Will We Ever Go To The Movies Again… And Does That Matter?

Call Me Back - with Dan Senor

Ark Media

Politics, Hamas, Society, News, War, Israel, News Commentary, October 7, Geopolitics, Palestine, Government

4.8 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2021

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

That phrase - going to the movies - that shared experience in a movie theater full of strangers already makes me nostalgic, like listening to vinyl records. Before the pandemic, the movie theater business was an 11-billion dollar industry in the US alone. In 2020, there were approximately 40,000 screens in 5,798 theaters that employed over 115,000 people. Then, of course, in March of 2020, like all communal entertainment experiences, they were all shut down. Netflix, Amazon and Disney, which were already increasing their market share of the movie experience, replaced movie theaters overnight. But as we crawl out of the pandemic to a post-corona world, will the tension build to return to the movies? Right now, we are seeing early signs of a market for the sanctity of the movie theater experience. To help us understand the history of the film business and where it goes from here, post-corona, John Podhoretz returns to our conversation. He’s been a prolific film critic for over four decades. John is editor in chief of Commentary Magazine and host of Commentary’s award-winning daily podcast, he’s a columnist for the New York Post, a book author, and was film critic for the Weekly Standard and television critic for the New York Post. Are movies as we’ve watched them for the past century — over? Were movie theaters already in decline and the pandemic simply accelerated the race to the inevitable? Or are we itching to get back out… to go to movies?

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are looking at something larger than life.
0:02.2	That is the part of the experience of the movies that is unduplicable
0:06.6	and that you're sitting there and you're looking at a screen that is 40 feet wide by 20 feet high.
0:11.6	And you are seeing things, you are experiencing something that is
0:14.8	larger than life the experience of television or looking at something on a
0:18.9	computer screen is that you are watching things that are smaller than life not
0:22.2	larger than life.
0:23.6	And what's going on now and has been hastened by COVID
0:27.7	in a way that it may be totally revolutionary
0:30.0	and change everything is that movies are being shrunk down to television size.
0:37.0	Welcome to post-Corona where we try to understand COVID-19's lasting impact on the economy, culture,'s an outing, a shared
1:00.6	experience, shared with a theater full of strangers.
1:04.0	It already makes me nostalgic, like listening to vinyl records.
1:08.0	But before the pandemic, the movie theater business was an $ billion dollar plus industry in the US alone. In
1:16.3	2020 there were approximately 40,000 screens in 5,798 theaters that employed over 115,000 people and US films found an even bigger
1:28.3	market in theaters globally. Then of course in March of last year, like all communal entertainment experiences, they were all shut down.
1:38.0	Netflix, Amazon and Disney, which were already increasing their market share of the movie experience,
1:44.1	replaced the movie theater overnight.
1:48.0	But as we crawl out of the pandemic to a post-corona world,
1:51.9	will the tension build to return to the movies? Right now
1:55.4	we're seeing early signs of a market for the sanctity of the movie theater
1:59.9	experience. So to help us understand the history of the film business and where it goes
	...

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