Rather than urging Hollywood to make movies that actually appeal to Normal People, the far-left Variety says movie theaters can attract more customers by allowing pot smoking and texting.
Can you imagine spending $65 for tickets, popcorn, and soda to suffer through three hours in a room filled with the stench of something called the skunk weed (for good reason) and idiots texting? Plus, Variety thinks movie theaters should become pot dispensaries.
“Imagine how much better Barbie or Deadpool & Wolverine would be if you could see it” while smoking a joint, asks Variety rhetorically. “Selling weed could bring fresh revenue and new customers to theaters.”
What?
Both of those movies were monster hits, the top grossers of their respective years. Who in their right mind believes allowing pot smoking and texting in the theater would have improved their box office?
Granted, Variety’s idea is to have exclusive screenings for potheads and texters. Nevertheless, the entire theater will still stink of that crap.
Here’s Variety lobbying for texting: “Although cinephiles might object, if movie theaters want to attract younger audiences who refuse to give up their devices during the two-hour running time of most films, they might need to stop banning phones.”
If these stupid ideas were coming from some obscure blog, I wouldn’t care. But this is Variety, the so-called Bible of Show Business. Like the rest of the entertainment media, this is just another example of whistling past the graveyard by a publication insulated from Normal People.
What’s especially galling is that the answer to the movie attendance problem is right in front of Variety’s face, right there in the sentence quoted above (“Barbie or Deadpool & Wolverine”) and they don’t even see it.
Instead of this sentence — “Imagine how much better Barbie or Deadpool & Wolverine would be if you could see it [while smoking a joint]” — how about this sentence: “Imagine how much better theater attendance would be if Hollywood made more movies that appeal to people like Barbie or Deadpool & Wolverine”?
It’s not hard to understand why Variety refuses to acknowledge the truth, which is that movie attendance is down because most movies suck. To speak that truth out loud might cost this useless publication advertising dollars and access. But must Variety make a fool of itself like this?
The way to bring people back into theaters is to make movies that appeal to those people: Barbie, Top Gun: Maverick, Oppenheimer, Deadpool & Wolverine, The Sound of Freedom, Wicked, and Inside Out 2 all prove people still want to go to the movies.
If you want to make going to the movies even less appealing, stink the joint up with marijuana smoke and turn the candy counter into a pot dispensary. People, especially parents, will love that.
Idiots.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
