55” TVs have been available for decades but not affordable. I purchased a 60” plasma TV about 2 decades ago but it cost about $2500 dollars. Now I can pick up a 55” 4K TV from Best Buy for $220.

The widespread affordability of large screen TVs has absolutely eroded the value of a movie theater.

Movie theaters still win on a couple fronts, but not by enough to overcome the downsides like the “person behind you chewing popcorn with their mouth open” factor. Also, movies are getting long enough to really need an intermission or two. Legs need stretching, bladders need emptying. If Hollywood and the theaters won’t provide that, at least at home I can use the pause button. I’m looking for a pleasant evening, not a simulation of what it’s like to be on a three hour flight.

I got a 4k 55" TV for $299 earlier this year. It weighs maybe 10lbs, and is super thin and fits on the wall.

Large 4k TVs being this accessible/affordable for most households has not been an option for "decades"..

Yeah, these things take a long time to shake out. We still have cable subscriptions because older people watch TV that way, but no one would tell you that linear television is thriving. We're only now seeing sports start to somewhat move to streaming services, when the writing's on the wall for a while.

And would you entertain the idea that few movies are worth seeing because going to the movie theatre is a hard sell for audiences, and studios produce movies that try and adapt to that reality?

That part. But it even worse than that.

My wife and I used to be avid theater goers. We used to watch at least five movies a year in the theaters; more if you count the times we went individually. Almost all of the theaters we visited were high-end lounge-style movie houses. Think "Alamo Drafthouse," which is a poster child for the downfall of theaters I'm about to describe.

We're the perfect demo for the movie theaters: free time and disposable income. Yet, we've only seen two movies in the theaters this year, and not for lack of trying.

Theaters are in a kind-of death spiral. they're losing revenue to streaming, so they can't invest in making an experience that attracts people to the theater, which leads to them losing more revenue to streaming, etc. Companies circling the drain are perfect targets for M&A and enshittification in the name of growth.

This is exactly what's happening to high-end theaters: Moviehouse and Eatery (a small chain of high-end theaters) selling to Cinépolis, Alamo Drafthouse selling to Private Equity, IPIC starting to raise red flags, and probably more.

The end result is always the same: endless ads appear where mostly-ad-free prerolls used to be, food and drink prices go up while quality goes down, service gets worse as staff are asked to do more for effectively-less pay, and previously-super comfortable lie-flat lounge seating gets more and more decrepit, all while increasing ticket prices!

All of this is even more insulting when the movies you pay to see are distributed by Netflix or Apple and are all but guaranteed to end up on their platforms in mere weeks, sometimes with better post-production.

We used to happily pay $100+ for a night out at the movies seven years ago. Our experiences have gotten costlier and more disappointing, however. Families deciding to drop $1500 on a 100" TV with an Atmos soundbar and relegating the theaters to the past makes total sense to me. It's sad --- theaters are a social experience and have given me so many great memories --- but it was all but an eventuality the minute streaming on Netflix went live.

Probably many underestimate the importance of the sound.

A home theater arguably is as much about the subwoofer and surround speakers as it is about the screen.

Especially the subwoofer has a big impact. When you feel the sound it's literally impactful. At other times, it really helps immerse yourself in the scene, even if it's not a typical bass sound, but like background noise in a busy city street.

The properly configured subwoofer makes you feel like you're there, while it just falls flat on a regular speaker.

That said, the fewest people have a home theater setup, so it's probably irrelevant to why people stopped going to the cinema.

I mean... there's a ton of movies worth the effort. Just take a look into the big festivals every year: Cannes, Venice, Berlin... Many amazing movies.

Well, I'd say that the standard movie format just isn't what people want anymore.

The problem movies have is they have a relatively short amount of time to deliver a complete story. 90 to 120 minutes just isn't a lot of time to be compelling. That's why some of the best movies are split into parts.

Consider Andor as an example. It's some of the best media ever made (IMO) and it simply would not work in the movie format. What makes Andor work is the excellent character development and the time spent building and shaping the universe under a fascist government.

Andor had no length constraints per episode. That allowed it to tell complete satisfying stories with the promise that you'll get more in the next episode.

You're replying to ChatGPT

Great home theater sound systems with subwoofers are cheap and readily available now. They make the home movie-watching experience dramatically better than it used to be.

...as long as you don't connect that TV to the internet so it can spy on you and show you ads. That's why it's so cheap.

A current example (although not Netflix) is The Secret Agent with an award qualification run in NYC and LA before wider release.

I disagree that it's a misconception. Yes, the premise is that the true 'monster' was the creator, but the monster itself is intentionally grotesque and disfigured to teach us the beauty on the inside lesson.

Thanks for stating the obvious and I assure you I know the story well. In order for the entire premise to work, there needs to be this conflict or tension between the perception of the "monster" and the true reality of his humanity. This movie failed at effectively portraying this conflict by humanizing the monster too much. Just my 2 cents.

The movie removed all nuance from the story. The monster having monstrous traits is an important part of the book

It was too long.

>His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

As I said, the contrast between "pretty" or "human" traits vs "monster" just wasn't there.

Sympathetic sure! But the story doesn't work without the contrast between his outward horrid appearance and his inner humanity.

Just not true with HBO. Most of their content is consistently pretty good

> If WB was any good, would they have been snatched up by Netflix?

Yes because the situation of WB has nothing to do with their performance.

In 1990s they merged with TIME publishing right before the internet killed all magazines. In 2000s with AOL right before th dot com bubble. In 2010s with AT&T who realised they needed a shit ton of money to roll out 5G so they took a massive loan and charged it to Warner debt.

So WARNER keeps performing and the business side keeps adding debt from horrible decisions

Honestly Warner would have been fine if they hadn't been saddled with the debt that AT&T used to buy them. It wasn't an issue of Warner's business performance.

> want

I described what is happening, not what I want to have happen.

Anyway it is entertainment media, not news media, so less of a big deal. But yeah it would be nice if somebody else tried.

You mention Arcane, and that reminds me that Netflix's support of animation is really undervalued. LD&R has been mentioned, but they also helped bankroll a ton of marquee projects from Science Saru (Devilman Crybaby, DanDaDan), Orange (Beastars, Trigun Stampede), and Trigger (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Delicious in Dungeon). They picked up Pantheon and Scavenger's Reign. They've got another season of Blue Eye Samurai coming. Oh, and K-Pop Demon Hunters.

If you care about animation as either a visual or storytelling medium, Netflix has made a lot of the best movies and series of the past few years possible or accessible. (Having to pirate Pantheon S2 because it was initially only released in Australia was not fun.)

The Pitt, The Penguin, Hacks, White Lotus, The Rehearsal, The Last of Us, The Chair Company--all shows off the top of my head that debuted or aired a season in 2025. A few of which won several Emmys, and all of which are critically acclaimed.

Discovery really did a number on HBO.

I would rather a show go on too long and let me decide when to stop watching, like how my Simpsons DVD rips are only seasons 1 through 10 (including season 11 holdovers, so my set ends on Sneed lol)

Corollary: I really miss Inside Job

Netflix doesn't wait for people to get bored. It canceled Kaos the same month they released it! It had good reviews and a lot of binges but that didn't save it from the axe.

Dead Boy Detectives was canceled less than 5 months after it was released.

With so much competing for our time there's no way everyone is going to jump on every show immediately after it gets released and watch it several times over so whatever bullshit metrics netflix is using look impressive enough for them to give the show's fans a satisfying conclusion.

If you watched TV before netflix you might remember that sometimes it took two or more entire seasons before a show became popular. Some extremely popular and successful shows were like that and would never have happened if netflix had put them out.

Netflix has shows that absolutely overstayed their welcome.

Stranger things should have been one maybe two seasons.

Maybe it's because I loved the books, but I loathed the Netflix adaptation. Possibly the worst sci-fi adaptation I've ever seen.

The casting was OK, but they mangled the plot and motivations of every character nearly beyond recognition!

Is it still a K-drama if it's for the US market?