Seen here experiencing couch saturation on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Photo: Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images
Da Movies are back, according to Variety. Citing successes like the record-breaking Michael, the one-two indie-horror punch of Backrooms and Obsession, and the presumed ascendancy of The Odyssey, industry insiders are claiming victory against phones. Colin Farrell thinks this resurgence is thanks to what he’s terming “couch saturation.” I call it “getting rammy” or “chewing on the bars of my enclosure,” but the vibe is the same: the feeling of being stuck at home and unwilling to risk deep vein thrombosis while bingeing yet another show. “People have couch saturation or couch fatigue,” he says in the cover story. “As much as it’s nice to stay at home and be entertained by the quality stuff that’s coming through the streaming services, I think people realize that it’s actually lovely to call an Uber and plan an evening around going to a movie theater.” That sounds like something cinephile detective John Sugar would say, rather than a man who needs to promote Sugar.
Whether we are, in fact, so back is debatable. Variety expects the box office to cross $10 billion for the first time since 2019, but we’ve seen a certain number of films perform way worse than expected. And when inflation and rising ticket prices are taken into consideration, there are fewer people paying more to reach that $10 billion mark. In other words, the couch is not yet fully saturated.
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