To think cinemas will soon become obsolete?

[Keyansier]

Reasons why:

1. Home media systems are getting bigger and better as each year passes.
2. Society is getting more inconsiderate as each year passes and people think nothing of yakking all the way through a film or playing on their phone/kids playing on their ipads.
3. Films are available through home streaming 1 or 2 months after a cinema release these days, not like before when it would take over a year until a video/DVD release.
4. The cost, which isn't worth points 2 and 3.
5. The after effects of covid and lockdown and films being released on home media only - people realising they don't actually miss the cinema at all.

No but it's bloody annoying having to sit near someone slurping and chewing and crunching throughout the film.

I’ve literally never encountered this - people aren’t snacking on nachos for 2 hours straight. Even if they were, the sound of the film is loud enough to drown it out. You must have superhuman hearing!

I've encountered it! I thought they would eventually stop eating but they didn't! They also went out three times to buy more food.

It’s the smell though!! You might not be able to hear it, but the stink of cheap meat and onions makes me gag!!

I think it’s just part of the mumsnet terror of normal eating habits. I’m still waiting for the poster who said nachos and hot dogs are grim and disgusting to come back and explain if she ever goes to any restaurants, cafes, places that sell street food. How on earth would you cope with life if triangle shaped crisps with some cheese sauce on them makes you want to projectile vomit all over screen 6 in the middle of a Matt Damon film.

Same with the HUGE buckets of popcorn and MASSIVE troughs of Coca Cola that people ‘guzzle’ and ‘slurp’ and ‘gorge’ on. In the real world we all just watch the film and maybe have a drink and popcorn or sweets.

Plus it’s so unlikely that people are eating all these foods the whole way through. I worked in cinemas and they weren’t great sellers to that extent.

I mean if you are going to worry about cinema food I’d worry more about the facts that the hotdogs sit over that vat of hot water for hours. We just used to poke them with a thermometer to make sure they stayed the right temperature. Same with the nacho cheese sauce. Came in a big rubber block that we melted in the microwave then kept in a box. After a few hours in the metal box, I used to like peeling the skin off the top of it when I checked the temperature.

I used to love going to the cinema but with mobile phones, food and people chatting I haven’t been for years. Plus the air con it’s too bloody cold.

@Kanaloa Euggh.. how anyone eats this crap is beyond me!

Some people are so odd. Wishing businesses to fold just because you don't personally use them...

Same with the HUGE buckets of popcorn and MASSIVE troughs of Coca Cola that people ‘guzzle’ and ‘slurp’ and ‘gorge’ on. In the real world we all just watch the film and maybe have a drink and popcorn or sweets.

Indeed @Kanaloa
I generally get though most of the popcorn and guzzle the majority of my Coke up before the trailers have finished - as I think many unintentionally do! Queue needing to go to the toilet 30 minutes in.

We used to go pretty much every week in the glory days of orange Wednesday! With Covid and the arrival of a small child I don't think I've been to the cinema at all since 2019.

Biggest gripe for me is the times of the film's - 6pm start means there's barely any time to eat beforehand and then most restaurants here are not seating by the time the film has finished at 9ish. Go at 9pm and it's 11.30/11.45pm by the time is finished and it's after midnight before I get home. I remember seeing one of the batman films and missing the last train home because it went on for so long with all the trailers and adverts at the start.

@Westendbuoys good point about the timings. In a misguided effort to get more people in they have an early and late showing, rather than the 7.30 pm start that most people actually want.

Another issue I have is many films are routinely over 2 hrs these days. I really fancied seeing the Elvis movie, but an 8.30 start time ( with 20 mins of trailers and ads before the film even starts) coupled with an almost 3 hr running time meant I didn't bother.

Honestly, a lot of people who don't really like watching films get taken in by advertising and go to the cinema and they sit their bored eating crap and looking at their phone. But if these people didn't go to the cinema, there wouldn't be any cinemas as that's a large part of their clientele, especially for the blockbusters which basically keep the cinemas in business. So it's a quandary.

Nor have I, although I once sat a couple of seats away from a man who had brought a massive Burger King carryout into a fairly empty festival screening. It was smelly but at least it was quiet, and he was done with it in ten minutes or so.

I notice the usual revolting tabloidesque euphemisms for people eating and drinking have put in an appearance. That took longer than I thought it would.

I think so too.

There will still be cinemas, but not in every medium sized town like there is now. With the dominance of streaming and the general reluctance to pay extra to see a film, cinemas will be restricted to blockbusters like the latest James Bond, or 'arty' films which you can't find on Netflix or Prime. That won't be enough to sustain anything like the number of cinemas that you can find now.