The future of cinema

I went and saw Wedding Crashers after work today, after glowing recommendations from multiple people. It was good, but my immediate thought when it was over was that this movie was made to be seen with an audience. I don't think it would go over quite as well in the living room. Don't get me wrong, I laughed as much as everybody else in the theater (and everybody was laughing), but there's been a lot in the press about how this movie is special, and if it's true that it is special, then it's because we don't see a whole lot of non-event movies designed for the theater audience experience anymore.

I've had more than one conversation about the future of movies in the digital age in the past couple weeks, so I've been thinking about it lately. What with the advent of simultaneous theater/home video/television release on the horizon, the way we decide what movies we go out to see may be changing in the near future. Right now, we see the movies we don't want to wait for on DVD. When there's no waiting, what would entice you out to brave the crowds?

I tend to make an effort to see in theaters movies that have impressive visuals, simply because it's a big screen, so the visuals are clearer and (hopefully) more impressive. That motivation is fading as home theaters become more impressive and cheaper. My next TV will be a big plasma that will serve as a big screen for my DVD watching. I already have a great sound system. Will I still want to see War of the Worlds in a crowded googolplex when the picture's just as impressive at home?

I pointed out to one person that there will always be dating, which means there will always be people looking for some way to spend a night out. Theaters aren't going away. (Well, maybe some of them are, since they overbuilt so much in the last decade.) But Wedding Crashers is the kind of movie that will attract moviegoers to the crowd experience, where you laugh harder or gasp louder because everyone else is doing it too.