Have You Ever Wondered About The Funky Movie Theater Carpet In The ’90s?

One of the things that many of us have missed during the pandemic is heading over to the movie theater and enjoying the group experience of watching a flick together. It has been a mainstay for many people and some would never let a new movie come out without heading off to the theater to see it.

During the 1990s, theaters were busy with some amazing blockbusters, including Independence Day, Jurassic Park, and Titanic. People were flocking to the theaters to see those movies on the big screen because that was the only way to truly experience the movie.

The theaters wanted to capitalize on the business, so they decided to introduce a new style of carpet into the theaters during the time and the style was called The Odyssey.

According to a report on the A24’s blog, AMC added The Odyssey to make the theater just as big as the blockbusters they were showing. They also knew that there would be more spilled soda in food as the crowds got bigger, so they came up with an unusual carpet print to cover the bases.

Reddit user @TheDarkSoul61 shared a photo of an old theater and it’s truly nostalgic.

The carpets were tested by putting them through the wringer, pouring Coke on them and allowing it to absorb. They knew that this would happen regularly when they were actually on the floor, and they knew they had a winner when the material stayed the same color.

Other cinemas were quick to adopt a similar style of carpeting after The Odyssey showed up in the AMC theaters. The carpet wasn’t always a space theme, but sometimes it was anything from buckets of popcorn to cartoon film reels. Although the style may have been different, the purpose was the same: to hide a mess that ended up on the floor.

The popularity of the movie theater began to die down somewhat in the mid-2000’s. The seats were larger and the crowds were lower, so it wasn’t as important to have the same style of carpets. In addition, the style went out of style, so now we see something different on the floor but it still serves a similar purpose.