The banks have every reason to be nervous. The chains found themselves in this position by spending millions of dollars building bright and shiny new multiplexes with dozens of screens, comfy chairs, and THX Dolby Buttfuck Sound to promote inner ear damage. As it happened, however, nobody came to the bright and shiny new multiplexes. Why not? Well, do that math. You build a movie theatre with a dozen screens in a small to mid-sized town (which is primarily where Carmike operates) and then put Mission Impossible 2 on more than half of those screens. Are more people going to want to see Tom Cruise kick pigeons out of the sky simply because they have more opportunities to do so? Or will the same number of people simply have extra seats upon which to keep their bags full of smuggled-in beer and candy?

The chains had (and still have, if they pull their head out of their ass) an amazing opportunity to make money, serve their customers well, and promote great movies all at the same time. Instead of clogging up ten screens with shit like The Patriot, stick Mel Gibson on one screen and fill the other nine with new, independent and foreign movies. That way, they actually WILL pull in new paying customers, people who don't want to see George Clooney and Marky Mark get all dripping wet by a computer-generated wave. Instead of making a million dollars off of one movie, make several million off of several movies. And if they still need an ass to stick their head in, we recommend our Tromass of the Month.

The stockholders may take a spanking this time, and a woefully less enjoyable one than what we present

This may sound like common sense and, for anybody who isn't preoccupied with sucking studio cock that's exactly what it is. If you were running a restaurant, would you try to convince your customers that you only serve dry toast because it's so popular that you've got your whole staff busy all the time making nothing but dry toast? Think of it this way. Would you buy stock in the restaurant that serves nothing but dry toast? That, in essence, is what the people who bought Carmike stock have done. They are the ones who will pay for Carmike's shortsightedness. The CEO and Board of Directors will be well taken care of with their golden parachutes. And you certainly can't blame the people who bought Carmike stock. After all, Carmike was expanding. Their future looked bright. It isn't their fault that the great new theatres they built showed nothing but factory-made, baby-food-flavored movie-style product. They were brainwashed by the broker-pimps on Wall Street, touting the stock like so much cinematic snake-oil.

The lesson to be learned here is painfully obvious. Movie attendance is dropping even as the number of screens is growing. It may take a bankruptcy or two for theatre owners to realize that they must wrest control of their business away from the studio cartel that provides them with product. They will not make money by filling more screens with the same soulless crap. They will not make money by trying to camouflage the braindead pabulum on screen with reclining chairs that massage your ass, cup holders, and other amenities. They cannot make any more money on their concessions, since a box of Goobers costs more than a heart transplant. They will make money if they offer their customers a genuine choice. The great movies are out there, waiting to be played. All it takes is one chain with the courage enough to program them.