I know — I caved. I signed up for Netflix, that glorious,
$13-a-month program with no late fees and a seemingly unlimited selection of
movies. You’re probably thinking: How could I be so gullible? So lazy? So
cheap?

To put it simply, because I can.

Naysayers have said my decision to join “the other team” is
analogous to music piracy because, in a sense, I am depriving “respectable”
businesses of revenue, namely movie-rental stores like Blockbuster and movie
theaters.

Please.

First of all, I don’t know about you, but lines of people,
exorbitantly priced Sour Patch Kids, ill-behaved infants and a $10 entrance fee
are by no means my ideas of a good night. I mean, when it’s a new movie that I
have been desperately wanting to see, maybe I’ll find within myself the resolve
to brave the experience’s overall disgustingness, but more often than not I’d
prefer to watch an older movie I haven’t seen yet in the comfort of my own home
with family or friends. With Netflix, I can do this without even leaving my
home. In a word: It’s genius.

And besides, certain members of my extended family have made
their living from movies, so why would I sign up for something that would
purportedly compromise their success?

But all this talk about Netflix leaves me wondering: How do
people make money from movies? We all know about the astronomical compensation
scales that actors, directors and producers enjoy, including ludicrous
percentages of box-office sales, but these are usually the most visible
moviemakers, so what about the theaters? Do they not get a slice of the pie? Is
that why we pay so much to go see a movie?

Per my film-savvy relatives, yes and no. In fact, once upon
a time, movie studios used to operate their own theaters, reaping 100 percent
of the profits (movie tickets at that time were 40 cents a pop). But of course,
this all came to an end in 1948 when the Supreme Court formally ruled that
studios divest themselves of their theaters.

After this Great Movie Schism, as I will dub it, theaters
started to look for other ways to bilk moviegoers out of ridiculous sums of
money, and, believe it or not, they successfully devised a cruel machination
that would come to be the business’ most lucrative venture — the concession
stand. That’s right, every carton of popcorn, soda, box of Goobers or any other
horrendously named confection that tickles your fancy is all part of a grossly
profitable scheme that yields a profit of around 90 cents on the dollar. As if
that weren’t enough, theaters also have ways to keep people coming: that
ungodly amount of salt found on popcorn is no accident — it keeps customers
thirsty.

Naturally, after concession sales, movie theaters are pretty
good at, well, showing movies. Every deal is different, but getting these
movies onto the silver screen involves a great deal of collaboration with their
erstwhile owners (studios) and working out deals from which both parties take
home some dough. In most cases, it begins with a film booker, a middleman for
studios and movie theaters, who leases a film to a theater for a given period
of time.

The stipulation is that, starting opening week, studios are
entitled to 70 to 80 percent of box office sales. But that percentage decreases
with time, so after the fifth or sixth week studios end up only taking in
around 35 percent, leaving the rest to the theaters. In other words, movies
have to maintain consistently numerous audiences (over several weeks) for the
theater to make any money.

Mega-blockbusters, like “Titanic,” that keep audiences
coming for weeks on end are what studios and theaters dream of.

Unlike the mind-bogglingly lucrative concession stand, movie
theaters tend to lose money when showing movies because most of the revenue
earned from ticket sales goes directly to maintaining the theater (rent,
utilities and film leasing costs), staff salaries (ushers, cleaners,
projectionists, etc.), and who knew replacing projector lightbulbs cost more
than $1,000? I guess those things aren’t mass-produced.

Interestingly, pricey projection bulbs are the very reason
why movies are always slightly out of focus (if you have even noticed that at
all). As opposed to a perfectly in-focus movie, a fuzzier picture apparently
reduces the risk of getting the film reel stuck in the projector, which would
cause the bulb to break. So instead of having to hire more projectionists to
make sure all the movies are crystal clear, the theaters resign themselves to
shoddier film sharpness and save buckets of moolah. Hey, it’s a business.

But now theaters are making a lot more money, this time
independent of studios. The advent of in-theater advertising has really given
studio bosses a run for their money, as every on-screen VISA or Coca-Cola
commercial (sometimes under the guise of insipid ‘trivia shows’) is yet another
missed opportunity for studios to show previews of upcoming films (for which
theaters get nothing, of course).

With this in mind, movie theaters have on occasion
deliberately truncated the length of preview reels just to make room for their
more lucrative commercial advertisements. With in-theater advertising, theaters
don’t have to go “halfsies” on the revenue with anyone, and advertisers are
willing to pay a pretty penny for airtime.

There’s no denying it, theater owners are in a tough
business; I certainly don’t envy them. But as Netflix, iTunes and other movie
alternatives continue to flourish, the future of movie theaters is cloudier.
Who knows, maybe one day movie studios will come up with a way to entirely
obviate the need to go see a movie and create some sort of one-time-use DVD
program. That said, theaters should develop more ways to compete in this
uber-competitive market and win over reluctant theatergoers such as myself.

So while I’m at it, if theater brass are willing to hear,
I’d like to suggest one way of making the moviegoing experience a lot more
tolerable: criminalizing all in-theater cell-phone use, snotty teenagers,
annoying infants and their negligent parents.

Seriously, I lose all faith in humanity every time some
toddler schmuck interrupts my movie with his or her unsupervised wails. In a
just world, I’d probably throw my Junior Mints or something at them — but I
wouldn’t want to have to get another $5 box of candy.

Hell no. That’s exactly what the theaters would want.