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Jerod Santo

Jerod Santo

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Movie theaters are so back

Prior to this Summer, I can’t remember the last movie I saw in the theaters. Dune 1, maybe?1 I’ve probably averaged one in-theater movie every 18-24 months. BUT!

Between mid-June and mid-August, I saw four (!) movies in the theaters. And I want to see more.

I’m not the only one. NPR reports:

American cineplexes are on track to rake in more dollars than they have in a decade, a gratifying outcome after years of losing audiences to streaming.

What changed? I can’t speak for the general public, but I can tell you two reasons my sentiment changed:

  1. Value Tuesday assuaged my sticker shock
  2. Blockbuster buzz drew me out

Between ticket prices, concessions, and everything else… going to the movies had become prohibitively expensive. Especially for a guy like me who regularly has 2+ kids in tow. Marcus Theatres must’ve felt this in their overall sales and decided to dedicate a day to price conscious folks like us:

Value Tuesday gives you a chance to see Hollywood’s hottest blockbusters at a great price. And if you are a Magical Movie Rewards member, you’ll even get FREE popcorn

$6 to see a big budget movie on a big screen in a comfy recliner AND free popcorn?! That math maths.2 Once I learned about this deal I started checking what was playing again, which I hadn’t done for years.

There’s also been a change of attitude by the staff (at least at our local Marcus Majestic) that makes the entire experience more enjoyable. People bring blankets. They bring pillows. You can bring in drinks and snacks. (The sign on the door says you can’t, but the staff doesn’t care.) All this adds up to a more relaxed, enjoyable vibe that didn’t used to be a thing.

Oh, and the whole Value Tuesday thing had an (unintended) consequence of a LOT of people seeing movies on Tuesdays. This is actually great because a packed theater hits different than an empty one and the shared experience of everyone reacting to what’s on screen in real-time is not obtainable at home. So fun!

Here’s the four flicks I saw this Summer:

  1. Toy Story 5 (with my 3 youngest)
  2. Young Washington (with my 3 boys)
  3. The Odyssey (date night with Rach)
  4. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (with my 4 oldest)

If I had to rank them by likelihood of a re-watch,3 I’d go with 4, 2, 3, 1

Like I said at the top, I want to see more movies in the theater. What’s good?

  1. I refuse to call it “Dune” without the ordinal bit. I went to the theater to under the false assumption that I was going to watch an entire movie. It wasn’t until 2/3rds of the way through I realized there’s no way they’re finishing this story ↩︎

  2. As the “cool” kids started saying recently ↩︎

  3. This is just one of many ways to rank movies. I like it because it transcends genre ↩︎