Buy the Tickets

There’s a moment that happens every time I watch a movie in a theater. It’s not the trailers (although I do firmly believe trailer-watching is a sacred ritual). It’s not even the opening shot. It’s that first collective exhale, the one the whole audience releases at the same time, almost unconsciously. The lights drop, the chatter fades, and for two hours a room filled with strangers agrees to dream the same dream.

You can’t stream that moment. You can’t pause it, can’t scroll past it. And honestly? We’re losing it.

As a screenwriter, I spend months - sometimes years - trying to craft stories worth telling. Stories that should be argued about in the lobby afterward. Stories that deserve to tower over you on a massive screen with sound that rattles your ribcage a little. But lately, there’s been this growing fear humming beneath every draft: Will this ever play in a theater? Will anyone ever see it the way it was meant to be seen?

Here’s the truth the industry doesn’t like to say out loud: if people stop going to movie theaters, movies as we know them… stop. Studios stop taking creative risks. Mid-budget films evaporate. Debuts from new writers and directors get shoved into the algorithm abyss. And the “watercooler” moments that used to define eras of storytelling? Gone. Replaced by a bunch of half-watched content autoplaying in the background while we fold laundry.

I get it. Streaming is convenient. It’s comfy. I’ve watched things sprawled on my couch in a posture a chiropractor would absolutely disapprove of. But convenience shouldn’t replace communion. Because that’s what theaters are: communal experience machines. The last place where we collectively gasp, laugh, and ugly cry in public and somehow feel better for it.

When you buy a ticket, you’re not just supporting a single movie. You’re supporting the writers, directors, actors, cinematographers, set designers, sound mixers - everyone who pours their life into this art form hoping it reaches you intact. You’re voting for the kinds of stories you want to exist. You’re keeping an ecosystem alive.

And honestly? You’re giving yourself permission to disappear into a world bigger than your living room.

So here’s my plea:
Go to the movies. Go with friends. Go alone. Go on cheap-ticket Tuesdays. Go to the big blockbusters with reclining heated seats and the weird little indies playing in a theater with seats that squeak like they’re haunted.

Just… go.

Because theaters don’t die overnight. They die slowly, one empty seat at a time. And once they’re gone, we don’t get them back.

We’ll keep making the stories. You need to show up for them.