UP IN SMOKE: Instead of Improving Movies, Variety Wants to Allow Pot and Texting in Theaters.

Can you imagine spending $65 for tickets, popcorn, and soda to suffer through three hours in a room filled with the stench of something called the skunk weed (for good reason) and idiots texting? Plus, Variety thinks movie theaters should become pot dispensaries.

“Imagine how much better Barbie or Deadpool & Wolverine would be if you could see it” while smoking a joint, asks Variety rhetorically. “Selling weed could bring fresh revenue and new customers to theaters.”

What?

Both of those movies were monster hits, the top grossers of their respective years. Who in their right mind believes allowing pot smoking and texting in the theater would have improved their box office?

Granted, Variety’s idea is to have exclusive screenings for potheads and texters. Nevertheless, the entire theater will still stink of that crap.

Here’s Variety lobbying for texting: “Although cinephiles might object, if movie theaters want to attract younger audiences who refuse to give up their devices during the two-hour running time of most films, they might need to stop banning phones.”

Meanwhile, the New York Post suggests booze and/or pickleball will do the trick: Movie theaters are trying everything to bring audiences back — from pickleball to cocktail bars.

One owner of a smaller Midwest chain isn’t waiting around for the crowds to magically reappear.

“The pandemic made us realize that we need to diversify,” says Bob Bagby, CEO of family-owned B&B Theaters. “We can’t just depend on studios to provide us with what we need to drive our business.”

That means pickleball games and cocktails in the lobby, even bowling — all designed to get people to see the theaters as more than just a place to screen the latest flicks.

People now refer to seeing movies on the big screen as essentially annual events. “Yeah, I saw Oppenheimer that year.” “I watched Top Gun: Maverick in the theater.” “I saw the big Spider-Man multiverse movie Christmastime 2021.” It’s hard to believe that people once went to the movies weekly — and that Hollywood created watchable product to fill that demand instead of hectoring its audiences to have politically correct opinions and utter the latest bespoke pronouns.

Related: A Twitter thread on J.R.R. Tolkien versus Disney concludes: