[ad_1]
- I saw “Shang-Chi” in an Alamo Drafthouse, my first cinema experience since fall 2019.
- I ate bottomless popcorn, felt the surround sound booming, and got lost in the movie for 2 hours.
- I am convinced that live movie releases will never live up to the cinema.
“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” has broken box office records since its debut on September 3.
And not just the records of the pandemic era. It was more successful than even some pre-pandemic films, making $ 90 million over the four-day Labor Day weekend.
The movie’s release proved several things: that the Marvel franchise is ridiculously powerful, that exclusive cinema windows can curb online piracy, and that people still want to see movies in theaters.
I am one of those people. At least if my excursion to see “Shang-Chi” last week is any indication.
I watched “Black Widow,” the awesome standalone Marvel character movie, a few weeks ago – in my sweatpants, on my couch, with my 40-inch TV via Disney +.
Being in a physical movie theater – where the hallways are lined with posters, the snack bar filled with bottomless popcorn, the surround sound and the larger aspect ratio of a gigantic movie screen – m ‘ has convinced the experience of the pandemic era of simultaneous double film releases may be practical, but it will never live up to the magical experience of the theater.
Theaters have been exhausted from being beaten since March 2020
The posters for the movie “Shang-Chi” were among those hung inside the Alamo Drafthouse.
Katie Canales / Insider
I went to an Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX to see the movie. Barely 5 months earlier, the channel had filed for bankruptcy (Chapter 11).
Most US theaters were closed from March to August 2020, and Alamo Drafthouse was forced to put some of its workforce on leave in March 2020.
The industry has battled a confluence of factors, ranging from local shutdown and safety protocols to what studios felt they had to do to survive: launch movies directly to streaming platforms.
“Mulan”, “Godzilla vs. Kong”, “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Cruella” are just a few of the movies released on sites like
HBO Max
and Disney +. Many of them thus became the most pirated films of the year.
But as vaccines are distributed, theaters have started to slowly open and revisit blockbuster weekends. Even Alamo Drafthouse sees benefits – he said in June that it plans to open five new locations in the United States.
A sign reading “Welcome to the Cinema” outside the Alamo Drafthouse.
Katie Canales / Insider
Studios are starting to pull back from direct streaming releases, like Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros., all of which have accepted exclusive theatrical release windows. There are still some reservations, like Universal, which is releasing “Halloween Kills” as a double on Peacock and in theaters next month.
But for the most part, the world of mainstream cinema is seeing signs of life.
There couldn’t have been a better movie than welcoming me back to the cinema
Simu Liu plays the role of Shang-Chi.
Marvel studios
I really liked “Black Widow” when I saw it in early July on Disney +.
But “Shang-Chi” blew it and so many of its Marvel predecessors out of the water – and I’m not sure if I could have felt the true extent of the film’s brilliance if I had paid the fees. $ 30 and watched it on Disney + at home.
I was also still living in San Francisco while filming “Shang-Chi”. So seeing the action-packed scene on the city’s bus system – the same line and street I took to get to work – was cathartic. The last time I went to the movies was in San Francisco, after all.
There will certainly be lasting symptoms of streaming releases in the era of the pandemic, such as the number of people who have become accustomed to enjoying new media at home as well as shortened theatrical release windows.
But despite all the speculation about the death of movie theaters, I’m convinced it couldn’t be further from the truth.
[ad_2]
Source link