My daughter recently saw Top Gun in the theater for the first time. The local theater has been holding screenings of old movies, and while she’d seen Top Gun: Maverick in the theater, she wanted to see the original on the big screen. She loved it.
A whole slate of films is being shown over the summer, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, Grease and even Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. Everything old is new again.
For those of a certain age, these were once frequent, particularly if there was an “art house” theater in the area. There was one near my father’s place, and I saw Citizen Kane and a silent film there. Disney used to do re-releases of classic animated films, and I went to those as well. Of course, midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show were very much a thing during the 1980s, though I never bothered to go.
Home video pretty much destroyed this practice, along with the art houses. On the positive side, it gave new life to a lot of films that flopped in theaters, such as Evil Dead 2. The Princess Bride was another film that got a big boost from the rental market. Both films were popular choices for a parties in high school, where everyone would gather and say the lines or riff on the films.
Given the horrible quality of modern films, bringing back successful classics makes perfect sense, and it likely is the only thing keeping theaters afloat. I have a pretty big TV, but there are a few films I’d love to see on the big screen again, and of course anyone under 30 has missed some of the best films every made. Catching the full effect of Jaws would be pretty cool.
This should also be a wakeup call for Hollywood because regardless of what the old films haul in, they are also going to cause audience expectations to increase as they experience better films. Much of the discussion around fading franchises is tilted by the unfamiliarity of younger viewers with the films as they were originally experienced. Star Wars is slated for a run next summer to celebrate its golden anniversary (geez, I really feel old now), and three generations of Lloyds will be showing up for it.
Chateau Lloyd 
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