GUEST COLUMN: Use patience when it comes to watching first-time movies
“Critics say this is the best action movie of the summer.” “This is Katherine Heigl’s best movie.” “The New York Times gives this movie four stars.”
These are what movie previews say about movies to persuade potential customers to purchase tickets to their sub-par movies. Movies that can cost anywhere between $5 and $11 at the movie theater.
These movies can be rented for as low as $2 for one night and watched on Netflix for almost $8 per month with a little patience. With even more patience, you can see these same movies on FX or TBS for free. So why is everybody wasting their money at the movie theater? In the old days, there were original movies to this day are classic hits, such as “Forrest Gump”, “Titanic” or “Field of Dreams,” which sold a lot of tickets and became popular.
These days, movies rely on how awesome the preview makes the movie look to sell their tickets. It makes sense the movie producers would focus on the previews rather than how good the movies are. What do they care if you buy their tickets and walk out of the theater before the movie starts? You already gave them the money.
What makes the movie producers laugh even harder at us gullible ticket buyers is how willing we are to pay to see movies we already own. “Titanic 3D” raised $53,992,038 as of April 5, after being on the big screen for 21 days with a slightly more three-dimensional vision and a different star alignment. “The Phantom Menace”, a film most would agree is a terrible movie, raised more than $43,408,772 after being re-released in February.
Ridiculous.
The blame should not lay just on the previews manipulating the consumers. A lot of people will go see a movie just because they’re part of an actor/actress fan base, like with Jonah Hill or Megan Fox. These actors and actresses were such a hit in one or two movies that everybody thinks they will be as funny or sexy in every movie they sign a contract for.
Popular book series, such as “Harry Potter,” “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” rely on their book fan base and other people jumping on the band wagon for their ticket sales. Those behind the movies can’t be blamed since they are simply trying to do their jobs in an industry with high demand. The movie watchers willing to pay too much to watch something they think might be good so they are not left out of the conversation about the movie the next day are to blame.
Dates are not an excuse to go to the movie theaters because of the two hours of no communication with each other.
Feel free to watch any movie you want, but do it for the price that movie is worth.
