Is this important, or not?

[proggrrl]

"Have you gone to an art house lately? Some screens are literally the size of the flat screens people have in their living rooms right now," Mr. Atkinson said, referring to the shrinking marketplace for independent films. "For those people who are searching for films made for adults, there's almost no reason to go to the theater anymore. It's reaching the point where there will be six big movies released a year, all made for a half-billion dollars, that everyone will see on a single day, and other than that, people will just stay home and watch Netflix. It's already happening."

Comments

Hmm...

[verdantpine.livejournal.com]

Strangely, the writer doesn't cover the fact that the entire newspaper/print industry is in crisis, just mentioning critics... layoffs are hitting lots of people in print.

Atkinson could be correct about the state of arthouse in NYC, but as for some other big cities... In Houston, some of the AMC 30s and Cinemark both play arthouse movies along with their regular selections. You've got Alamo Drafthouse Cinema that has special events, and the Angelika in the Theater district. So here, I think, the outlook is actually better.

I have been in a tiny art house theater before - Pleasant Street in Northampton, MA. I saw "The Sweet Hereafter" and a couple of other films in what I like to call their "shuttlecraft theater", as it's approximately the same size, only holds about 15 people. But generally speaking, arthouse and revival film thrives in college towns and large cities, and that's the audience that will want to pay a little more to see an indie in person, rather than just on DVD. I don't think the Silent Movie Theater or the art house films I've seen at AMC or Cinemark are going anywhere. And I think DVDs and on-demand films from IFC are actually getting indie film to an even broader audience - people in smaller towns and suburbs without arthouse cinema, or who can't afford steep ticket prices but can rent a movie for $1-4.