Movie Theaters Looking for a Change

Over the last few years, I have written several articles and blogs about home entertainment...TV's games, DVD's, movie rentals, games, CD's, DVR's and more. In all this discussion, we have not talked about the entertainment available at our local movie theaters. Of course, there is no reason we should have...at least until today.

With all the entertainment available to us in our homes, movie theater attendance is falling. Ticket sales at theater chains dropped 9 percent in 2005. Analysts blame this on a combination of lackluster films, competition from other forms of entertainment such as video games, and the spread of large-screen, high-definition televisions and digital video recorders.

To counteract this trend, exhibitors want to use new digital projection technology to change the way consumers think about movie theaters. In short, theaters want to show live sporting events and concerts in high definition on big the big movie screens. And it has already been done.

In 2004, during Boston Red Sox baseball fever (the year they won the World Series for the first time since 1918) National Amusements, a large entertainment conglomerate and the controlling shareholder in Viacom, began screening high-definition broadcasts of Red Sox games in its Showcase Cinemas in several New England cities on weekday nights. The cinemas actually brought in vendors to stroll the aisles with hot dogs, peanuts and beer, sold team gear in the lobbies and encouraged fans to loosen up as they would in the ball park. Apparently it was successful.

But now there is a new twist to this that can be achieved with the new equipment...sporting events and concerts in 3D! This would definitely be something that none of us can experience in our homes, which is what they are trying to achieve. Apparently 3D has made some big improvements in the last few years, although one still has to wear those special 3D glasses to get the full effect.

Michael Lewis, chairman of privately held REAL D, which created 3D prints for the Disney's "Chicken Little," said 3D technology has tested successfully on National Football League games, but unwinding who owns the rights to screen games in theaters may be tricky. "We think the concerts will be the first because they are easiest to do. Sometime in 2007, our goal is to get live sports programming to theaters."

This may be just the ticket for local theaters to survive in the coming years. Although if Hollywood would just be a little more creative and come up with some better films, that might just help also. After all, how many times do they have to remake King Kong because they can't think of anything else to do?