In his endlessly endearing video breaking down the various aspect ratios and screening options for Sinners, writer/director Ryan Coogler also offers a personal anecdote about his connection to the theatrical experience. When he gets to the most common theatrical experience for Sinners, DCP (Digital Cinema Package) showings, Coogler recalls how this is just as vital a way of seeing Sinners as a 70mm IMAX screening.
“The reason I fell in love with theaters is because …my parents was working class, you know, Oakland,” Coogler recalls. “It was the most affordable way for us to go out and have a good time, have an experience. I still believe in that, that communal experience.”
It’s a moving story that encapsulates how the accessibility and unity of theatrical moviegoing are so important. You might not be able to attend a theme park, concert, or sports game, but you can still make memories and find kinship with strangers at your local theater. It’s also an anecdote that ran through my head when reading about the grand opening of the Metro Private Cinema in New York. Specifically, this theater, with all due respect to its owners and especially the working-class people keeping it operational, feels a bit antithetical to what makes theatrical moviegoing so special.
What Is Metro Private Cinema?
Metro Private Cinema is the brainchild of Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League. Per an extensive breakdown from Katie Kilkenny in The Hollywood Reporter, this domicile is “a soon-to-open 20-screen complex in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood that caters to cinephiles eager to event-ize their movie-going experience.” Metro’s gimmick is that you can rent out an entire auditorium (which can house as many as 20 individuals) and pick the movie that you want to screen. Those cinematic options include summer 2025 blockbusters, a slew of older movies on hand at the Metro, or (if you pony up extra cash), a movie of your choice.
Metro’s costly menus for these movie experiences will be tailored toward certain movies or seasons. The Hollywood Reporter piece explains that some food options include “late summer menu (featuring stone fruits, heirloom tomatoes and summer squash) and a garlic-themed dinner available featuring starters, main dishes and desserts served family-style before the film begins…The experience won’t come cheap: The four-person theater runs a cool $200 for a four-hour booking while the 12-person theater costs $600. Food costs $100 a person. If you want alcoholic beverages, that will be at least $50 more.”
I’m sure it’s a hoot watching Frankenhooker with six or seven friends in a private theater while gorging on luxury food. However, everything about the Metro experience rubs me the wrong way. For starters, it’s a theatrical cinema domain catering to the rich. That’s not a knock on its New York location, but rather a factual observation based on its prices. I know tons of people living in New York who are barely scraping by each month. I’m sure they’d love more affordable options to watch features on the big screen and get some escapism. In response to the increasing divide between the haves and have-nots in American society, here comes Metro, dedicating 20 auditoriums exclusively to people with hundreds of dollars to burn.
Then there’s the limited capacity of these auditoriums, which feels like an inherent rebuke to what makes movie theaters glorious. Even at League’s previous pricey movie theater operation, Alamo Drafthouse, the barrier for entry wasn’t so extreme that all members of the proletariat were excluded from attending. The Metro, though, is built only for a small section of the population.
There’s no chance for unforgettable movie moments to unite strangers in laughter, shock, joy, or any other emotion. Nor can movies inspire unfamiliar faces to engage in post-screening conversations about what they saw. The descriptions of these Metro auditoriums make them sound like caverns where rich friends hang out. And yes, certain Cinemark and AMC locations offer private theater rentals. However, those are usually just two showtimes a day in one auditorium. They’re aberrations in multiplexes otherwise focused on working-class customers.
We Need to Make Theatrical Moviegoing More, Not Less, Accessible
I’d be less salty about the innate concept of the Metro if it weren’t for so many unpleasant realities facing the theatrical landscape today. In the last few years, thanks to COVID-19 ripple effects and all kinds of economic uncertainty, countless movie theaters have closed. Sean Baker, in his Best Director Oscar acceptance speech, claimed that “during the pandemic, we lost nearly 1,000 screens in the U.S. and we continue to lose them regularly.” The stark reality of those numbers informs how many major American cities now lack movie theaters.
There’s a crisis of accessibility to movie theaters in America. The response to these inescapable hardships should include lowering ticket prices, improving movie theater auditorium conditions for disabled audience members, keeping films theatrically exclusive for as long as possible, and offering a wider array of titles for people to see on the big screen. People in positions of power need to create new theaters responding to these problems. We need theaters catering to the general populace filling theatrical moviegoing voids all across America.
Instead, the Metro Cinema is preparing to open its doors to a very limited clientele. Clearly, a lot of money went into this place to open a 20-auditorium multiplex in Chelsea. Yet all that moolah hasn’t gone into providing certain American cities with their sole movie theaters. Instead, all those dollars and cents underline a place reaffirming a position (informed by movie ticket prices constantly going up even as minimum wage remains stagnant) that theatrical moviegoing is only for the bourgeoisie. If you can afford to spend $200 minimum for a night out at the movies, then you’re an “ideal” moviegoer. Don’t worry, no unfamiliar faces will bother your theatrical outing.
I’m sure that wasn’t the intent of Tim League and his companions when starting up Metro Cinema. On paper, this theater is essentially an evolution of Alamo Drafthouse’s style of watching movies. However, no matter how innocent the origins, the Metro Cinema isn’t where we need theatrical exhibition to go next. Heck, even further Alamo Drafthouses with their pricey menus isn’t the direction cinemagoing in the 2020s should venture to.
Theatrical moviegoing is just as vital and exciting as it’s ever been. There are also key accessibility-based places for improvement, particularly in pricing, creating welcoming atmospheres for disabled audiences, and especially in location. If you have the resources to pool together funding for a 20-auditorium theater in New York, why launch a financially accessible multiplex in areas currently lacking in movie theaters? As Coogler so beautifully recalled, theatrical moviegoing can be “the most affordable way for [people] to go out and have a good time, have an experience.” Investing in more ritzy, uber-expensive domiciles like the Metro, whether intentionally or not, spits in the face of those possibilities.
