Could a new type of movie theatre survive?

There is a fairly well known story about Alfred Hitchcock and the release of Psycho. With little studio support and his personal finances at stake, Hitchcock made a spectacle of the release by ordering theatre owners to close the doors when the film started and not allow late arrivals admittance. All for the buzz created around the film's shocking ending. People had, up until that point, been used to walking into films half way through. The film and the new structure was embraced and theatres have never looked back.

When cinema's dominance for people's attention was threatened by television in the 50s, the industry responded by pushing for widescreen technicolor cinemascope extravaganzas. It was an attempt to woo audiences back with the one major asset that television couldn't offer: big screens. Also colour, but television had that within a decade. The current trend of 3D has been seen as a similar move. Better television options with HBO and Netflix, bigger televisions, surround sound systems, and blu-ray interactive features have pushed the industry to go bigger and broader to keep the box office running.

I've read several articles in the last few months predicting the end of the current age of Hollywood. Some are predicting the collapse of the Superhero bubble while others predict the implosion of the entire system, or at least a chaotic paradigm shift. It would be foolish to say that the status quo will remain, but I'm not as confident in my predictions of the future as Spielberg and Lucas are, so I've been refraining from too much prognosticating.

Something that I would like to see is a new theatrical experience. Industry giants like Spielberg and Lucas predict the movie theatre will go the way of the classical theatre; higher ticket costs for a more elite form of entertainment. No longer for the masses, the movie theatre will be a blockbuster evening out on special occasions. That, to me, would be tragic.

But I have an idea. And I have hope for that idea. Currently the Cineplex theatres are offering semi-regular screenings of classic films. For two nights they play Some Like It Hot, The Shining, Lawrence of Arabia, or Alien on a big screen for $6. I've gone a few times now and there are never more than ten people in the audience, but the films have all been surprisingly improved by the theatrical experience. I jumped when Jack slammed his axe into the bathroom door. I cringed when John Hurt's chest burst open. And I recoiled from the screen when Norma Desmond reached out to me at the end of Sunset Boulevard.

What if a theatre were designed to operate like in the days before Psycho? It would have a lounge/cafe atmosphere in the lobby, quiet doors hidden around the corner so people in the theatre aren't disturbed by late arrivals, and an all-day stream of films, cartoons, news headlines, shorts, and even television series on a big screen. And the whole schedule would be available through an app on your phone, which could even remind you when something interesting is coming up.

You could pay a single admission, something comparable to a cheap ticket to any movie today, but you could stay in the theatre as long as you'd like. Come and go as you please. And if the experience was agreeable, perhaps you'd like to buy a one-month pass for $20? A full year for $60? Depending on the economics of licensing old films and operating a cafe, the subscriber prices could end up being a cheaper option than most cable packages.

Several revival theatres exist in NYC. But these places still operate on the one-ticket-one-movie format. I'd like to see a theatre that takes advantage of the new go-to entertainment option of binge-watching seasons of Mad Men or Breaking Bad. Give film students a place to have their shorts seen by real audiences on the big screen. Make a theatre that is free of the car commercials, cell phone commercials, and commercial blockbusters that have desecrated the sublime experience of sitting in a darkened theatre with strangers to watch a silver screen.

This is unlikely to happen, of course. It is the sort of thing that would only come about because of an eccentric millionaire deciding to take a risk. And it would only survive in a metropolitan location with lots of independent hipster-like film buffs to support it. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider alternative, retro businesses being able to survive in the modern world. As soon as CDs supplanted tapes and records, a new niche market of "purists" who prefer LPs popped up. As long as popular culture goes one way there will be stubborn people going the other. Should I one day find myself as an eccentric millionaire, I hope to join those stubborn people in my theatre.