Dispatches From the Fortress – Day 398

Yesterday here, I posted the sad news that Pacific Theaters was closing all its California movie-showing-places including the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. The Internet — especially the parts of it located in Southern California — has erupted with laments and petitions and crusades to Save the Dome. Great. But it seems to me folks are over-reacting to the possibility that all those theaters are going to be destroyed, replaced, disappeared. etc.

The odds are pretty good that some of them will be acquired by one or more other companies. It sure doesn't seem impossible that all of them will live on. They may change…they may not be as well-managed…they may charge more for tickets…but I don't think they're all goners. The movie theater business is not what it once was for reasons we can all enumerate. Still, we're not to the point where no one in it can show a neat-'n'-tidy profit.