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Going to the Movies: Still the Best Value Around

April 22, 2023
Notes
Transcript

This week I’m rejoined by David Herrin of The Quorum—a must-visit site for any amateur or professional box office nerd—to talk about a new study The Quorum put together in partnership with The Cinema Foundation about the value proposition of going to the movies. We talked all sorts of stuff on this episode: why audiences are three times more excited to return to theaters now than they were at the same time last year; how going to the movies stacks up against going to concerts and other out-of-the-home events; the percentage of consumers who get concessions; and why Barbie’s surprisingly high unaided awareness might still be a cause for concern.

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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:00

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  • Speaker 1
    0:00:27

    The new smoothie bowls menu. Only at smoothie king. Welcome back to the Bulwark to Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch from Culture Editor at The Bulwark. And I’m very pleased to be rejoined today by David Herron, who is the founder of the Quorum.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:45

    It’s an incredibly useful website for, you know, amateur and professional movie watchers alike to figure out what is going on in the world of box office tracking, a very it’s a it’s a as I was just saying today, but it’s a unique and useful resource, a rare thing. In my world. David, thank you for being back on the show. I really appreciate it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:06

    Oh, thank you, Sally. I appreciate being back. It’s great to be here.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:09

    So reason I have you on the show today is because there’s a new study out that was co authored by by you guys at Quorum and the Cinema Foundation. Which is a a project of the National Association of theater of theater owners, NATO, the other NATO, as I like to call it, And there it’s got lot we got lots of interesting data on this, but I wanna jump all the way to the end. Of the the the PDF that you guys attached to this thing because the the last slide on on this was the most interesting to me. In it, it says that the of the theater growers who are surveyed, forty two percent say that they have become more interested and excited about going to the movies in recent months. And that’s three times high three times higher than the responses to the same question from last year.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:59

    You track this stuff all the time. I mean, this is again what you guys do at the quorum. What have you what has changed for these movie goers? What have you seen change over the the last year or so? Well,
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:10

    by the way, I love the statistic. I mean, anybody who’s a fan of theatrical loves the statistic. The biggest change that we’re seeing is that a lot of this supply chain issues that really stymied the box office in twenty twenty two have gone away. And what I mean by that is Last year, there were very large pockets across the calendar, the release calendar, whether simply weren’t any movies. And a lot of that had to do with the fact that, you know, pandemic caused delays, that caused production delays, which caused films to get pushed, and there simply wasn’t enough content.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:42

    And, you know, it’s really hard for an industry to recover, especially when it’s a content based, when it just isn’t enough stuff for people to see. So that’s beginning. Those are sort of those supply chain issues are sort of working themselves out. And we can just see that right now in the fact that each weekend, we’re getting two, three, four new movies each week. This weekend, we’ve got four.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:03

    We’re seeing a wider variety of movies. We’re seeing a wider variety of movies succeed at the box office. And so, you know, if you give them content, they’ll show up. So I think that’s really the that’s really the biggest change that we’ve seen. But on top of that, going to the movies has a certain muscle memory to it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:20

    Right? So people who are sitting on the sidelines over the past two years for whatever reasons because they were nervous about going where they forgot about it. They go back to the theaters for the first time, they tend to kind of remember what it is that they love about it. Right? And then that just sort of builds on itself and then people feel more comfortable about going back.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:36

    So I think we’re beginning to see all of those things come together and create the sense that, yeah, I’m more interested. I’m more excited. And that’s wonderful for theatrical. Howard Bauchner:
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:47

    I one thing that I I hear from lots of people. I’ve mentioned this on the show before, but one thing I hear from lots of folks in the world the actual exhibition is that, you know, when folks went back for top down Maverick, that is kind of what sparked a lot of interest in going back to the theaters. You know, they saw the trailer for Elvis. We’re like, oh, yeah. I I that looks fun.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:06

    I I’ll go see Elvis. Is did we did you do you think there was some similar effect with Avatar the way of water, which is, I mean, a huge, huge box of tits. Obviously, you know, we can debate to the cultural impact of Avatar until the cows come home. But, like, the the sub fact of the matter is tons of people want to go see it. And I wonder if that has kind of sparked some of that return in the same way that Top Gun Maverick did.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:30

    You
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:30

    know, it’s all it’s all cumulative. Right? It’s all but but to me, the movies the movies that I look at that being most impactful in terms of changing behaviors are movies like where the crowd dancing. Because that’s a movie that really targets an audience that was most reluctant to come back to theaters. And so when we get, you know, study after study has shown that women over thirty five have been the most reluctant.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:54

    They’re the ones who’ve been sitting on the sidelines the longest. And so when I see a movie like Croda Dead succeed, that’s the that’s what gets me really, really excited. When we see a movie like Super Mario, what’s happening with Super Mario is so unbelievable that that, to me, is even more exciting than what happened with Atopic. Because Super Mario Bros. Is certainly a known IP, but it’s not a sequel.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:18

    Right? It doesn’t have that same level built in audience. We’re very clearly getting repeat viewership for this movie. And we’re getting a a wide swath of of viewers going to see the smooth. That’s the stuff that I love to see.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:30

    Like, avatar you would expect it to do what it’s doing. And and, yes, it’s great. See, there’s this there’s this again, there’s a sort of cumulative effect. Right? Because when you go see a movie like Avatar, get millions and millions of people seeing it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:43

    You’re seeing the trailers for the movies that are coming out three months down the road, so it does build on itself. But I’m always really looking at those movies that are kind of attracting sort of a marginalized audience and and succeeding. And those are the ones that make me the happiest.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:57

    I I will say as a a family man with kids, who enjoys going to the movies, I have felt exceptionally marginalized this this last six months or so. I mean, the the last movie I could take my kids to was Pusen Boots. That was that came out four months ago. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:13

    What did what happened? Did you take them to Super Mario? I took yeah. I did. I did.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:17

    We went to we went to Super Mario Brothers this week. During during the week, and it was a day, the fun time. Everybody everybody had a good time. Kids love kids love going there eating the popcorn. You know, haven’t haven’t fun with movies.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:28

    So I
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:30

    think the the last area of of the box office that we really wanna watch to see recover is and of the high end independent films. Right? Because they really they really struggled theatrically towards the end of the year and, you know, movies like Tara and the Fableman’s And, you know, a twenty four has really been the only studio that’s kind of figured it out. But they have this movie, but was afraid, which did enormous, enormous numbers in four screens last weekend, and it’s opening wider this weekend. So, you know, it’ll be interesting to see if sort of a a an an an an mature audience that looks for these types of movies is gonna show up because they’ve been kind of the last ones.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:04

    Yeah. That’s for sure. I so let’s I I do wanna talk about the quorum just a little bit here because it is as I said, great it’s a it’s a great resource if you are trying to figure out what people are actually looking to see. It’s a it’s a good way to get out of my own bubble. That’s really how I look at this because, you know, I I exist on Twitter.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:23

    I’m a creature of Twitter. I’m constantly there. So, like, I and I and I go see all my movies at the Alamo Drafthouse, which creates two very distinct bubbles. I get I get a very distinct set of trailers and I get a very distinct form of the conversation. So it’s kind of nice to I like, for instance, Bo was afraid, I went and looked up the numbers on that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:41

    And I was a little bit surprised to see that they were lower than I thought they would be. But I am also curious to see how it plays with audiences now that there are some there are some buzz about it and some numbers out there. What have you seen in terms of awareness of movies and desire to go see movies over the last quarter or six months or so?
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:02

    I think the biggest difference that we’re seeing is a wider variety of movies getting higher levels of awareness and interest. Right? So last year, you know, we we saw that it was mostly the tentpoles and mostly, you know, the Marvel and the DC movies that were scoring really well on on on the quorum. By the way, just sort of, like, to to to take a beat here. You know, basically, what the quorum does is we go out and we pull, you know, a few thousand people each week and we ask them series of questions.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:31

    But the two big questions are, what upcoming movies are you aware of and what upcoming movies are you interested in? And and and those two metrics in combination kind of really feel the health of the movies, marketing campaign, and whether or not this really resonating with this core audience. And and the biggest difference that we’re seeing now is really just, again, that variety. Right? So there was period in February and March when we were the the the tracking on the quorum showed movies like John Wick and creed and scream and and super mario brothers.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:03

    And not a single one of them had a superhero in them. A single one of them were from Marvel and from DC. And that’s really, really encouraging. So that’s been the biggest changes that people are beginning to sort of tap into these movies that kind of live outside the two hundred billion dollar budget range. Howard Bauchner:
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:21

    One more nuts and bolts question just since you since you bring it up. In in the polling, when you were asking for awareness, are you asking for people are you asking unaided unaided awareness? Right? Are you are you saying, what are some movies you know are coming out soon? And ask them to listen or do you give them a list of movies and say, which are you aware of?
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:40

    Well,
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:41

    we do both. But what you see on the website is is not unaided. It’s it’s aided. So we we we give them a love line and we give them some Bulwark. In most cases, it’s a poster.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:53

    And so, you know, the unaided awareness is a is a highly predictive metric but the numbers are incredibly small. So for example, in our fielding last week, Guardians of the Galaxy, a big movie that’s opening in a few weeks, had in unaided awareness of five percent, meaning that only five percent of the people that we Bulwark could mention the fact that there was this movie called Guardians of the Galaxy that was coming out. And and most of the movies had zero. So so that’s that’s why we really roll on the website, we put put total awareness on there because it’s a little more you can kind of see that the divisions between the movies a little bit more. It’s not super interesting if if seventy percent of the movies on the website have got a score of zero.
  • Speaker 2
    0:10:33

    Yeah. Well, that’s and
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:34

    that’s hard and it’s also not really how people decide to go see the movies. Right? I mean, people look at Showtime. Right? They look at a they look at a box office marquee or they look at the Fandango webpage and they’re like, is what I wanna see.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:47

    This is what I wanna see.
  • Speaker 2
    0:10:48

    Yeah. That’s true. Although, you know, unaided is a really interesting metric because there’s a theory that if you can you can mention a movie off the top of your head without being prompted, chances are you probably wanna go see it. So when we look at unaided, you know,
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:04

    a
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:04

    lot of the movies that are opening over the next six or seven weeks may have two zero one aided, but then you can look at a movie like Waltha, which is coming out of Christmas time. She’s got, like, one or two percent unaided or even RV, which is opening in July, June or July, that has four percent unaided. And what that tells you is that these long lead campaigns are already beginning to register and work a little bit. So to see, like, little green shoots of of unmade awareness for movies that are several weeks or even months out is very, very encouraging.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:34

    So this once again, this is just more proof that the the Barbie movie coming out July twenty first opposite of Oppenheimer is
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:43

    going to
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:43

    be very very disappointing possibly for people who are big Nolan heads. Out there just that there’s it’s gonna be tough.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:51

    Well, I can talk a lot. So Barbie is a really interesting one because we see very high awareness the interest numbers are actually quite low on the movie. And, you know, when we look at awareness and we and we look at interest, we want them to kind of be in balance. Right? We want people to be both aware of it and also be interested.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:06

    And if there’s an imbalance, there can be a problem. So if you’ve got, let’s say, you’ve got low awareness and high interest, that’s not a bad situation to be. And that means that not a lot of people know about the movie, but the people who do know about it want to see it. That’s great. You can always build awareness by sort of spending money down the road.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:23

    If you’ve got high awareness and low interest, that means a lot of people know about it, but they don’t necessarily want to see it. And that’s the position that Barbie is in Now, to be fair, you know, the Barbie campaign really picked up, started sort of in earnest about a week ago, about ten days ago. And we’re it it takes about ten days or so or about two weeks to really measure the full impact of big campaign shift like that. So we’re we’re still very closely watching Barbie to see if those interest numbers start to rise. And we’re beginning to see a little bit of a clive in interest we won’t really do the full impact of that for the next week, but did not start off at a great position.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:01

    Interesting. That is interesting.
  • Speaker 1
    0:13:02

    Alright. So let’s let’s shift back to this new poll. It’s tons of really interesting little data nuggets. We’ve got lots of stuff about value propositions and all that. But why don’t you why don’t you tell us what from your perspective, the top line figures are here on on what you guys found and what audiences are looking for?
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:24

    Sure. So, you know, so this this study kinda started the way, as you said, this was commissioned by the Simba Foundation. And this study really started with this idea of can we show using data that the value proposition of going into the movies is greater than other out of home entertainments. And, you know, I think that over the years, theatrical has been kind of attacked and wrongly so for being expensive. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:50

    That ticket prices go up and and premium format tickets are more expensive and concession prices go up. And the pushback has always been, well, it is really the most affordable source of out out of home entertainment. And we wanted to see if if the general public kind of felt the same way. So we we looked at at movie going to a movie theater versus four other kind of out of home entertainment. So those are, like, going to a music concert, going to see a live theater like Broadway, a sporting event going to an amusement park or water park.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:19

    And what we found is that Audiences kind of feel the same way that theatrical feels, which is, yes, they do understand that going to a movie cost less. Right? In most cases, we ask people how much they would expect to pay just for one person, not for a family, just for an individual to go to a movie versus those other four types of events. And most people said that they expected to spend somewhere between ten dollars and thirty dollars. Most of them were in the ten dollars to twenty dollars range for movie ticket ticketwares all of those other things they expected to spend more than sixty dollars.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:49

    So right there that tells us, okay, that the the moviegoing people understand that not even the moviegoing people, the general public knows, understands that movies are really very affordable. But affordability doesn’t translate into value. Right? So the second step of this is to okay. Now we understand that people see that Toy Story is affordable, but doesn’t provide greater value than those other forms of entertainment.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:14

    And again, the results showed yes, that we saw this in a number of different ways. We saw it in force choice, meaning if you can only do one thing your money, what would you do if people chose going to the movie? Which of these events provides the greatest value people sit going to the movie? And so so that’s that’s kind of at the macro level. At the macro level, we see that the value is there.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:37

    The micro level when we drilled down, the second part of the study took a look at what is it about the movie going experience itself that provides the greatest value? And that’s where things get really, really, very, very interesting. And we looked at things like, you know, concessions, and we looked at premium large format. And we looked at sort of price sensitivity, and we looked at things like do go see movie, you know, only on the weekends at night when the orders are full, or do you take advantage of discount Tuesdays? And what we saw there is that It’s really going to the theater is not really one size fits all proposition for people.
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:13

    That there are some people who are gonna pay a lot of money and they’re gonna get all the concessions and they’re gonna they’re not gonna share those concessions and they’re gonna they’re gonna pay premium price to see it on a large format screen. You’ve got other people who are much more price sensitive, who are gonna buy concessions only if they can share it with a family member or friend. And they’re not gonna see premium large large format. And they’re gonna go met names, and they’re gonna go to, you know, those discount Tuesday showings, which is really wonderful because it kind of shows that a a wide swath of people can enjoy where we’re going at different price points. Well,
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:46

    I mean, is this is this polling data, the sort of proof that theater owners are looking for if they want to start I don’t know, variable pricing, price discrimination. I mean, is this is this proof that it it makes sense to to monkey a little bit with individual ticket prices or prices for individual movies or or not? Is that still something that is not really on on the table here?
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:16

    Well, so I you know, this is a topic that I love. I love this topic of variable pricing. Now, that’s a little bit outside the scope of this study. But there have been other studies that have been published in the form, has done its own studies about sort of dynamic pricing. And what they usually show is that consumers don’t really mind it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:34

    Right? So so there’s there’s kind of variable pricing along three fronts. There is the variable pricing where you walk into a theater and there are two movies playing at nine o’clock and one of them is eight dollars and one of them is twelve. Dollars And then you’ve got variable pricing within an individual theater, which is kind of what the AMC model — Mhmm. — the site line pricing where, you know, the front is less expensive.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:54

    The back is less expensive. In the middle seats or more. And then you’ve got the third form, which is what Paramount did with AD for Brady, where they kind of work with exhibition to make sure that all the ticket prices are the same as matinee prices in the evening. And I think some of them are more successful than others. So, you know, the Paramount The Paramount exercise with Haiti for Brady was enormously successful.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:19

    You know, if you remember it opened again night shyam wants movie, not cabin and everyone expected not to the cabin to really win the weekend by a by a wide margin and turned out that eighty three day actually sold more tickets opening weekend. Than not at the cabin. Not at the cabin gross more because the ticket prices were higher. But eighty for rating Bulwark because eighty brick for Brady appeal to an older audience that does not rush out to theaters. It’s an older audience that relies very much on word-of-mouth.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:45

    It’s an older audience, which is price sensitive. So if you can get that audience to come in at a discounted price and then have them evangelize the movie for you to all of other other friends, they will then come in, in the subsequent weeks, when the prices are at the normal higher rate. That’s an experiment that works. The The sight line pricing, I think, is to be determined. And while studies show that consumers don’t necessarily mind paying more for a seat that’s in the middle of a theater.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:13

    I think
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:14

    there are a lot of unanswered questions about it like how you would force it. And what happens if row w is one price, and row v is another price, and somebody decides, oh, you know what I paid for the higher price, but I’m just gonna sit I paid for the lower price, I’m just gonna move up a row. Or, you know, again, if the theater is empty, if you just sort of move around into a different seat, those sort of questions are sort of unanswered at the moment. And and and that, you know, that remains to be seen.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:41

    Yeah. The I this is this is super interesting to me because I have barely strong feelings on the AMC plan, which I don’t I think is an interesting experiment, but put such a burden on the actual employees of the theaters that it is is I’m not sure that the squeeze is worth the juice to use a phrase, but we’ll see. And and it’s it is super interesting. I mean, the the the interest the experiment that I’ve been most interested to watch for personal reasons in addition to professional reasons is the Tuesday discounts, which seemed to have been a very big success at a number of different theaters. And I will say, just from experience, like, we’re on another podcast I do across the movie aisle, we’re doing a live show at a draft house on a Tuesday.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:26

    We’re we’re screening war games. We’re gonna tape an episode after. Take it to only seven dollars, and that it’s it’s already half sold out, two thirds sold out, a month out. And I I was very excited for this because I’m like, I can tell people to come see it, and it’s just seven dollars. It’s, you know, they’re not they’re not putting too much of their money on the line if it doesn’t work out.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:44

    But it it that feels like a thing that is working for theatres in general? Is it is or is it not? I mean, first
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:53

    of all, I’m so excited that you’re swinging war games. I wanna I wanna go see that two years since I’ve seen that movie. Love that movie.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:59

    It’s gonna be fun. I hope I hope people show up. Well,
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:03

    apparently that you are. That’s great that you’ve you’ve got so many tickets sold already. Yeah. So, you know, yes, people do take advantage of discount Tuesdays. Discount Tuesdays have been around for a long time.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:14

    And I don’t necessarily know if if the entire ongoing population is completely aware of the fact that it exists, but the people who don’t know that it exists take advantage of it. And And again, I think it’s it’s it’s it’s really very very smart of theatrical to do that because, again, it it really appeals to those people who are price sensitive and and and and can’t necessarily afford to go see a movie at, you know, twelve to eighteen dollars depending on where you live. You know, our study showed that, let me get you the exact number. I think it was thirteen percent of people say that that most of the time they buy a ticket on Tuesdays. That doesn’t mean every time that just means most of the time.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:57

    But our study also showed that a wider number of people, close to forty percent of people have dabbled in in Tuesday discounts, which is wonderful. And and and that’s that’s the kind of stuff that we wanna see. So, yeah, I think it does. I think that it does work. Having a wide range of ticket prices available.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:16

    And for something like board games, which is kind of the studio view of a revelatory theater, I think it makes a lot of sense to do it that way.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:23

    Yeah. This isn’t really addressed in the study. It comes up very briefly in a discussion about concessions. But I’m curious what the effect of rewards programs and subscription style programs have been on on attendance. I mean, if you if you have the data.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:40

    If you don’t, I’ll move on here. But if these are driving more people to the theater on a regular basis or what? Yeah,
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:47

    so it’s actually we do have that data. It was not part of the final study, but we looked at it in the study and we’ve also looked at it in studies before. That, you know, people do take advantage of rewards programs. Rewards programs for them, you know, in most cases, well, they they offer a lot of things. But one of the things that they definitely offer is free refills.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:07

    Right? So if you would get proper when you finish your drinking, good refill. And what the study found is that a lot of people really take advantage of that. But the other thing that we also sound is very It’s very sort of binary, right? We also see a lot of people who are not taking advantage of rewards programs at all.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:21

    And so what we have continually said through the quorum is that the cedar chains really have an opportunity to bring more of these people who are price sensitive into the theater by being a little bit more aggressive in their marketing of these rewards programs. Because we see that people are taking advantage of them when they’re aware of. Problem is that not everybody is aware of. So that’s a real that’s a real growth opportunity for theaters is to continue to press on you know, letting people know that these programs exist because they’re great and people love them.
  • Speaker 1
    0:23:56

    One of one of the things that There there there it feels like there’s a contradiction here in the data and in just my lived experience talking to people going to theaters. One thing you hear a lot about is people people saying, well, going to movies is expensive. Right? Going to the movies is expensive. And I I, you know, I don’t But then at the same time, they’re always like, yes, I’m definitely going to see the new movie in IMAX.
  • Speaker 1
    0:24:19

    I’m definitely going to see it in Dolby three d which, you know, again, that’s like the most expensive way possible to see a movie. Now it I I will say, you know, from from my POB, totally worth it. I like seeing movies in IMAX. I like going to the the Dolby theaters. But it does feel like there is kind of a there’s there’s a weird contradiction in consumer response and consumer behavior.
  • Speaker 1
    0:24:40

    Is there is there not? Yes. Yes. And
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:42

    and and that’s something that we saw this day. So for example, we saw that thirty percent of people in our study said that price is a big factor in the decision to go. Now, this is just this this the statistic that I just quoted is among people who who are active theater goers. So a thirty percent say it’s a big factor, but they’re still going. But then you can also look at the statistic that we have in our study about, do you buy concessions?
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:06

    And we see that ninety six percent of the people we studied say that they buy concessions either every time or sometimes. So you’ve got thirty percent who would say the price is a factor and yet almost everybody’s buying concessions. So you you sort of like, well well, that doesn’t make sense. Right? There’s a disconnect there.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:24

    And I think what that sort of speaks to is, again, which parts of the film going of the film going journey do people place value on and people gripe about the price of Ron DeSantis, but they place enough value on it
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:35

    that they’re willing to pay those prices to to buy the food and the drinks. I the the number that was most surprising to me in this survey is the sixty percent of people who say they always buy concessions. Sixty percent who say they always buy concessions. And I I just find that fascinating. I Will Saletan from my again, for my own personal experience, you know, I used to go to the theaters before I moved to a place for the Draught House.
  • Speaker 1
    0:26:00

    I used to go to theaters all the time. Yep. Two, three times a week. Basically, same as I do now. And I never got concessions.
  • Speaker 1
    0:26:06

    Never I I I was a never concession person just because I like, I’ve, you know, not healthy, expensive. I was going to theaters a lot, whatever. But now that I now that I I have a draft house where the the popcorn comes right to your seat, it’s great and I get concessions every time. I’m curious if there’s been any If you guys see any change in behavior depending on the style of theater, the the theaters with the the dining in at the seats, through restaurant style dining, or or if there’s no if there’s no real change or difference?
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:38

    Well, you know, one of the things that we looked at in the study was these elevated food offerings, their restaurants style foods. And we saw that about half the people we pull have taken advantage of that, have kind of purchased things like hamburgers or salads or what have you. And then, you know, among those fifty percent of people who ordered it. We asked them whether or not they enjoyed it or they thought it was a good experience. And we saw that, you know, for the most part, people liked the food.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:04

    They felt that the food was good and almost all of them said that they would buy it again. So I think that that is really an area of focus for theatrical the theaters that are not doing it should maybe take a closer look at offering these things because, you know, the audiences do like them. But, you know, I think when it comes to the price of concessions, I think context is is super helpful. Right? So, like, if I go I’m in LA.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:30

    If I go out on and and get a cocktail at a bar, probably gonna pay sixteen dollars at the low end. Right? I might even pay twenty or twenty four dollars. And and that cocktail Will Saletan me, what, a half hour, forty five minutes. For twenty dollars or twenty four dollars a price of a cocktail, I could get, you know, two large popcorns and two sodas at a theater.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:50

    So, you know, when we think about the concessions people gripe about the price, but the truth is that given that the wide scope of entertainment offerings are the price of concessions and and it will be really that expensive relative to all of those other things. So, you know, it’s funny. I’m I’m surprised that you’re surprised by that number because every time I go to a movie, I see everybody go right to concessions.
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:17

    I don’t
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:17

    see a whole lot of people skipping the concession line. So I I was not entirely surprised by those those results.
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:23

    Yeah. I know. This is just me. My own, again, my own personal bubble lived experience slightly different than that. Alright.
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:30

    I that was that was pretty much everything I wanted to ask I I always like to close these interviews by asking if there’s anything I should have asked. What do you think folks should know about the state of theatrical, this survey, what’s going on with Quorum, anything?
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:43

    It may be too early. I I don’t know how sharp I am this, but I don’t know how sharp I was doing this, but I feel like we covered I feel like we cover it a lot. You know, I think the only thing that I would say is that the summer Bob’s office looks really stacked. And that’s a great thing. And so all of the things that we’re seeing in theatrical now, these sort of the the success of movies that kind of live outside of the tentpole space Imagine what it’s gonna look like this summer when the tent tentpole starts to return.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:13

    And so there’s there’s there’s a lot of reason to be enormously optimistic about the answer. It’s a wonderful time. It really feels like theatrical is back in a meaningful way. And you know we’ve got CinemaCon this week. So CinemaCon.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:25

    CinemaCon, it’s gonna be very exciting. You know? Everyone is looking forward to that. Well, David, thank you very much for being back on the show. I really appreciate it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:32

    Getting you getting you early on the the West Coast to to talk about this. So it’s But, no, we’re I thought I thought you were very sharp. I thought this is a very, very good and informative — Okay. — interview. Uh-huh.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:44

    Alright. No. It’s great. Alright. So thanks again, David.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:49

    The site is the just the quorum dot com. Go there. There’s again, if you were a a box office nerd, there is so much interesting data there to kind of look through and sift through and see what audiences are looking forward to and what might pop at the box office. So check it out. My name is Sunny Bunch.
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:08

    I’m culture editor at the Bulwark, and I will be back next week with another episode of the Bulwark goes to Hollywood. We’ll see you guys