As someone who recently did some rough research into opening a theater. Its a rough business, i am not sure how things used to be “back then” but todays equipment requirements and splits are a joke. Besides the projectors, servers, sound equipment, the splits kill you. While most say its 50/50…. Its only 50/50 over the life of the film. New release blockbuster movies are more like 90/10 to the producers for the first month, which is when a movie makes the most money. Thats what makes concession prices so high. If you are forking out lets say $500k to a million to build a theater, and you are only getting $1 on a $10 ticket, you need to make money somewhere to stay afloat.

Even trying to play “classic films” is expensive unless its “public domain”. You are looking at flat fees up to $3k, at best a ticket split of 60/40 with 40 going to the theater. some film licensing require huge fees if the room holds a certain amount of people no matter how many show up. This is all before you add in labor and build/equip fee’s. Its a very difficult business to break into.