What factors led to the decline of town or city centre cinemas in the late 1970s and early 1980s?
In my response I need to include: multiplex, Jaws, Blockbusters, Star Wars, attendance numbers, VHS, home video, ET, The gODFATHER, PDE
Due to the recession that was happening in throughout the 70s, cinema attendance decreased drastically because people were unable to afford cinema prices. Film industries (specifically Hollywood film makers) attempted to market and re-introduce people to cinema. Because the recession was so great in the 70s, it was mainly teenagers who could afford to go to the cinema which gave fim makers the opportunity to create the hype around films and their new releases. In 1985, Hollywood film industries created the multiplex cinemas which was a place where large-scale Blockbuster films would be showcased. Multiplexes were mainly built in places like shopping centers to attract a large audience and primarily to make a profit. This new creation and its results ended up devaluing films, but due to their increasing popularity, young audiences still continued to attend, leaving independent cinemas to become less important and noticeable. The technology involved in production and film-making in the late 70s was improving/becoming more developed in these newly-introduced Hollywood Blockbusters which attracted a large scale audience. The film that launched this craze was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (released in 1977); the special effects created by George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg contributed largely to the film's success because these elements in a film had never been seen before. This created spectacle and further pushed audiences to desire Hollywood Blockbusters. When the recession hit, people were reluctant to go to the cinema and watched films in their own homes on televisions, causing a decline in cinema attendance. Video piracy became more common throughout the late 1970s which damaged the film industry greatly; the lack of people going to the cinema meant film-makers lost large amounts of money. In 1982, ET was the most pirated film of all time - this devalued films and the principal of going to the cinema was rarely followed/appreciated.
No comments:
Post a Comment