Change how movies are shown in theaters. When I go to a 16 screen theater, why is there only 3 movies playing -- each on five screens? At a 16 stadium theater -- show 16 movies. Also, two screens should be allocated for other types of movies. One screen should show foreign films and one screen should show retro (classic) films. Mix it up. My reasoning: I saw "The Dark Knight" two weeks after it came out on a Tuesday afternoon. I was the only person in the theater -- and that was a box office smash. What a waste of space. Commercial theaters have beautiful stadium seating, bucket seats, huge screen and surround sound. Why do I have to see a "Kurosawa" film at an Indie/ art-house dumpy theater?

Where's the edit button? LOL. I meant 3 movies are playing on 5 screens each.

1) I would enforce cell phone bans much more strongly. Any kind of cell phone use. If I have to see the blue light of your phone out of the corner of my eye when I'm trying to be absorbed in a movie, you'd better be a pediatric oncologist with a patient emergency. 2) If I owned a theater and had the money to not max out revenue in every possible way, I would curate titles more carefully, ignoring genre and budget but focusing on quality, and cut commercials from before the trailers. 3) I would have more kid-dedicated theaters. I hate taking my nephew to a movie and having to explain graphic posters or pre-trailer commercials that are inappropriate for his age. Kids/parents have become the most important demographic, and might have the best movies. Why not cater to them better? (There should also be an ESPN Kids where you can watch all the same games and highlights, but not see violent/sex-filled ads.) 4) My two biggest movie peeves are when either a movie is clearly the product of corporate group-think, or when a movie seems to have obvious missteps that a more involved development process could have prevented. These are two problems that stand in complete contradiction to one another. In other words, movies are hard and I try not to be too arrogant about knowing how to fix them. That's why my other ideas are all about theater experience.

Comic answer: "3D". The sooner we can get rid of this gimmick that does nothing but jack up prices and cause headaches, the better. Didn't it fail once in the 80s already? Why is it back? If you want a truly 3D movie, go see a play. Serious Answer: Incredibly predictable plots. My fiancée always groans when I call out exactly what is going to happen in a brand new movie, 40 minutes before it happens. I understand that some tropes are necessary to build a story that is accessible to as many people as possible, but when it’s another rehashing of the same tired narrative arch in a different setting, the movie loses me. Following Campbell’s heroic cycle is incredibly effective, when done right (original Star Wars Trilogy). The problem is that most movies only use some of it, or don’t develop characters fully, leaving a malformed husk or a story where a robust plot could have existed (new Star Wars Trilogy). Too many directors rely on effects, explosions, sex, and violence to see their movie through; foregoing what makes a good movie, good: effective characters, dialogue, and conflict. I saw the new "Red Riding Hood" this year (I know, I know), and was really hoping they'd use the opportunity to introduce some new twists and ideas on an old classic. Nope. Girl meets boy, can't have boy, has but doesn't want second boy, bad monster shows up, enter man who wants to defeat monster but can't, predictable twist of monster role, not really a monster after all, fin. It's like they took Vladimir's Propp's morphology and followed it line by line, just to be safe. I've actually stopped going to the movies as often, because nothing looks, sounds, or feels fresh. It's not very nice to feel punished for loving and analyzing stories, but that's exactly what you get from movies today. This is what killed M. Night Shyamalan for me too; he thought he’d struck gold with the “last minute twist” formula we saw in 6th Sense, and tried to recreate that (albeit unsuccessfully) over and over again. As a writer myself, I don't necessarily blame the script writers. I think it falls on the entire production team, and the specific decisions made by the director and producer. A writer can only hold to his ideals for so long, before he has to conform to his genre and audience. At some point, you have to sacrifice creativity and art for ticket sales, unless you’ve already got a huge following. It's a business, after all. I love movies like Memento, Requiem for a Dream, and Pan's Labyrinth. Unless you are the Oracle of Delphi, you couldn’t possibly predict the twists and endings of those films. Just like good literature, good movies keep me guessing, hoping, wondering about the fate of the characters. If I already know, because I’ve seen it before, the movie is doomed from the beginning. So if I could, I would let writers create what they really want to create. Let some imagination into the films. Forget the money for a bit, and let’s get some movies that really break this boring cycle. Let’s see the human mind on screen, without product placement, or worrying if it fits the target demographic group.

Political correctness should be banned! Han shot Greedo -- deal with it. And George... dance with who brung ya. Stop tinkering with Star Wars!

Moviegoers should be able to choose their movie settings such as subtitle, audio, volume, ... better yet, they should be able to choose the actors, just like they would an avatar in a game. Just imagine Ludacris as Jack Sparrow, or Angelina Jolie as Maximus in Gladiator. That would be Awesome!

Nobody in the movie business should be allowed to use the words "Genius" or "Artist", as either a noun or an adjective, when referring to anyone else in the industry.

Seriously, the movie prices should be seriously revised. Especially now that their are all these new, cheaper ways of getting movies. Plus, the 3D isn't attracting more moviegoers, on the contrary, it's holding them back with the increased prices, the headaches the glasses cause...

[...] a few weeks, and I’ll keep you updated every now and then. For more information, check out Scott’s post at Go Into The Story or the official competition page at Mastering Film. But wait! That’s not all. Focal has also [...]

Ask yourself -- what would Steve Jobs do? Let's spike focus groups and let filmmakers have a voice and follow it.

I fell in love with movies when I was 8 years old, crowded around our 13" black and white TV waiting for PBS's Sunday Night Classic Movie. We were poor and PBS was cheap. I would swoon over Cary, sway with Fred & Ginger, shoot-out with the Duke, and swashbuckle with Errol. Hitchcock thrilled and scared me, Bob & Bing's "franchise" was zinger-filled hilarious; Powell's "Thin Man" franchise balanced my love of snark with mystery and Billy Wilder was God. When there was finally enough money to go to the theater I was blown away by Lucas, swooning over Indiana and the Dread Pirate Roberts, and wishing Ferris was my best friend. I didn't fall in love with these movies for their 3D effects, gratuitous whatever or their political bullying (I'm savvy enough to know that not ALL Republicans would eat their young for a quick buck). No, like any great love affair, these movies respected me, their audience. Whether making me laugh so hard it hurt (or got... damp), scare me into cardiac arrest or renew my faith in humanity, I knew that these movies were killing themselves to keep our relationship fresh. I want to fall in love again.

I want to see more movies with smart, funny, thoughtful scripts about female protagonists doing something interesting that is unrelated to romance. My dream is to have my own production company so I can help make that happen for real.

More original material please. Sick of remixes!

Why do all movies cost the same to see in the theatre? Wouldn't it be great if we could pay less for a ticket to a movie that cost $5M to produce than for a movie that cost $200M? Seriously, I think more people would go see low budget films and I'm sure that Avatar 2 will not lose a single audience member if they charged a couple dollars more.

Every seat should come with a little potty.

More Pixar-like think tanks Special theaters for original works, particularly by writer-directors Serials of Raiders of the Lost Ark quality Usher/Attendants to shush her and remove the cell phone-dependent Better tasting popcorn made in those old-fashioned machines More leg room and seats impervious to kicks from behind Call child services on the parents who take their small children to R-Rated movies

No more remakes of foreign film. I'm not saying no remakes. I'm saying there's been enough time for humanity to become acclimated to how movies work that chances are if you didn't want to see a film about Trois hommes et un couffin you aren't going to want to see a film about Three Men and a Baby. When you separate a language from its film using subtitles you dilute the cultural identity which made the story worth watching in the first place. Remakes remove the cultural background and, therefore, the motivation. The Departed's Boston mob is a knockoff wristwatch next to the real deal of Infernal Affairs' Hong Kong triad. The Tourist an expensive forgery compared to its source Anthony Zimmer. No Reservations is White Castle compared to the Michelin rated Bella Martha. And what do all these remakes have in common? Hollywood Stars. Lots of them. Apparently the formula to remove the culture from an original film like it's some sort of grease stain is at least two stars who have no previous track record of chemistry and an Oscar winning director. The remake will then prove those stars have no chemistry, the director has nothing new to bring to the script, and perpetuate the lie that Americans can stand no culture but their own. Literacy rates in some foreign countries mean dubbed or remade films make more money. So I understand why there's a 1982 Hindi version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But Hollywood is still outsourcing material to the domestic market instead of searching for original stories from its own culture. I'm not saying no remakes. Where would Kurosawa be without westerns and thrillers? But capturing the essence of a film and transforming it into something new shouldn't be done lightly. Or often.

Yup. I second. Let's do that.

No remakes. No reboots.

What I'd change? The need to appeal to everyone. Get rid of that entirely. A renaissance for niche cinema. Could make five interesting movies for every Bay.

I would like this to change about movies or, more specifically, Hollywood/mainstream filmmaking: take more risks. Be risky. Be daring. Dare to challenge audiences. Make them think as well as feel. Make unique, different kinds of stories. Filmmaking should be about the balance of risk and creativity/artistic integrity, not about what has worked before, trends, four quadrants, marketing dictating anything other than marketing, greed or playing it safe. Be risky. Be bold. Be daring. Be unique. Be storytellers through the moving image, not corporate suits trying to just sell a "product."

Ban popcorn. And late arrivals. And especially late arrivals with popcorn.

It's not the movies, it's the destination. Why leave my couch when I can watch the movie on my tv, laptop, iPad, phone, etc? I've gone to the theater a bunch of times this year, and it was worth it for Captain America, Thor and Drive, but Crazy-Stupid-Love, 50/50 and Bridesmaids would have been fine via VOD on my t.v. The whole concept of theater releases needs to be re-examined. I understand there are a lot of forces and interests involved, but simultaneously releasing on multiple platforms is the only way to ensure maximum exposure. There has to come a day when a movie opens, and I'm not talking small stuff like Red State, you have the choice as to which outlet you're going to access.

Here's a quickie op-ed from the grumpy old man of Cedarburg, Wisconsin... When I was a kid (oh dear, I've just lost all my readers with that line, haven't I?), we had three movie theaters. The Capital, The Mikado, and The Strand. Oh and a drive-in along Lake Michigan called The Lake View but we won't count that one because all they played were dubbed Scandinavian softcore skin flicks like "She's 19 and Ready" (which I've seen and, in actuality, she WASN'T) and "Dagmar's Hot Pants." Lot of fender benders along that stretch of road after sundown. But I digress.... Going to a movie in those days MEANT SOMETHING. It was something special to go to these palaces and see those projected images in a theater full of your friends and neighbors. Multiplexes basically changed the game and turned moviegoing into something akin to going to a shopping mall. Dozens of movies under one roof, everything interchangeable, nothing special. So here you go Hollywood - - a freebie idea from this Midwest coot - - you guys like to make EVENTS out of your films right? Well then stop with the overkill. Twenty screens under one roof all showing the same six films, start times at ten minute intervals. You've all but destroyed the most basic economic model - - your over-supply has murdered demand. It's surprising that you guys can't figure this out since I'm sure the studios are all run by that most horrid of collegiate creature, the "business major." Am I suggesting we swing the wrecking ball on the multiplexes and start fresh with single screen theaters? Not really. But I will submit this: Here in lovely downtown Cedarburg, we have a theater called The Rivoli. It's been here for at least half a century. It's weathered multiple economic storms. About two years ago, a local "save the Rivoli" coalition came together and raised thousands to reface and retool the joint. They show second run stuff which, in this day and age of home video, one would think to be death. But they've defied the odds. They have low prices on admissions and concessions (3 bucks for a large soda, large popcorn, and a candy bar combo?!?!). And the place packs them in. A total renaissance. Would I prefer they show better content than scratchy prints of Mr. Popper's Penguins? Yes. But they're making a go of it. Check 'em out for reference: http://rivoliofcedarburg.com/ For whatever reason, when we go to the Rivoli, seeing movies suddenly feels like an "event" again. It reminds you why movies are something special, something to be cherished, something worthwhile. The multiplex experience feels like a trip to Target. Not so special, that. Wisconsin old codger signing out. (Go Brewers.)

I would place a ban on long, drawn-out third acts. Most movies these days overdo the resolution part of the story and end up being WAY too long. Leave 'em wanting more, that's what I say.

4D. Scents would sure make writing flashbacks easier. Imagine the smell of nostalgia wafting over the audience.

I actually see my career itself as the answer to this question. However, I do have a couple of comments. Years ago, I would go on-and-on about how I truly believed the DVD box set was the preferred method of entertainmet for a lot of people. In the years since I began that rant, home video sales have tanked -- but I still believe the hunger is there for evolving storylines that are driven by the scope of the premise instead of being chopped up or inflated based on whether they're a 2 hour theatrical movie or a 5-year network series run. I envision a hybrid between theatrical movies and a TV series/mini-series. Serialized entertainment may be one way to say it but people usually don't understand what I mean when I say that -- they think I'm talking about cheesy cliffhanger stuff or only Harry Potter and that's not only what I am talking about. People seem to want a TV series with feature film production values. Short bits that are part of a larger story arc. Given all the various ways of distributing movies, there's no reason why you can't have more projects like "Carlos" or Soderberg's "Che" that are longer format but also theatrical. The LOTR extended cuts are part of that too. What they were talking about doing with The Dark Tower. I actually felt vindicated when QT gave an interview with the LA Weekly when he said that at one point, he thought about doing a huge sprawling Inglorious Basterds DVD box set that would be a super long extended version of the movie that was in theaters. That he just wanted to write a script that would've comprised several hours with the intention of shooting all that extra stuff. He abandoned the idea -- probably because of budget and shooting schedule -- but I can sense that he's got at least one or two epics like that in him. (Plus he's apparently already 40 pages into an IB sequel/spinoff.) The hybridization I am talking about is also apparent in shows like Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead and others. Lost as well. But I still think the potential really hasn't been tapped yet. We need to let go of these arbitrary notions of length. 44 mins for a TV episode and 2 hours for a movie aren't lengths dictated by art at all but instead by commercials and theater turn-over. The release of Kill Bill as two volumes months apart and HP7.1 and 7.2 show people are down with returning to the theater for the continuation of a story. But I also think length can go the other way: into making the short film a viable option. I LOVE that Pixar attaches short films to the front of their movies. I wish the live-action studios would do that as well. Think how awesome it would be if there was a Batman short attached to the beginning of Man of Steel. They could do Matrix short films at Warner Bros forever. Or Lethal Weapon? Paramount could've put a GI Joe short before Transformers and so on. This is good promotion but it also gives a chance for up and coming writers and directors (ie. us) to showcase their skills. Plus, if the studio is nervous about greenlighting a big franchise, they could shoot a two minute short set in that world that would allow them to test reactions. Eventually, a series of shorts could maybe even be grouped together to form a continuing storyline? The Animatrix was a cool experiment that is a step towards what I'm talking about, in a sense. There is no reason at all for us to hold onto old paradigms of length driven by an antiquated distribution system that is out-dated with technology. Just think about how Pulp Fiction -- that "world" -- would play in this kind of expansion. Think how fucking awesome that potentially could be. Eventually, a franchise like "Star Trek" and that upcoming second movie could be a shoot for a theatrical movie that is 2 hours but then also 3 to 5 stand alone "episodes" for TV or streaming and/or a series of shorts they could put in front of that Jack Ryan movie coming out or whatever else Paramount is throwing out there. Look -- I get it's a pipedream NOW. But eventually, that will be what a franchise should be. And there's no reason a "franchise" can't be somethign that isn't a traditional tentpole type of thing. You could do all this with something like Desperate Houswives or Damages or Steel Magnolias or whatever. Goodfellas. The Exorcist. And so on.... Yes, I wanna change movies the way Steve Jobs changed personal computing....

"More cowbell!"

Get greed for money out of human storytelling! Not to use an issue from another protest happening right now, but big money has diluted our ability to tell each other meaningful stories about how different our lives can be and how similar our struggles are as people. So many young, naive actors, writers, filmmakers with genuine talent set their career goals on becoming a Hollywood star as if a career anywhere else isn't worth the effort. But Hollywood isn't known for highlighting meaningful connections between human beings. It's known for greed, lying, cheating, stealing, the easiest popcorn candy to be understood by any sucker with a $20 ticket. The Hollywood filmmaking industry is known for its lust for money. More and more money. What do people with money and power always want? More money and more power. When they see a $10m product turning $100m profit they take it. The industry of cinema, it's been taken. Big stars, lots of action, feel-good escapism. No individual thinking aloud! Just get in line, give us your money, we'll make you think you feel better but don't ask us why nothing is better. "It's okay to enjoy yourselves again", but don't get in the way of our profits! Getting Big Money, Big Greed out of the fillmaking industry clears a path for younger, upcoming talent to show us what's possible in movies, in stories, in life. There are so many more possibilities than wasting that talent on someone else's lust.

Damn, I accidentally posted an incomplete thought. Sorry if it comes up. My point was, we need a consumer base with a real passion for film, not just "all action, all rom-com," not all the same. We need to explore and embrace the diversity of the medium. Plus I agree about the cell-phones, and the popcorn and the talking when the movie is on... like Sojourner!!!

Mine is a two part-er but they are intertwined. First, I would like to see the making of movies go more green. Not the $$$ kind of green but more environmentally friendly. Second, I would love to see the cost of making a movie be reigned in. It's slightly ridiculous to spend the amount that is spent to produce entertainment. I know that might seem counter-intuitive since I'm probably cutting into my own salary but if those costs were cut, wouldn't that raise profits which in turn might encourage the industry to take a few more chances on smaller, more creative fare? And if there is less money being spent to make the movie, people have to be more creative with their use of props hopefully prompting them to reduce, reuse and recycle. I will just keep hoping.

Drop the gimmicks. Right now, to me, most of the films being produced reek of desperation. "Hey, this movie/tv show/video game/whatever was pretty awesome before...wait til you see it now! In 3D!" It seems like Hollywood is so void of original, interesting stories that they're resorting to board games for inspiration. Board games. Seriously, it's just sad. Drop the hype. Stop making trailers that give away everything! So many times I'll see trailers that show all the best jokes, reveal the majority of the plot...or even worse, strongly hint at a twist ending. If you want people to come see your movie, don't make a 2 minute version of it!

[...] was a broad question, and we got a broad range of answers covering everything from 3D remakes to 3-Act structure. Truly, it was a competition for the ages. [...]

Bring back the sense of play and wonder in cinema. When I watch Citizen Kane, Breathless, or even Stranger Than Paradise I get the feeling that the filmmakers are discovering something about the medium and about themselves. This is true not just of the director, but also of the actors, the director of photography, and likely everyone involved. There is a sense of wonder, and of play. We live in an era where you can make a movie on a camera that you can balance on one hand and buy for less than $2000, and that movie looks good enough to put on the big screen. By all rights the door has been opened to all of us, Yet we see more repetition and unimaginative filmmaking than ever before. Bring back the sense of wonder—let's play. Let's do things no one has ever done before. I'd love it if a genie could inject that mindset into the studios, Hollywood filmmakers, and distributors.

Change the format of distribution to digital to allow for more short runs, better access for true independents, and even crowd-sourced choices of what will play on a given night. When the illusion of scarcity (actual printed film)is removed, you give the power to the theaters and audiences, while removing all the power of the larger studios and distributors who feed us mediocrity, so we all might feel somewhat satisfied with their product. Digital distribution also empowers the theaters and audiences to choose what they want to see, when they want, and close shows they don't want to see early, which would open up screens for other desired material. This would be real-time feedback to the studios and distributors. Could there be a archived movie night, Pandora-style, playing what we all would "most like" to see? Cable and the internet is already giving us what we want when we want it. Our screens are all getting bigger. Theaters and studios need to wake up and soon.

If I could change the movie industry, I would like to engage with the cinema goer to find out exactly what type of movie they want to see. It's a real shame that you get one original movie, and then 20 renditions are then churned out in quick succession. The movie industry doesn't seem to want to take any risks with new ideas and there is a danger of the industry stagnating. Therefore, I would ask the public what they would like to go and see, and compile ideas on their feedback.