Why modern cinemas are failing to keep audiences happy

Cinemas shouldn’t exist. Like the dinosaurs, or vinyl, they should have gone extinct in the relentless face of technological advancement: videos (VHS and Betamax) allowed us to break free of the 8mm home movie tyranny, while DVDs were a godsend.

Blue Ray introduced us to a new frontier of high definition and then home theatres literally took Hollywood into our lounges with surround sound.

And yet, somehow, cinemas didn’t get the message. The pandemic, with its lockdown and the prospect of everyone breathing each other’s germs in a warm and dark insulated room should have been its death knell.

Tom Cruise is widely credited with preventing that through his slew of derring-do adventure flicks untainted by CGI that literally are better on the big screen.

His determination during Covid – and a masterful campaign of misinformation – scared other studios into not shuttering their sets and getting back to work during the industry’s greatest inflection point since the VCR.

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It also galvanised his own studio into completing work on the blockbuster Top Gun sequel which, in turn, led to the last two instalments of his Mission Impossible franchise, the last of which pays generous cinematic tribute to some of South Africa’s most breathtaking landscapes.

Cinemas, too, have done a bit to ward off the advance of time by partnering with corporates to take down the ever-spiralling cost of tickets, although not the price of popcorn, Coke and sweets, which continues to do as much for smuggling as Covid did for the illegal tobacco industry.

Where cinemas are missing a trick is in not taking a leaf from the past and having human beings doing the work that digitisation and algorithms do today.

At least one cinema chain has created the wheeze of getting you to pay extra for a reclining padded seat (fatal for anyone over 45 to stay awake for the duration) and mid-film service of victuals to your armrest.

A more practical halfway point might be employing people to check in on cinema patrons while the film is underway to make sure no-one is chatting on their phone, shooting a pirate version of it – or freezing/boiling because of the robotic programming of air-conditioning.

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In the end, all Cruise’s laudable efforts might be undone by just that – not the cost of tickets, but the very real risk of freezing to death in summer or melting into a pool of sweat in winter.