What Roger Ebert said

Roger Ebert has a few hypotheses on why movie revenue dropped in 2011, when theater audiences were the smallest since 1995. His final point is the lack of choice at most multiplexes: 

Box-office tracking shows that the bright spot in 2011 was the performance of indie, foreign or documentary films. On many weekends, one or more of those titles captures first-place in per-screen average receipts. Yet most moviegoers outside large urban centers can’t find those titles in their local gigantiplex. Instead, all the shopping center compounds seem to be showing the same few overhyped disappointments. Those films open with big ad campaigns, play a couple of weeks, and disappear.

The myth that small-town moviegoers don’t like “art movies” is undercut by Netflix’s viewing results; the third most popular movie on Dec. 28 on Netflix was Certified Copy, by the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. You’ve heard of him? In fourth place — French director Alain Corneau’s Love Crime. In fifth, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — but the subtitled Swedish version.

This calls to mind a point I made in a recent column assessing AMC Theatres’ programming in Springfield:

This is a city that supports its own Route 66 Film Festival, two monthly movie clubs (Movie Geeks Club and Liberty Brew & View), the Springfield Art Association’s film series and the Foreign & Independent Film Series at the University of Illinois Springfield.

One wonders if AMC’s Kansas City-based programmers underestimate the local taste for ambitious cinema.

The list of recent art, indie and foreign movies that have not opened in Springfield includes The Artist, Melancholia, Like Crazy, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Margin Call and Into the Abyss. There are many others, but don’t hold your breath waiting for them to open here.

Today, you can see My Week With Marilyn and Young Adult at a theater near you. The best way to let AMC and Hollywood studios know you want more indie films here is to vote with your wallet. They’ve got to try something different — instead of returning to the same pricey wells of blockbusters, 3-D surcharges and ginormous tubs-o-popcorn, why not try a little diversity in programming?

Then again, maybe the shareholders are OK with declining revenue.