Ben Affleck Talks About Seeing ‘Licorice Pizza’ in the Theaters with JLo – See Photos from That Day!

Ben Affleck went to see the movie Licorice Pizza in theaters earlier this month with girlfriend Jennifer Lopez and their kids and now he’s opening up about the experience.

The 49-year-old actor brought up the outing while talking about the failure of his movie The Last Duel and the current state of movie theaters in general.

“The theatrical experience is great, I love the theatrical experience, but the business has changed over time. First it was vaudeville, and then silent pictures, and then the talkies, and then color, and the radio came out and everybody said it was going to kill movies. TV came out and everybody said it would kill movies. Every time it’s the same, people watch stories that move them in different ways [on different platforms]. I think that’s OK,” Ben told The Hollywood Reporter.

Ben later brought up his experience at the movie theater.

He said, “I went to see one movie theatrically. That movie was Licorice Pizza. There are probably two or three directors, people like Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino, who have people saying, ‘OK, I’m going to see two or three movies in the theater this year, I’ll go see theirs.’”

Ben, Jennifer, and their kids were spotted at the movie theater in Los Angeles on December 4 and we have all the photos. Click through the gallery!

Ben added, “I think you’re going to see 40 movies at least [released] each year now. When Gone Baby Gone came out, there were something like 600 movies being released every year. We had seven movies debuting on the same weekend. It was really difficult, and I think maybe [The Last Duel] would’ve done better on streaming because the way [studios and streamers] have of identifying and marketing directly to people who like it is really effective. For God’s sake, think of this movie [The Tender Bar]. I mean, Amazon has an enormous reach. Everybody uses Amazon. They may be buying groceries, refrigerators, whatever, but they still use it, and you can reach people that way. I think you have to adapt with the times or you risk becoming a dinosaur, as my children tell me.”

One of Ben‘s upcoming movies will no longer go to theaters.