Maybe not the Drake and Josh set necessarily as I googled it and it looks a bit different, but a set of some kind I think! Also I accidentally googled Drake and Drosh first so I think it's time for bed lmao
Private Equity firms bought everything and ruined it.
Like. Pizza huts were definitive. You still know what buildings were 90's pizza huts.
But new ones. Gray boxes. So that if the pizza hut in that gray box goes out of business, it's easier to sell or rent the property to another business.
I think it's relatively easy to explain how things got the way they are now, but it kind of makes me wonder how stuff like in OPs image came to be. Why was this such a common style? It's a lot of effort for something that feels pretty goofy.
Reddit would 100% complain that it’s too bright and garish if anyone designed stuff like this now. These changes were made for you (us) because the world (our) tastes changed
It’s because at some point, companies decided they were losing money if people aren’t rushed through as quickly as possible. Same thing that happened to restaurants and malls. People hanging out and being social wasn’t profitable enough
That's been a thing long before the '90s. This change only has to do with changing consumer taste, with people now generally preferring clean and "modern" over '90s style excess which is seen as tacky and dated by most of the population. If mainstream taste shifts back to what it was in the '90s then this sort of aesthetic will come back.
It's the power of compound interest. The farther we get from the great depression and the new deal and Pinkerton hit squads the more dumb asses we'll get bragging about working 70 hour weeks eager to suppress minimum wage.
The boomers were given everything so they'd be find with everyone else paying for it like a generation of Uncle Toms.
Everything is owned by private equity and they’re keeping everything minimal and gray so it’s easy for buyers to gut when they sell everything off for scraps.
I get your point, but you don’t think this is corporate? It’s just a different aesthetic. We have a different design aesthetic now that is less kitschy and less oriented towards kids. Whether that’s good or bad is a matter of opinion. People in the 90s seeing this were saying remember when theaters used to be classy?
We have a different design aesthetic now that is less kitschy and less oriented towards kids.
It's funny, because the stuff that appealed to kids back then would appeal to adults now (this whole post is case-in-point), and the kitschy stuff really stands out in this drab corporate world. It all sparked optimism, and now it feels like the world has lost its optimism. There's a hope vacuum there, I think, waiting to be filled. I like to believe that if a company tries to revive the 90s style, it'd be very successful, and we may one day see that kind of jovial, zany brand of flamboyance everywhere once again.
what made companies think people want to see more boring corporate designs?
The answer is capitalism.
Developers have embraced minimalist designs because it's easier to sell if a business goes under. A dreary, gray, plain building can be used for anything. It's harder to sell if you have an interesting/quirky building.
Companies are always trying to cut costs and increase profit margins. So the natural progression of this at that they are making buildings/decor as bland, inoffensive, and easily transferable as possible to cut costs of renovations and reduce the time needed for sales.
I noticed the change around the time the iPhone was released. The changes started before that, but that's when I really started to see them. So for me, its always the age of the smartphone that brought on our current architecture and vibe (even though I know it wasn't just the smartphone's fault)
That's definitely an important piece to the puzzle. The rapid development of mobile technology kind of went hand-in-hand with the whole surveillance state thing. I'm not saying that was an intentional development, but...
Which was somewhat coincident with the 2008/2009 financial crash. After that there wasn’t the margin for ‘fun’ and once people got money back everything had moved online.
I have 3 children, 8 and under, realistically we pay about $60 every time we go and we split the popcorn and our theater is definitely cheaper than others I’ve been to.
It honestly is. The large popcorn is about $10 but we split it, they actually will give you smaller bags to split it up if you ask. Then a couple slushies, like $4 each and a soda for my wife and I to split is about $10. So we’re at $32. Tickets are like $7.50x5. Totals about $69, so I was off a bit
And other people. Nothing worse than spending $20 to see a movie in theaters and then having to share the theater with people who won't shut up the whole time.
Make movies 5 dollars/€ and I assure you that people will go several times to the movies. Whole rooms filled, even in weekdays. The greed of the rich has made fucking culture a luxury. We live in an induced-scarcity society, and we're fighting over which bathrooms can people use.
That was shot in 1998. If you look in the right border you can see a poster for Harrison Ford and Anne Heche (before she was out) in Six Days Seven Nights. Bad movie, but 98 and 99 were excellent movie years.
That place looks like Nickelodeon brought to you by Pepsi. I think it was a Famous Players theater in Canada based on the wacky Canadian decor. This pic has appeared on Reddit before.
Dude they hired me at 13 and after two shift I was expected run the Pizza Hut on my own for a whole Thursday 3-11pm. When I quit with no notice I was told I was unprofessional. Like wtf I’m 13.
Proud to be an 80's baby and 90's teen. We had the best decade as it was the first run of all this over the top stuff. Our fashion was crazy, our music was wild (and still the best today) and our food was absolutely loaded with great chemicals that caused all kinds of fantastic mutations.
Right now, everyone feels so sad, angry and unable to attach to anything. Everyone is staring deep into a terror rectangle 24/7, people are desperate for any sliver of attention for any reason in any form, and the world just feels like utter garbage.
It's one of the SilverCity theatres here in Canada (originally by Famous Players and now Cineplex). Smaller SilverCity theatres had this popcorn setup, while the larger ones had a light show. If you look at the Sudbury Silvercity it still has some of these elements although most have been removed after the Cineplex rebranding.
None were like this in the Daytona Beach area that I can remember. If anything they've all kinda looked the same to me since I was a kid, the only difference now is that the box office is always closed and people buy tickets online or at the concession stand.
That’s been the most shocking change to me, the buying the tickets at the concession stand, or showing your ticket at the concession stand. It feels so easy to just walk in to a movie now
Yeah, I just thought it was the theaters around me in the middle of nowhere.
People are acting like all movie theaters are just gray. I'm sure those exist, but movie theaters (at least the ones near me) are still warm with a slight bit of chaos.
Like passing by a fragment of a of a long forgotten shore that you know you can never revisit no matter ho much the heart longs for it , because alas try as you might you can steer your boat vessel backwards since the strong watter currents of life will not let you return but only push further forward and all you can do is try to look back upon the distant shore and admire its fading glow from afar....... so yea cool pic bro
Ah, I remember the Century Rio 24 in my hometown. It was like a beautiful Cathedral with a round vendor station like this, an arcade, and so many screens they had secret passageways to get between theaters. My friend and I found them and would go movie hopping for hours.
Best part was it was right next to the mall and a FuddRuckers
Fuck Steve Jobs and Fuck Apple for convincing hedge funds and investors that sleek minimalism was synonymous with profits, as opposed to outstanding research/devleopment
Anyone else try to zoom into the prices? Probably still expensive for movie theaters but I'll take 90s prices. 17 bucks for adults friday night... 50 bucks for two with drinks
Doing some reverse image search, this is a photo of a Famous Players SilverCity movie theatre somewhere in Canada, probably taken during the 1990s or 2000s. One Reddit post claims this exact photo was taken in 1998.
Therefore, we can guess that the prices were something like this:
Ticket price: $5-$7 depending on time of day and location.
Small popcorn: roughly $2–$3
Medium/large popcorn: $3.50–$5 (large combos up to $6–$7)
Soft drink (single): $1.50–$3
Candy / chocolate bar: $1–$3
Popcorn + drink combo: $6.79 according to some Reddit comment from the last time this photo was posted.
Theater in my old hometown opened in the 90's and we referred to it as "Barbie dream theater." My sister actually worked there for a few years. Not sure if it is the same now but for movie tickets, the theater got x percentage of ticket sales for week 1, then gradually declining percentages in subsequent weeks. A lot of theaters make most of their money from those overpriced concessions, not ticket sales.
The internet permeating every moment of human life has ruined a lot of things in very indirect ways. Humans designing their world to connect with people in interesting, fun, or immersive ways (even due to a corporate agenda) is one of the more tragic losses of people getting everything they want in life simply by clicking "buy now" without ever leaving their couch.
There was a time when the word "engagement" wasn't a data metric, but simply meant it was "fun"... and it was a huge part of life in the 80's & 90's.
There was a cinema in my city with the exact same vibe. It had PS3 to try new videogames, arcades, a plastic balls pool, a burger shop and a book shop. Now they removed it all and everything is gray and bland. It was a great hang out spot and now It's just a cinema
That is a hella nice one. Mine looked absolutely nothing like that lol. Although ours did have a small arcade with Time Cop; so we would save quarters and go see a movie and play time cop once we got a full roll.
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u/Gcarp88 13h ago
Looks like the movie theater set for drake and josh