Kevin Smith thinks going to the movies is too expensive right now, what do you think?

I go to the movies a lot and where I live in California, buying a ticket to see a movie costs $17 to $22. When I take my family to the movies, we’re looking at about $140 when you include soda, popcorn, and candy. I have a monthly membership to AMC Theaters for weight relief, but yes, it’s expensive!

I’m not the only person who feels this way, though! Kevin Smith recently shared his thoughts on the film industry following a string of underperforming blockbusters like The flash, Transformers: Rise of the BeastsAND Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Smith believes that many people can’t afford to keep losing money in theaters. I know that for me, not only is the crazy inflation bad for me, but there is also a drop in income for some people. At least that’s what I’m experiencing personally. It sucks. I’ve had to make budget cuts to get things to work, and I can see other people in the same situation doing the same thing. One of those things that people might cut out is movies. Smith said:

“Bad movies will stay with us forever, like cancer, as if it weren’t: it’s not like movies have suddenly gotten worse. It’s different. Now audiences have been trained to love waiting. Number one, movies are too expensive. I’ll be honest; as an exhibitor, I will say this, because I’ve been to other cinemas and seen their prices… I think the price of the films is high, and I also think that… the shrinking cinema window it sure fucking hurts… home viewing has become preferable.Why would you want to go out when you can watch anything in our home, on a nice giant TV with pristine picture quality… Flash is out June 16th ?The Flash is streaming July 18…a movie that was only in theaters…You have an audience that says ‘Why should I bother dating?’…It has nothing to do with ugly movies or the awakened movies – it has everything to do with how people have been retrained to ingest movies during COVID and after COVID.”

Conditions are definitely different now and I know so many people I used to watch movies with all the time that they don’t go to the movies as much anymore. They are more than happy to wait to watch it on TV at home to save some money.

In 2013 filmmakers George Luke AND Steven Spielberg he predicted that this would be the future of cinema. They also predicted a few other things that came true. Lucas said at the time:

“You’ll end up with fewer theaters, bigger theaters with lots of nice stuff. Going to the movies will cost 50 dollars or 100 or 150 dollars, like what Broadway costs today, or a football game. And this will be what we call ‘the world of cinema’. But everything else will look more like cable television on TiVo.

“It won’t have cable or broadcast. It will be internet television.”

Spielberg said, “Eventually there will be a day and a date with the movies and ultimately there will be a price change. You will have to pay $25 to see the next one Iron man. And you’ll probably only have to pay $7 to see Lincoln.” Lucas chimed in to say, “I think ultimately the Lincolns are going away and will be on television”.

Now, here we are. It’s quite crazy to see all of this come true. What do you think of the current state of movie theaters?