that remained died during the pandemic

franchise cinemas often lack any personality and you can tell the staff is underpaid and doesn't care about anything..... worst of all, certainly no care for hygiene and food quality

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 13 points 1 day ago

My usual Christmas routine is to get a group of friends together for a restaurant meal and then a movie. Usually we'll pick something like Jumanji or Aquaman or Anchorman II.

Last two years, no one wanted to see any of the movies playing. Not 'I don't feel like going to the theater today' it was that none of the movies showing appealed to anyone.

[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 8 points 1 day ago

Announce what time the movie actually starts and pay ushers to enforce good behavior and you’ll fix those attendance drops right quick. There’s still demand but the movie theater experience is so awful even cinephiles won’t brave it anymore.

[–] Abrinoxus@thelemmy.club 5 points 1 day ago

It's more than 20 usd for a ticket in sweden (snacks unreasonable priced here as well) and amc is the same chain just with another name to make people belive it is national (Filmstaden). How is it in other countries?

[–] blattrules@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I went to an amc for the first time in about seven years last week and despite there being a giant “Dolby” logo out front that made me think they’d at least have decent sound, the soundtrack in the theater I was in was hardly stereo, with the voice channel coming from the upper left of the screen and the music and sound effects from the lower right. Was not a good experience.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Screens are dimmed to save money, shows out of focus because no one GAF.

Films are plummeting in quality, Melania won't save AMC.

[–] Hux@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

I have little to no interest in going to a movie theater. Not just now, but very likely ever again.

I just don’t see the appeal—the crowds are so consistently awful, unless you wait until a given movie’s theatrical run is almost done and no one else is there. But by then, sometimes the movie is already in streaming and I can watch at home.

I CAN be convinced to support business models which seem innovative, however.

For instance, theaters have offered different ticket prices for both age (children/seniors) and time of day (matinees). I would ENTHUSIASTICALLY support a theater which innovated on those points.

For instance, keep early movies cheap for kids. However, retain special “child” pricing throughout the day. I would love to see ticket pricing for children increase by lower ages and later times.

Take a 2-year old to an 11a movie? 5-bucks.

Take a 2-year old to a 9p movie? 500-bucks.

Also, usher enforcement of etiquette should become more aggressive. I wouldn’t mind a police detail enforcing that shit…just be clear with the tickets.

You want a police detail enforcing a ”quiet” theater—buy that ticket and pay the higher price.

You want a cheaper ticket and watch with a bunch of people playing on their phones and talking, go cheap and don’t complain.

Some people love the theater—it’s big, it’s loud, it’s fun. If you like it, go for it. In my opinion, anyone with even a modestly decent modern TV and sound system can wait a bit to catch their movie on streaming and always have a better experience.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

The last movie I saw in an AMC theater was Avatar: Fire & Ash in IMAX ($20 for the 3D, which imo was worth it for the 3 hours), and before that was Way of Water a couple years before.

[–] Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bummer, I like going to the movies.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 hours ago

go to a local indie theatre. Mine is community owned, they don't show shit, and you can have a beer.

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 1 points 1 day ago

I won't even go to AMC at all anymore because they're the only (non-indie) theater around that still has crappy seating.

Nevermind how few movies are worth seeing, paying $20+ to see a movie, how the concessions are expensive garbage, and shows have 20-40 minutes of ads before they begin.

Give me an Alamo Drafthouse or similar and better movie selection, and I'll be at the movies nearly every month.