2025 Wide Release Prediction Game Thread
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 28, 2026 17:16
VIEWED: 30539
PAGE 53 of 53
I don't think it's really about the "comfort of your couch". It is for some people, for sure. I don't like going to movie theaters around me because people don't behave themselves very good out in public these days. I have zero interest ever going to see a movie on opening weekend when the theater is packed.
But I like going to the theater down where my brother lives, in a fairly large city that is otherwise mostly surrounded by rural areas. I've never seen more than 10 other people in there any night we've gone with my Dad, and they charge only $5 for the ticket, and $8 if you want a mid-sized pop and popcorn with it.
I think the biggest problem is just the cost of everything right now. The "kids" aren't out drinking at bars these days not because somehow this generation is making the right choices. It's just insanely expensive is all. Back when I went to the bar, I could get an MGD for $1, and a Heiniken for $1.50 at most places, even in Crook County. That was back when the minimum wage was only $5.25 per hour. But that was still close to five beers for the price of one hour worth of minimum wage work. Last time I was in a bar which was at my friend's 40th birthday about 4.5 years ago, they were asking $4 for a heiniken on a week night. (Not that I was drinking, but it had been so long since I was in a bar I was curious to see how much beer cost these days).
Tickets for a matinee in my old neighborhood are $15 if you're not a senior!!! That's just nuts. $20+ to see a show at night. Crazy.
Wages just haven't kept up with any of that. The national minimum wage hasn't been raised once since Obama made it $7.25 back in 2009. 17 YEARS AGO NOW.
So now you can only buy maybe two beers on one hour of minimum wage work, and you'd have to work nearly 3 hours to buy a movie ticket at night.
If we can get the economy back on track, people will go out and do things again. Covid got people into a lot of bad, asocial and anti-social behaviors. I kind of always behaved like that, so the shutdowns didn't bother me, but I saw how it effected people around me and how a lot of them have still never reverted back to the way that they used to be.
We're never going to lower the prices... at least in any way that I'm aware of that we could do it without it being really bad news for the economy. The only way we could is if you ever were able to talk billionaires into giving back, but we know how that works. Even if we got on board with it nationally and all the united states combined and we didn't just see them move to other more affordable states, they'd just pack their shit up and move out of the country.
But if we can get real, meaningful wage growth with the stuff that Trump is doing and catch up a little bit from all of that quality of life deterioration we've been losing ground on since at least when the dot.com bubble popped, I think people will go out to theaters again like they used to.
If not... tech at home is cheap. And I really believe that there are people on the tippy top that want to see things go that way. I couldn't believe when I was out the other day that I was seeing 65" 4K VISIO TVs for only $279, and 75" TVs for only $379. And those weren't even sales prices. That's just the freakin' price for a TV that size in 2026, despite the cost of nearly everything else from clothes to vacations always going up, up, up....
I hope we can turn it around one day. Don't matter if it's Trump or Bernie Sanders doing it.
But up until this point at least, all we get from either side is 6 months of bullshit and what always amounts to broken promises leading up to elections, only for them to fail us and leave us worse off than we were 4 years before.
If anybody actually did what they told us they were going to do, we wouldn't see the house and senate constantly flip-flop between parties every mid-term election.
You can keep
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Quote:$585. Per person. Did American citizens get $585 worth of benefits? Dividing the cost of ammo for Iran at $200 billion ($200,000,000,000) by the current U.S. population (approximately 342 million) results in roughly $585 per person. This calculation distributes the amount evenly among every resident, representing about $585 for each of the 342 million people. https://www.axios.com/2026/03/19/200-billion-iran-war-hegseth-penntago
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You can keep complaining about Trump everyday if you want. I'm just going to hope that he and the people working for him have a plan and that they're putting the dominoes in place like I've been predicting they are.
And I have no illusion that Trump and people he knows are going to benefit from it. I'm not stupid and I'm not a cultist. But so what? We've been watching everybody in government from the lowly local alderman to the President and their families and friends benefit for generations now, and they all end up screwing us over and making things worse for all of us. I have no problem with the Trump family making a bit of money if the quality of life goes up for everybody in some actual meaningful way at the same time.
I'm really going to try to stop arguing with either of you about anything and just ignore most of the noise right now. I just don't see any point in doing it anymore. I want what's best for all American Citizens.
We've got a lot of things that need to be fixed. But I think we can do it, or at least we could start doing it before our generation is dead and give the younger ones a better chance and at least a shred of hope that they can see their kids do better than they did. It's been a while since a generation has been able to watch their kids do better than them.
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
n
I know who got the benefits from the $200 billion spent on ammo: defense contractors.
$39 trillion. Did American citizens get $39 trillion worth of benefits? U.S. National debt passes $39 trillion three weeks into the Iran war, after jumping $2 trillion in seven months. The U.S. national debt hit $38 trillion five months ago — and $37 trillion two months before that. At the current growth rate, the debt will hit a staggering $40 trillion in national debt before this fall’s elections. Borrowing trillion after trillion at this rapid pace with no plan in place is the definition of unsustainable. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/united-states/us-national-debt-surg
es-past-39-trillion-just-weeks-into-war-in-iran/article_508b4241-1d7b-5d89-8388-ba1a3a844052.html
I know who got the benefits from the $39 trillion national debt: those who should have been paying taxes but did not.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:$585. Per person. Did American citizens get $585 worth of benefits?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You can keep complaining about Trump everyday if you want. I'm just going to hope that he and the people working for him have a plan and that they're putting the dominoes in place like I've been predicting they are.
And I have no illusion that Trump and people he knows are going to benefit from it. I'm not stupid and I'm not a cultist. But so what? We've been watching everybody in government from the lowly local alderman to the President and their families and friends benefit for generations now, and they all end up screwing us over and making things worse for all of us. I have no problem with the Trump family making a bit of money if the quality of life goes up for everybody in some actual meaningful way at the same time.
I'm really going to try to stop arguing with either of you about anything and just ignore most of the noise right now. I just don't see any point in doing it anymore. I want what's best for all American Citizens.
We've got a lot of things that need to be fixed. But I think we can do it, or at least we could start doing it before our generation is dead and give the younger ones a better chance and at least a shred of hope that they can see their kids do better than they did. It's been a while since a generation has been able to watch their kids do better than them.
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
Yes. We know. You've already said this in 8 other places already.
And I asked you to do the math on what the Ukraine war for the last 4 years has cost us per person and you've ignored the question.
Why are you ignoring that question?
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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In a few days, any movie at the theaters will be on TV:
Jeff Shell, who serves as Paramount’s president, pushed to reduce the theatrical window (the term for the amount of time a film plays exclusively in cinemas) from several months to 17 days when he served as head of NBCUniversal during the pandemic. But Ellison said the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. will honor a 45-day theatrical window before their films debut on home entertainment platforms.
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/paramount-warner-bros-movies-theate
rs-david-ellison-1236676663/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Total Authorized Funds: The total budget authority from Congress for Ukraine-related aid is approximately $174–$175 billion.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:$585. Per person. Did American citizens get $585 worth of benefits?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You can keep complaining about Trump everyday if you want. I'm just going to hope that he and the people working for him have a plan and that they're putting the dominoes in place like I've been predicting they are.
And I have no illusion that Trump and people he knows are going to benefit from it. I'm not stupid and I'm not a cultist. But so what? We've been watching everybody in government from the lowly local alderman to the President and their families and friends benefit for generations now, and they all end up screwing us over and making things worse for all of us. I have no problem with the Trump family making a bit of money if the quality of life goes up for everybody in some actual meaningful way at the same time.
I'm really going to try to stop arguing with either of you about anything and just ignore most of the noise right now. I just don't see any point in doing it anymore. I want what's best for all American Citizens.
We've got a lot of things that need to be fixed. But I think we can do it, or at least we could start doing it before our generation is dead and give the younger ones a better chance and at least a shred of hope that they can see their kids do better than they did. It's been a while since a generation has been able to watch their kids do better than them.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
Yes. We know. You've already said this in 8 other places already.
And I asked you to do the math on what the Ukraine war for the last 4 years has cost us per person and you've ignored the question.
Why are you ignoring that question?
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
Dividing $174 billion ($174,000,000,000) by the approximate U.S. population of 335 million (335,000,000) results in roughly $519.40 per person.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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No link? Don't bother. That source is lying to you.
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:Here’s How Much Aid the United States Has Sent Ukraine
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
No link? Don't bother. That source is lying to you.
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
Eleven charts illustrate the extraordinary level of support the United States has provided Ukraine in recent years, though there has been no new U.S. aid legislation since 2024, and combined European aid tops U.S. contributions.
February 23, 2026, 5:43 p.m.
https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine
Also: https://imgur.com/gallery/does-seem-bit-on-news-UZPOV99
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The $50 movie ticket has arrived
Story by Ben Fritz | April 27, 2026
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/the-50-movie-ticket-has-arri
ved/ar-AA21OoXp
One of the best selling points of a night out at the movies has long been how cheap it was for two hours-plus of entertainment. Not so much when it costs $50 per ticket.
That’s how much Regal Cinemas recently charged for opening night seats in the best theaters to see December’s “Dune: Part Three.”
Eye-popping prices for the most in-demand movies on the best screens are becoming increasingly common as the cinema industry copies the audience-segmentation playbooks of airlines and hotels. Theaters are getting people who love movies and have discretionary income to pay substantially more.
Some 17% of film tickets sold last year were for premium format theaters with bigger screens and better sound, compared with 13% in 2021. They cost an average of $18 nationally, according to research firm EntTelligence, and as much as $30 in big cities such as New York and Los Angeles.
Welcome to the new box office reality. Die-hards are paying top dollar while the rest of the country rarely goes to the theater and gets most of their entertainment from Netflix, YouTube and TikTok. Despite recent hits such as “Michael,” “Project Hail Mary” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” the annual number of tickets sold is down more than one-third from before the pandemic.
“The good news is we’re making more money per patron than we made prior to Covid,” said Adam Aron, chief executive of AMC Theatres. But “it’s not a good thing that patronage is down as much as it’s been.”
Regal sold its inventory of $50 “Dune” tickets projected in 70 millimeter IMAX film in a matter of minutes. Since premium auditoriums regularly sell out fastest, exhibitors are racing to build more of them. AMC, the biggest chain in the U.S., had 517 at the end of last year, 30% more than in 2021.
In addition, AMC adds a surcharge of up to $2 per ticket for popular films on their opening weekends.
Adults seeing a movie on a regular screen are paying an average of $12.75 per ticket according to EntTelligence, a figure that has long risen roughly in line with inflation. Discount screenings abound on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
But spending on popcorn, drinks and merchandise has grown 220% over the past 20 years, far above inflation, said Greg Marcus, chief executive of Midwest chain Marcus Theatres.
The average AMC customer now spends $9 on concessions per visit compared with $5 prepandemic—a figure that includes the 20% to 30% of people who buy nothing but a ticket.
Some Hollywood executives worry the growing cost of a night at the cinema and increased reliance on premium screens are turning moviegoing into a pricey special occasion rather than an inexpensive regular habit.
“Going to the movies must be more affordable again,” Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures’ motion picture group, told a crowd of exhibitors at the recent CinemaCon industry convention in Las Vegas.
Studios and theaters have long operated in an uneasy symbiosis. Both need each other to prosper and resent self-interested decisions their counterparts make that impact them. Studios have long complained that exhibitors don’t keep their multiplexes in good enough condition. Their newest complaint is rising prices along with expanding preshow advertising that, combined with as many as nine trailers, means movies frequently start close to half an hour after their official showtime.
Exhibitors at CinemaCon said the industry’s biggest problem is that studios are releasing about 25% fewer films annually than before the pandemic. Since they can’t increase the product supply on their own, theater operators said they are forced to find profits where they can.
“Give us enough films,” Marcus asserted. “If you’re not going to let us earn a decent return, don’t ask me to invest more or cut my prices.”
Paramount CEO David Ellison promised theater operators at CinemaCon that if his company’s
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