A cash cow is one thing, killing it to get the last drop is something else. Once dead it don’t magically come back to life. Customer resentment takes a lot of time for it to build on a massive scale. However, the media cartels are generating more of this day by day. The theaters are making money on those commericals you are seeing. They won’t willingly give that up. Customers not showing up at the theater because they resent the practices now in place will eventually result in them crying pirates are stealing our business. Somehow it never occurs to them that the customer isn’t going to put up with what isn’t worth their time and money. The cash cow may not be dead but it is starting to starve.

Many are just like you, we’ve had enough. It is no longer worth the cost of the theater when you can get far better viewing experience at home.

I’m an avid movie-goer. I do love to see film on the big screen. I hate the uncomfortable seating most theatres provide, but that is small compared with enduring commercials for something that I *PAID* to see. I’m not seing this movie for free like a TV show. Commercials have no business in the theatres and I’ll be damned if I am going to buy a car from any advertisers who presents their wares on the big screen.

I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction with the theatre owners, but I don’t see anything substantial coming of it. So now I am voting with my feet. I have hundreds of DVDs and other entertainment choices and until the theatre owners wake up and begin to provide good customer service again, I’ll just opt to stay at home.

Says a lot about how much the industry is hurting (in Oz at least) doesn’t it?

I think another problem might be that audiences are generally maturing. With fantastic shows like the Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica and others bringing new and fresh ideas to the screen every week it makes the same old introduction/conflict/happy ending movie hard to watch. With TV shows giving us season after season of complex character development, two hours just is not enough time anymore to become really involved in the story and the characters.

It also doesn’t help that going to the movies nowadays feels more like forced rape then a relaxing way to burn 2 hours. From getting strip searched for cameras and food, to paying 10 bucks for a soda and popcorn worth 2, to being forced to watch 20 minutes worth of ads and then suffer through scenes that are extended longer then they should be just to make sure you notice the blatantly placed products in the movie. Hollywood better quickly realize that all these cheap ways to make a few more bucks is doing is driving more people away or their profits will keep going down.

<sarcasm>

Hollydud has typically been releasing these duds as dvds shortly after they aren’t making the boxoffice numbers that raise the eyebrows and lately they have been few and far between. Most of the buyers of dvds have already seen what is happening. If it comes out on dvd within 4-5 months it wasn’t really a good movie. If it wasn’t a good movie, why should they pay the same price as for a premium one? Then theres the anticopy that seems to be the holy grail of the content cartels. Only the cartels want it; the customers don’t.

When the cartels get their wish of locking up the content through hardware, they think the end of the copying is in sight. For me the end of buying is in sight. I’m not paying ownership level costs for renting something that isn’t mine after I pay the money. I’m not going to spend on what I consider trash and pay the same that I would for a movie that is a really good one. Those really good ones are few and far between lately. Been stung enough that more times than not, I will look at the blurb with the idea they spent more time on the blurb than they did in the plot of the movie. Special effects are ok, but by themselves they don’t make the movie. So the formula of throwing a few extra FX in there doesn’t make it a blockbuster.

Laying off and firing their most creative workers because they are a bit of a problem for corporate mentality is a problem. Mostly those that see things different are also those with some new idea. When you homogenize the mix, you come out with bland instead of new. That’s right where Hollydud is now when it comes to movies…bland.

Hey HOLLYWOOD! You may want to consider giving up breathing. I hear it’s pretty risky.

The idea well in hollywood has not run dry. It’s just that the financiers are deathly afraid of the water.

Those “new” ideas have not been “market tested” yet. Guess it’s better to make a flop based on some weary old idea rather than have a new idea flop. At least that way marketing can look back and say, “the numbers said it should have worked”…