Will Fear Kill the Movie Theater?

“We have to at least consider the possibility that many Americans, like me, will almost never see a movie in the theater again,” wrote Megan McArdle in The Washington Post on Monday. This has been a common sentiment in my circles over the last few months. Movie theaters — the actual act of moviegoing, of going to a movie — has never been in such existential peril. Streaming services and the dramatic improvement of the home-theater experience had already been putting the squeeze on theaters for a few years now, but the pandemic accelerated that trend, as it has with so much else. The general consensus is that the entire industry appears to be in a death spiral.

As someone who loves going to the movies as much as I love anything on this planet — I host a weekly movie podcast with my oldest friend Tim Grierson, a film critic with whom I’ve been having hours-long conversations about movies for more than 30 years — this is deeply saddening. We go to the movies not just as an act of escape but as a portal to another world, one where we can experience life outside of our own personal borders and limitations. Roger Ebert once wrote that “the movies are a machine that generates empathy.” They are a way to see through other humans’ eyes, a way to leave yourself for a couple of uninterrupted hours, a way to be someone else, somewhere else. The home experience, with the constant hum and temptation…