Remember dollar theaters? Second-run houses where a teenager with five bucks could see a movie two months after release? They're extinct, and their extinction tells the real story. Theatrical used to have tiers: first run for the eager, second run for the patient, and everyone participated. Now it's premium or nothing. The industry didn't just lose customers. It deliberately abandoned the price-sensitive ones, then wonders why those customers never came back. You can't gentrify your audience and mourn the crowd in the same breath.
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