They’re in a death spiral. The ticket prices are largely controlled by the movie distributors not the theaters with a significant chunk of the profit from ticket sales going to the distributor. This isn’t new, been that way for decades. In response the theaters figured they could charge more for concessions to make up their profit. With people not seeing movies much anymore the theaters raised concession prices to ridiculous levels to try to make up the difference. Their latest bid is cramming obscene numbers of commercials in before the movie plays because they get to keep all that money as well. The increased prices, tons of ads, and the too loud environment cause even fewer people to want to go to the theaters, which in turn causes them to raise rates and add more ads. They’re circling the drain at this point because not only are they discouraging people from attending but we’re also in an economic downturn where everyone is cutting back on whatever discretionary spending they possibly can