Are home entertainment options killing the movie theater?

By Anna Majestro
Charleston Catholic High School

There are many ways of watching movies today besides the traditional route of going to the theater. You can rent movies, watch them on television, buy them or even have them shipped to your home. With the times changing, are people also changing?

Charleston Catholic sophomore Perry Cavander said she watches more movies at home than at the theater. “I only go to the theatres about five or six times a year — when I go with my friends.”

“We almost never rent movies at my house,” she added. “Instead, we buy them.”

With the hassle of going to the theater, buying an expensive ticket and then sitting through 10 minutes of commercials, who can blame her? And lets not forget that annoying group of kids that always seems to sit behind you, kicking your chair and throwing popcorn.

When you take that into account, it seems much easier to sit on your own couch in your pajamas, relaxing while watching a movie. But not everyone feels that way.

Sarah Patterson, another Charleston Catholic sophomore, said that the most common way for her to see a movie is at the theater. She says that she goes to the movies with her friends or relatives at least twice a month.

Patterson only occasionally buys movies and rents them even more rarely. Her family subscribes to HBO, so she watches free movies on it from time to time.

However, the consensus of the people interviewed for this article seemed to be that more people are watching movies at home and less at the theater. So what is taking the place of going out to the movies?

One thing may be newer services like Netflix, where you choose the movies you want to rent, and they are sent to you for a fixed rate. Once you watch a movie, you ship it back in a prepaid envelope and another selection from your list is sent to you.

Blockbuster has recently begun offering this service but with one difference. With Blockbuster, you can take a movie back to a Blockbuster store after you watch it, so you can get your next movie faster. Plus, the movies are shipped from Pittsburgh, so those of us here in West Virginia get our movies much faster than from Netflix.

And then there are the joys of TiVo and DVR. With these tools, you can record a movie that is on TV and watch it whenever you want and however often you want. You can also fast forward through commercials, making it a lot more enjoyable to watch.

All of this new technology has some people wondering if and how much longer movie theaters will be around. So hurry up and enjoy those kids kicking your theater seat while you still can.