Theater Chain Death Watch? Chapter 11s inc
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Goatface
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With 5,700 Movie Screens Shut Down and the Box Office in a Slump, Theaters Are Still Waiting for a Post-Pandemic Comeback
Movie theaters are considering discount pricing and investing in Imax and 4DX to attract audiences, but the 2025 box office is in a slump.
variety.com
With fewer people stopping by the box office, Regal Cinemas, Pacific Theatres, Alamo Drafthouse and others filed for Chapter 11. Some of these companies have reemerged after bankruptcy; others have dimmed their marquees forever. As a result, North America has 5,691 fewer screens compared with pre-COVID times, according to research by media consultancy Omdia.
Box office grosses haven’t rebounded either. Ticket sales in 2024 fell to $8.7 billion, a 23.5% drop from pre-pandemic levels. It’s a far cry from the nearly $11 billion the industry was generating before the global health crisis. Theater owners maintain their business is about to regain its footing, but this year is off to a lousy start, with franchise fare like “Captain America: Brave New World” falling short and ambitious bets like “Mickey 17” failing to pay off.
Hollywood’s Theatrical Business At Risk Of Entering “Negative Feedback Loop”, Wall Street Analyst Warns
Hollywood may be entering a "negative feedback loop" with fewer movie releases and theater closures squeezing revenue, a Wall Street analyst says.
deadline.com
The number of screens in the U.S. has declined to about 35,000 from 41,000 before Covid struck in 2020, with exhibition also facing big challenges in 2023 and 2024 due to the strikes. That smaller footprint might help theater owners in the near term, but it could end up hastening the decline of the overall business, Creutz believes. Downsizing “risks having more films skipping theatrical and going direct to streaming services…and now you have all the ingredients for a negative feedback loop.”
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so far, week 1 and 2 of march 2025, had a total box office of $152.3m, last year was $344.3m
Wombat
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To some degree, none of this is new - between Covid and the strikes, the routine of going to the movies was broken for people for years. On top of that, the entertainment industry continued to move online, both with secondary streaming service releases sooner than ever, and with more movies directly being purchasable online while still in theaters.
The rub is that while the downturn has been obvious for the last couple years, it wasn't clear (or people didn't want to admit) how much of this was permanent vs "production supply issues" of limited movie releases delayed due to covid / strikes. Except rational observers would have seen the significant falloff the most recent releases of many franchises (Mission Impossible, Fast and the Furious, Aquaman (as barometer of DC as a whole), Ant-Man (as a barometer of Marvel as a whole), etc.) saw even vs sparse competition and realized what the truth actually is. Now that we're getting more low to mid-range releases per week... the overall box office is worse than when anticipated blockbusters released (e.g. Dune 2).
It's not that the movie business is dead - your animated known-franchise kids movies can probably be guaranteed to make ~$80M from parents trying to get their kids to shut up for a while, your horror movies can probably bring in $20M from bored teens and early 20-somethings, etc. But that to be reliably profitable, the budgets on those movies must be modest ($40M for the kids movies, $10M for the horror movies), and the distributors have to be agile enough to squeeze out a couple million profit on each film while not having a single flop put them out of business themselves. Why do you think everyone in Hollywood is in love with A24 and Neon nowadays?
(The actual effect of the strikes was to increase the average pay for people in the movies that were made... while drastically cutting the overall number of real productions made. More pay for a select few while cutting the overall number of jobs? That doesn't sound like how unions work!)
And if we really want to talk about "Negative Feedback Loops", we could address the other elephant in the room - men. Men, especially young men, who used to be the majority of movie ticket purchasers in the 80s and early 90s (why do you think there were so many action movies with tits when we were young), massively converted to playing video games instead. As a result even the most male-focused franchises had to pivot to female co-leads if not actual leads, because they have to appeal to female ticket buyers (while hoping a couple males are dumb enough to buy tickets based on name recognition). But when the results are poor, it just results in men writing off another franchise - and the women didn't have much (if any) love for that franchise to begin with.
That feminization is now so overwhelming that it has become satire - did anyone watch a Novocaine ad and not think "Sure, a (white) man will save a (minority) woman in a Hollywood movie made in the 21st century, there definitely won't be a twist with the woman working for the bad guys"?
The rub is that while the downturn has been obvious for the last couple years, it wasn't clear (or people didn't want to admit) how much of this was permanent vs "production supply issues" of limited movie releases delayed due to covid / strikes. Except rational observers would have seen the significant falloff the most recent releases of many franchises (Mission Impossible, Fast and the Furious, Aquaman (as barometer of DC as a whole), Ant-Man (as a barometer of Marvel as a whole), etc.) saw even vs sparse competition and realized what the truth actually is. Now that we're getting more low to mid-range releases per week... the overall box office is worse than when anticipated blockbusters released (e.g. Dune 2).
It's not that the movie business is dead - your animated known-franchise kids movies can probably be guaranteed to make ~$80M from parents trying to get their kids to shut up for a while, your horror movies can probably bring in $20M from bored teens and early 20-somethings, etc. But that to be reliably profitable, the budgets on those movies must be modest ($40M for the kids movies, $10M for the horror movies), and the distributors have to be agile enough to squeeze out a couple million profit on each film while not having a single flop put them out of business themselves. Why do you think everyone in Hollywood is in love with A24 and Neon nowadays?
(The actual effect of the strikes was to increase the average pay for people in the movies that were made... while drastically cutting the overall number of real productions made. More pay for a select few while cutting the overall number of jobs? That doesn't sound like how unions work!)
And if we really want to talk about "Negative Feedback Loops", we could address the other elephant in the room - men. Men, especially young men, who used to be the majority of movie ticket purchasers in the 80s and early 90s (why do you think there were so many action movies with tits when we were young), massively converted to playing video games instead. As a result even the most male-focused franchises had to pivot to female co-leads if not actual leads, because they have to appeal to female ticket buyers (while hoping a couple males are dumb enough to buy tickets based on name recognition). But when the results are poor, it just results in men writing off another franchise - and the women didn't have much (if any) love for that franchise to begin with.
That feminization is now so overwhelming that it has become satire - did anyone watch a Novocaine ad and not think "Sure, a (white) man will save a (minority) woman in a Hollywood movie made in the 21st century, there definitely won't be a twist with the woman working for the bad guys"?
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that's one hell of a take.
Hollywood went Woke because men stopped going to movies???
jesus bro don't quit your day job.
Hollywood has produced nothing but absolute shit DEI drivel that hates it's audience and thus nobody pays for that shit anymore. Every good movie worth a shit makes bank, even more so now that it's such a rarity.
Hollywood went Woke because men stopped going to movies???
jesus bro don't quit your day job.
Hollywood has produced nothing but absolute shit DEI drivel that hates it's audience and thus nobody pays for that shit anymore. Every good movie worth a shit makes bank, even more so now that it's such a rarity.
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Why should I go to movies when I have a 85" TV with sound system that I can play whenever I want, dont have to go anywhere, can pause at will, make my own snacks, yell at it, do whatever the fuck I want from the comfort of my home.
the AMC 20 that was built in like 2006 or 8 around me is fucking DEAD. Pre covid you would have packed parking lot, even during the day. Now? shit is deader than dead. Its like its already closed.
the AMC 20 that was built in like 2006 or 8 around me is fucking DEAD. Pre covid you would have packed parking lot, even during the day. Now? shit is deader than dead. Its like its already closed.
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Captain Suave
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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Also for far less money and not having to deal with other people.
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Wombat
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Starring women != woke, though given the relative politics of the sexes, there is a lot of overlap.
To be clear, that female skew isn't just movies, it's television as well. It's the entire reason the NFL (and formerly the NBA) have the funding they do - live sports are one of the few things men bother watching on TV, and those leagues can, or at least could*, set their own prices as a result.
(*But even here there are chinks in male buying power. MLB will probably have a lockout in 2027 as many local tv deals collapse, the NBA declines year over year, and ESPN and the like have to fire another batch of veteran talking heads every few months to stay profitable.)
Just like in journalism, the rank and file in Hollywood have always leaned significantly leftist - it was just the execs used to rein them in. That's no longer the case (to a massive degree) - what percent is current execs have spent their entire adult lives in the last 30 years of Total Culture War mode where cooperation with the other side is betrayal, institutional investors are putting their thumb on the scales, or execs believe they have to have the same positions as modern colleges to recruit fresh graduates is up for debate.
I already mentioned Snow White overperformed vs the average red family film - frankly, more people should have been voting with their wallets (and being vocal about it) for years until execs realize their lack of actual diversity (in ideology) is hurting them.
Kirun
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'22 saw Top Gun II absolutely crush at the box office.
People still go out for great movies that don't have a bunch of faggot bullshit in them. The problem is, all Hollywood wants to produce is faggot bullshit.
The new Mission Impossible is going to do great at the box office as well. Because Tom isn't a woke faggot like you are.
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Palum
what Suineg set it to
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Admittedly I saw 5th Gen Fighter on an airplane not in the theater, but it was the closest I've come to going to the theater since 2018. The bigger problem is all the nice theaters closed and the shitty big box chains stayed open. We used to have a couple local places that had really comfortable seats, served alcohol and meals at normal prices, etc. Those all died to the plandemic and now I have no reason to bother going to places that were last refurbished in 2009 and have tiny pleather stadium seats, cost 30$ for a popcorn and one drink and have the risk of other people being there shitting up the experience. The bigger screen is only worth so much when the movies are at best mediocre.
OU Ariakas
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Wombat spent two posts and a ton of words being mostly correct saying simply "Hollywood stopped catering to their most consistent demographic (men) in order to chase new demographics and ended up losing the former and finding out that the latter says they want the product but won't pay for it"
They stopped making movies catering to men and now they are fucked. They could turn it around at any time but refuse because they are arrogant elitists/leftists that would kill themselves before admitting they were wrong and men have value.
They stopped making movies catering to men and now they are fucked. They could turn it around at any time but refuse because they are arrogant elitists/leftists that would kill themselves before admitting they were wrong and men have value.
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Intrinsic
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OU Ariakas
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The other factor is that the Theaters themselves have gone off the fucking deep end trying to gouge families when they want snacks. I would go to a shittier theater with moderately priced snacks over one that has reclining, heated chairs but costs $20 for a medium popcorn. It is the classic scenario where they sell less so they charge more to make up the difference and end up selling even fucking less. If one chain would go back to basic, cheap concessions I bet they would see a huge boom in sales.
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Except no, he didn't claim this. He claimed the opposite, which is why he was ridiculed and called a faggot, and well deserved.
What you typed is obvious and true, easily defended.
He claimed that men stopped going to movies and started spending more time playing video games, so then the market had to react and start focusing on turning male dominated franchises female and gay to hope to compensate for the lack of a male audience.
This is demonstrably false and retarded.
Cybsled
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Theaters always made their money from cheap to make snacks (popcorn and soda are literally pennies on the dollar in terms of costs to make), but I agree the artificial inflation of snack prices beyond what they normally charged is shooting themselves in the foot
Rabbit_Games
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I think it’s way more about watching what I want from the comfort of my own home. Less expensive, no one else’s rules to worry about, and not having to deal with uncivilized trash ruining the experience.
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This montage they did over the Oscar's acceptance speech was hilarious. Exactly why I'm ok staying at home with my 120" laser projector.
Also it's very obvious the days of theaters, at least at scale, are coming to a close. Is direct to home going to be enough revenue for studios, or are movies as we know it about change dramatically? I wonder how possible it is to maintain some of these huge budgets if everyone pays $15-20 to watch at home?
No sympathy here, but I'm curious to see some projections/analysis of what that would mean for the industry outside of the obvious.
Also it's very obvious the days of theaters, at least at scale, are coming to a close. Is direct to home going to be enough revenue for studios, or are movies as we know it about change dramatically? I wonder how possible it is to maintain some of these huge budgets if everyone pays $15-20 to watch at home?
No sympathy here, but I'm curious to see some projections/analysis of what that would mean for the industry outside of the obvious.
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Fucker
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Theaters are going to die out. Nothing coming this year save for maybe 2 movies. Nothing coming next year except for remakes and sequels which people are done with.
Not only are theaters are dead, but movies are, too. They can't be monetized on theater tickets alone, and they can't be monetized via streaming unless one of 3 studios bankrolls the film. Which just means more shitty $2 budget horror flicks, more sequels, reboots, and remakes.
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Burns
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Movies have been 99% shit for 10+ years and yet they are all still limping along. I think it will be a much slower death.
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