What Position Will Movie Theaters Be In Five Years?

It has been a rough half decade for movie theaters.

Despite huge blockbusters like “Avengers Endgame”, “The Lion King”, “Toy Story 4”, “Black Panther” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”, 2019 and 2018 only saw about a 5% increase in revenue compared to other years throughout the 2010s. And of course, there’s the black sheep in the room when it comes to this topic, Covid-19, which wreaked havoc on an industry that already was losing ground to streaming. And the following year was when the trend of movies going to streaming services the same day as theaters or 30-40 days after their theatrical runs took off to movie theaters demise.

Before the pandemic movies would typically be released on digital download services 74 days after their theatrical release date. DVD and Blu-Ray releases would come in 80-90 days. For years before the pandemic movie studios wanted to shorten the theatrical release window. For instance, “Star Wars Attack of the Clone” was released in theaters on May 16th, 2002, and released on DVD and VHS on November 12th, 2002. Studios have fought for a shorter theatrical release window for years, and now their wildest dreams have come true. Despite this, as the pandemic cooled down, people showed back up the cinemas in large crowds. And most large movie theaters located in cities where keep the boat floating throughout 2022 and beyond. But between bankruptcy rumors for AMC theaters and a 70% drop in AMC and Cineworld stock in the last four months, alarm bells for movie lovers are ringing.

Unfortunately, for small town movie theaters things are even grimmer. While exact closure statistics for movie theaters in towns of 15,000 people or less are difficult to come by. They are not exactly not needed because their financial situation is clear. Follow SpotLife ASIA for the latest news and updates.

The town I am from Laurens South Carolina is home to the capital theater, the oldest movie theater in South Carolina. While still technically open, it closed permanently in September of 2021 after 105 years of being open for business. Thankfully in May of 2022 the closest college, Presbyterian College bought the property and now plans to use it for their esports team and other events, some open to the public and some only available for students. In 1950 there was a movie theater in every county in America.

So the decline of small movie theaters pre-dates the pandemic by decades, but with questions as to how long movies will be in theaters and some doubts about box-office attendance are there any good signs ahead?

There’s a few.
2021 was the best year for foreign films at the U.S office ever. And although the future is uncertain about the future of the U.S box office, the total global box office has boomed since the pandemic, reaching a value of $21.4 billion in 2021.

The Chinese box office was predicted to surpass the U.S box office in 2020 before the pandemic. With the growth of American films abroad and vice versa gives cinemas a lot of hope. Fathom events grossed a total of $13 billion in 2021 and $11 billion so far in 2022. In comparison fathom events only grossed $7.9 billion in 2019 and between 7.4-7.6 billion in 2017 and 2018. So in conclusion, while we will likely continue to see movie theaters close in coming years, Movie studios are picking up the number of high-quality films they are releasing, both at home and abroad.

Cinemas will take more of a quality-of-quantity approach with films being shown and will rely more and more on re-releases and special events and foreign films. But in conclusion, throughout the years people believed that the rise of tv and later cable tv would kill Cinemas. While they didn’t help they were far from dead.

The same applies to the internet, DVD rentals, and digital downloads. Cinemas were surviving the growing popularity of streams before the pandemic. If theaters can survive for this long with more competition every year, they can survive for quite a while longer; thanks for reading.