Call me a romantic, but that's always been the appeal of actually going to the movies. I've got a decent home theater, an OLED TV and a projector. But I’m still constrained by my Brooklyn apartment. So while my setup is great for rewatching movies I love, I still prefer seeing films for the first time on the big screen, with an actual crowd, whenever possible. It's sort of work for me as well -- check out my weekly movie podcast, the Slashfilmcast -- but even if I wasn't a podcaster, I'd still be going to the theater as often as possible. Some people have church, I have cinema.

So, as much as I love the convenience of watching The Invisible Man at home, I've begun to hate it a bit. What if going early to VOD convinces distributors that smaller movies don't even need theatrical runs? We've been creeping towards that reality for a while now -- it's easy to find a limited release title like IFC Film's Swallow on iTunes every week. And it's not like the theater business is exactly booming these days -- not every movie can reach a billion dollars like Disney's stable.

The Invisible Man cost just $7 million dollars, a pittance compared to most wide releases, and it had a strong few weeks in theaters. While it likely would have made a ton more money if it stayed in theaters, it’s not like it’s trying to recoup a larger $50 million budget. Movies with that sort of budget have already been a dying breed in theaters over the last few years, and the few that do pop up are typically streaming exclusives on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. As for theatrical releases, studios have been focusing on the extremes: cheaper titles that are more profitable, or huge $100 million films that could creep towards a billion dollars in ticket sales.

I'm less worried about big budget titles, which have no way of recouping their production costs with VOD releases. It's no surprise Fast and Furious 9 is getting pushed to next year, the last installment grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide on a $250 million budget. VOD releases will simply never catch up with that, especially in a world where the likes of Netflix and Hulu deliver access to a nearly infinite supply of movies and tv shows for a small monthly fee. And don't forget about YouTube, which will basically only costs you the time lost going down Bon Appetit rabbit holes.

Obviously, we've all got more to worry about than the movie industry. But personally, I won't feel truly at peace with the state of the world until theaters are up and running again. When we won't be afraid of sitting within six feet of another human being, breathing the same air, dreaming the same big-screen dream.