I knew about it, but especially since the pandemic, there’s very, very little incentive for me to go to a theater.
A few reasons for this…
Streaming services supply high quality audio and video that I get a near enough theater experience at home. I’m willing to wait.
As others have stated, with buying snacks, the theater experience is effectively a $50 per person event now. It’s ridiculous. And this whole notion of “well snacks are the only way the theater makes its money” is enough of a justification that perhaps it’s time for theaters to die. For roughly the same price and enjoyment, I can go get a very nice, large steak dinner, or quite a lot of high-quality sushi, or buy a video game.
I don’t have to deal with other people.
So many people and journalists like to lament of the plight of movie theaters, but aside from the pandemic, this is of their own making (well, not my aversion to people, of course). There will still be blockbuster movies, but after Avengers Endgame, it’s going to take a lot for another Marvel superhero movie to get to that level.