If you interact with the online film community at all, there is one topic that is constantly brought up these days. One thing that is feared amongst every movie fan. This is of course the sentiment:  “Movie theaters are dying.”

There are many reasons that this idea has been so talked about nowadays, but one thing that happened that really made me think about the future of movie theaters was when Furiosa:A Mad Max Saga came out over the summer. The Mad Max films have always been very mainstream and successful, from the first Mad Max film in 1979 to the glorious revival of the franchise in 2015 with one of the best action movies of all time, Mad Max: Fury Road, which even got Best Picture and Best Director nominations at the Oscars, while also winning six technical awards there too. Fury Road’s box office returns also doubled the budget of the film. So this year a prequel to Fury Road, Furiosa:A Mad Max Saga got released and it immediately got a large amount of critical praise, with some saying it was even better than Fury Road. It had two big stars at the forefront with Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth, who in theory should be big box office draws. Despite all that, Furiosa struggled to make its money back in the box office. Nobody was really talking about it outside of the film community either, despite all of the acclaim it had gotten and despite it being a Mad Max movie, a very well known mainstream franchise. In the end, Furiosa was able to slightly break even at the box office. I saw Furiosa over the summer in theaters, and there is something really sad about seeing a movie from a massive franchise like Mad Max in an empty theater, which is made even worse by how amazing of a film Furiosa was (Seriously, I think it’s easily one of the best movies of the year so far). That experience started to make me think;Are movie theaters dying?

There are many things you can point to that would explain the current lack of enthusiasm we are seeing in people to go out and see movies in theaters. 1.With streaming services being so popular now, many people just wait to watch movies on streaming in the comfort of their own home, especially movies that are directly made by Disney or Warner Bros, as audiences will just think “Oh I’ll just watch that when it goes on Disney+ or HBO Max”, and 2.I think the quality of modern blockbusters and mainstream movies has gone down a lot in recent history, leading to many saying things along the lines of “No good movies come out anymore”, which is an opinion I just completely disagree with. I think if you expand your horizons and watch smaller and less mainstream movies, you will find that many good movies still come out nowadays, but I do think the lack of quality when it comes to so many of the movies that appeal to general audiences definitely had an impact on audiences being excited to go out to a movie theater to watch a movie. I think it caused general audiences to be more skeptical of every blockbuster movie that comes out, especially sequels, prequels, and remakes, which seems like something that most likely contributed to Furiosa’s financial failings.

It’s important to note that there are many movies that are still doing very well in theaters. This summer, Deadpool and Wolverine became the highest-grossing R R-rated movie of all time and Inside Out 2 became the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. I think the reason that despite those two recent massive box office successes this year, so many members of the film community are acting like “movies are dying” is that the movies that are doing well are movie that film fans don’t like all that much. Like I loved both Inside Out 2 and Deadpool and Wolverine and think their success is very deserved, but the majority of the online film community did not. I believe that is where this sentiment is coming from overall. Something like Bad Boys:Ride or Die did amazing at the box office over the summer, quadrupling it’s budget in box office returns, but because it wasn’t as critically acclaimed and well-liked as something like  Furiosa or The Fall Guy that didn’t do as financially well as many people wanted it to, many tend to overlook the successes when making these grand statements about the future of movie theaters. They mostly only count the movies they like that do badly financially.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga had a large wide release. It was heavily marketed, and like I said, I saw it in an empty theater. Also over the summer, the indie psychological drama I Saw the TV Glow was released. I never saw a single piece of marketing for the movie. It had a limited release as many indie films tend to do. I had to go to a theater farther away from me than usual to be able to see it. My theater had around ten people in it, still a small amount, and honestly, it was more people than are usually in the theater when I have seen movies recently. That led me to think that if I Saw the TV Glow had more marketing, had a wider release, and was from a bigger studio, it could have done really well at the box office. I Saw the TV Glow is a beautifully haunting very personal film about queer identity and repression, and despite its sporadic release and lack of marketing, a lot of people still went out to see it. I think this shows how people are wanting to see more personal stories that they can relate to that show true aspects of life. There is something very special about how I Saw the TV Glow conveys its messaging and themes in a way that was able to connect with so many people, that to many it will always will be so much more impactful than any blockbuster film.

Yeah, so movie theaters aren’t dying. They definitely aren’t thriving like they once did and unfortunately, we’ve never lived in a world where every good movie gets its justice at the box office, but I don’t think we have anything to worry about when it comes to movie theaters in the near future.

And three more quick miscellaneous thoughts about movie theaters, 1. Can the studios please stop releasing so many movies all at once? I’m trying to make time to see Megalopolis, The Apprentice, and Saturday Night and I just know I’m gonna end up missing seeing one of those in theaters. 2. Stop putting movies on streaming so quickly. The Fall Guy went on streaming after only being in theaters for two weeks. Of course, it’s not gonna do that well at the box office. 3. Netflix, please start giving the films you distribute wider theatrical releases. I want to be able to see Emilia Perez and Maria on the big screen.

You may have read all that and thought that it was silly to get worked up over something like movies. That it doesn’t matter all that much, and I agree. There are a million things to be angry about in life, and I think it’s healthy to have something that’s fun, something that doesn’t really matter, for you to get angry at. To get upset about. To care way too much about. It’s why I care about stuff like the Oscars despite my numerous problems with them. It’s why so many of us act like movie theaters dying would be a life or death situation. My dad has football. I have movies.