Movie fans prefer home to theaters, poll says

? The parking’s easy and there are no lines at the concession stand: Most Americans would now rather watch films at home than in theaters, according to an AP-AOL poll. At the same time, almost half think movies are getting worse.

Hollywood is in the midst of its longest box-office slump in 20 years, and 2005 is shaping up as the worst year for movie attendance in nearly a decade if theater business continues at the same lackluster rate.

In the poll released Thursday, 73 percent of adults said they preferred watching movies at home on DVD, videotape or pay-per-view. With more than two-thirds also saying movie stars are poor role models – Russell Crowe’s phone-throwing being the latest example – it may take more than a blockbuster or two to reverse Hollywood’s slide.

Just 22 percent said they would rather see films in a theater, according to the poll conducted by Ipsos for The Associated Press and AOL News. One-fourth said they had not been to a movie theater in the past year.

“I just prefer to stay home and watch movies,” said Mark Gil, 34, a mortgage broker in Central Square, N.Y. “It’s cheaper. You can go rent a movie for three bucks. By the time you’re done at the movie theater with sodas and stuff, it’s 20 bucks.”

Films are getting worse, said 47 percent in the AP-AOL poll. A third said they were getting better.

Many big films – “Kingdom of Heaven,” “The Honeymooners,” “XXX: State of the Union,” Crowe’s “Cinderella Man” – have fizzled in ’05.

Some in Hollywood think the slump – 16 straight weekends of declining revenue compared to last year – is a momentary blip due to so-so movies. They maintain the box office will rebound when better films arrive.

Others view the slide as a sign that theaters are losing ground to home-entertainment options such as DVDs.

But the poll found that people who use DVDs, watch pay-per-view movies on cable, download movies from the Internet and play computer games actually go to movies in theaters more than people at the same income levels who don’t use those technologies. That suggests the technology may be complementing rather than competing with theatergoers. Eight in 10 in the poll said they use DVD players at home.

A handful of big hits could salvage Hollywood’s year. Still to come this summer are Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise’s “War of the Worlds,” Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and the superhero adventure “Fantastic Four.”

The AP-AOL News poll of 1,000 adults was taken Monday through Thursday and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.