My wife and I were thinking of seeing the movie “Darkest Hour” but it was not playing at an AMC theater. We are surrounded by AMC theaters only (Niles, Mt Prospect, Rosemont, and Schaumburg).
Never mind that I resent coughing up money to China to see a US film; but the Dalian Wanda Group bought the AMC Theatres in 2012. AMC was the nation’s second-largest theater group, for $2.6 billion, but the buyout created the world’s largest theater chain. Dalian later did an IPO with a minority amount of stock shares to cover debt spent on the purchase.
But all the AMC Theaters all had the same movies listed in the same order (not alphabetical) and the three movies released that weekend were not playing at any AMC theaters (Darkest Hour, Shape of Water and the Woody Allen film).
So in reality there is a monopoly in movie theaters in my corner of the world, as the competitors have at best only a token presence in the Chicago Metro marketplace.
So we did not go to the movies. This is happening more and more. With the costs increasing and the options limited to those few movies that the theaters are deeming to offer. Making me long for the times of old (before I was born) where the Studios owned the theaters and you knew where you could see what you wanted.
A couple years ago we saw over 20 movies in the theaters, but it has been decreasing output and more limited viewing options.
It will be interesting where this is all headed: Disney buying Fox, Netflix making more movies than the actual studios. Maybe China made a bad purchase? Oh wait, they sold shares to cover their buyout, so the IPO and after buyers have a potential bad deal. Or in other words the US public…