When I was a kid going to the movies usually involved looking through the theater ads in the newspaper to see what double features were playing. Just like today we complained about the price of a movie ticket and double features were usually a good deal. Today I look at movies.yahoo.com instead of the newspaper to see what is playing, but I don’t remember the last time that I saw a double feature offered.
Are there just so many movies coming out that there aren’t enough screens available to make double features worthwhile for the theaters? Maybe this is localized issue, perhaps California is just to busy for double features? Or large city issue, where places like Sacramento might be more interested in getting as many movies out there as possible? For Sacramento it seems like none of those should be problems, there are more than enough theaters in the region. I can think of at least 6 that are a 20 minute drive or less from my home.
I’ll guess that money is the driving force here, as it is in so many other things. They probably discovered that people will still go to the theater to see movies even if they stop offering double features.
One reply on “What Ever Happened To The Double Feature?”
I just woke up to the fact of the quiet disappearance of the double feature, a standard movie theater practice of my childhood. When I grew up in New York City, only the theaters in the Broadway area that specialized premiering new movies would only show that one film. All neighborhood theaters were double feature theaters. Now it’s even hard to imagine sitting through two films back to back.