When’s the last time you went to the cinema to see the latest and greatest movie releases? It’s been a while for me too! Going to the cinema is just too expensive, inconvenient, and if the movie’s coming to my home shortly after its theatrical run, what’s the point?
Well, I have actually been going to the cinema more often than before in recent months, but it has nothing to do with new movies. Instead, I’ve been walking those sticky floors to see old movies again.
Cinemas Might Be Dying
Cinema attendance (as reported in the LA Times) is looking pretty bleak. In the age of the streaming service, with the death of the physical rental business, and with physical media on life support, cinemas have been on notice for some time.
The money to make movies are now in the hands of big streaming companies like Netflix and Amazon. Unless these content producers care about being technically eligible for awards like the Oscars, they don’t have much incentive to send their films onto the cinema circuit. The goal is to grow subscriber bases, and the strategy is exclusive content.
So theaters get fewer films, farther between, and those films are becoming available for rent or streaming sooner and sooner after their theatrical runs. Notably, DC’s 2025 Superman film was barely in theaters for a month before you could rent it to watch at home. It’s an extreme example, but it does show that cinemas can’t bargain on a decent buffer between their shot at making money and that money going to streaming platforms.
Superman
- Release Date
-
July 11, 2025
- Runtime
-
130 minutes
- Director
-
James Gunn
- Cast
-
David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, María Gabriela de Faría, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, Mikaela Hoover, Zlatko Burić, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell, Christopher McDonald, Wendell Pierce, Alan Tudyk, Beck Bennett, Bradley Cooper, Angela Sarafyan, Pom Klementieff, Michael Rooker, Tatiana Piper, Stephen Blackehart, Giovannie Cruz
- Writers
-
James Gunn
- Producers
-
Peter Safran
- Franchise(s)
-
DCU
- Main Genre
-
Action
- Distributor(s)
-
Warner Bros. Pictures
- Executive Producer(s)
-
Lars P. Winther, Nik Korda
A cinema is a business with daily operating costs and razor-thin margins. With no butts in seats, and no movies to show, how long can they last? It means they need to get creative, and one way to do that is by having throwback screenings.
My Local Cinema Hosts “Throwback” Screenings of Classic Movies
While I’m sure many of you have local cinemas that have been doing this for decades, the theater at my local mall has for some time now dedicated one of its venues to only showing ‘throwback” movies.
So far I’ve seen the original The Terminator, Gremlins, and Back to the Future using this opportunity. One neat thing they use this for is putting the earlier movies for an upcoming sequel back into circulation, so you can see the earlier films in the same cinema you’re going to watch the latest movie. It’s a pretty smart idea!
The Terminator
- Release Date
-
October 26, 1984
- Cast
-
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Rick Rossovich, Bess Motta, Earl Boen, Dick Miller, Shawn Schepps, Franco Columbu, Bill Paxton, Brad Rearden, Brian Thompson, William Wisher, Tom Oberhaus, Joe Farago, Hettie Lynne Hurtes, Philip Gordon, Stan Yale, Al Kahn, Leslie Morris, Hugh Farrington
- Runtime
-
108 minutes
- Director
-
James Cameron
- Writers
-
James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, William Wisher
- Producers
-
Gale Anne Hurd, John Daly
- Main Genre
-
Thriller
The Tickets Are Cheap
One of the reasons I don’t go to the movies often is that it’s just too darn expensive. I guess it’s not that bad if you’re going by yourself (if a little sad), but if you have family and friends who want to watch it with you, the total cost can quickly become ridiculous. It’s much cheaper just to rent a digital copy at the first opportunity, and enjoy the movie at home. Especially if you have a nice setup.
However, these throwback tickets go for about $3 apiece where I live. Sure, the popcorn is still the same price, but that’s a big reduction in price for a cinema experience.
I Missed So Many Movie Cinema Runs
One reason I’m so taken with this whole idea is that I missed out on seeing so many movies I love in cinema. Mostly because I was too young to see them. Seeing The Terminator in theaters would have been impossible, because I did not yet exist when it came out. So my only other alternative would have been a time machine.
The prospect of seeing Alien, or 2001: A Space Odyssey in theaters is very appealing, even though I own high-qualiy copies of those movies and have seen them both many times. Now, it’s not entirely authentic, of course. They’re not running film projectors and the original prints of these movies or anything.
When I want to see The Terminator it was pretty much the same director’s cut version I own on Blu-ray, but now I’m just nitpicking, and actuallly that might be the best of both worlds when you think about it.
I’m Watching Old Movies When Out and New Movies at Home—Go Figure
It feels pretty ironic that I feel so little incentive to watch the latest movie releases in a cinema, but put something like The Neverending Story back in theaters, and I’m first in line. Sure, pricing is one factor, but I think there’s more to it.
Avatar: The Way of Water
- Release Date
-
December 16, 2022
- Cast
-
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Britain Dalton, Jamie Flatters, Trinity Bliss, Jack Champion, Brendan Cowell, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans Jr., Dileep Rao, Matt Gerald, Robert Okumu, Jennifer Stafford, Keston John, Kevin Dorman
- Runtime
-
192 minutes
- Director
-
James Cameron
- Writers
-
Amanda Silver, James Cameron, Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Shane Salerno
- Producers
-
Jon Landau
- Prequel(s)
-
Avatar
- Sequel(s)
-
Avatar: Fire and Ash
- Franchise(s)
-
Avatar
- Main Genre
-
Adventure
- Budget
-
$350 Million
- Studio(s)
-
20th Century
- Distributor(s)
-
20th Century
- Executive Producer(s)
-
David Valdes
Somehow, I feel like many of these older films are just more cinematic for lack of a better word. They feel like they should be seen on a big screen in a dim theater. Those sorts of movies are few and far betwee in the modern movie world. The last two films I considered “must-see” in cinema were Dune: Part II and Avatar: The Way of Water.
Everything else can wait for my small OLED TV at home.
