Cinemas, already contending with streaming services, are now facing the prospect of no audiences and no new films because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At issue, among other things, was CinemaCon, an annual Las Vegas event intended to bolster the most fragile part of the film business: leaving the house, buying a ticket and sitting in the dark with strangers to watch stories unfold on big screens. The National Association of Theater Owners was under pressure to call off the convention because of the coronavirus pandemic, but worries abounded about potential consumer fallout.
What message would canceling the confab send to potential ticket buyers, including those increasingly likely to skip cinemas — even in the best of times — and watch films on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus? American cinemas, after all, were staying open in the face of the pandemic.
Reality eventually made the association pull the plug on CinemaCon, another example of how seemingly every part of American life has been disrupted because of the coronavirus. For movie theaters, however, the pandemic could be a point of no return.
The National Association of Theater Owners has insisted that streaming services are not a threat. “Through every challenge, through every new technology innovation over the last twenty years, theatrical admissions have been stable and box office has consistently grown,” John Fithian, the association’s chief executive, said in a January news release titled “theater owners celebrate a robust 2019 box office.” Ticket sales in North America totaled $11.4 billion, down 4 percent from a record-setting 2018.
Many analysts, however, see a very different picture. Looking at the last 20 years of attendance figures, the number of tickets sold in North America peaked in 2002, when cinemas sold about 1.6 billion. In 2019, attendance totaled roughly 1.2 billion, a 25 percent drop — even as the population of the United States increased roughly 15 percent. Cinemas have kept ticket revenue high by raising prices, but studio executives say there is limited room for continued escalation. Offerings in theaters may also grow more constrained. Even before the pandemic, major studios were starting to route smaller dramas and comedies toward streaming services instead of theaters.
And now comes the coronavirus, which has prompted people to bivouac in their homes, theaters to put in place social-distancing restrictions and studios to postpone most theatrical releases through the end of April. Rich Greenfield, a founder of the LightShed Partners media research firm, predicted that the disruption would speed the ascendance of streaming.
Many entertainment companies, however, are eager to shorten that exclusive window and make some films available on their streaming platforms, in part to reduce marketing costs.
With the masses staying at home, ticket sales dropped precipitously over the weekend, even though two high-profile new films, “Bloodshot” and “The Hunt,” arrived in wide release. Each was supported by a marketing campaign costing tens of millions of dollars, and the money had already been spent by early last week, when the pandemic intensified in the United States and studios started to postpone releases planned for later in the month.
Analysis:
This article identifies several challenges for movie theaters during pandemic.
Masses are staying at home and watching films online. Streaming service provides the convenience of staying home and safe without not being able to catch the new trendy movies. It presents a great challenge for movie theatres. I think movie theatres need an operational transition to cope with the pandemic, and it could take lessons from streaming service or it could be a brand-new hybrid mode.
During the pandemic, movie theaters have to close or restrict the number of audiences, ticket sales dropped to follow healthy guidelines. Due to the nature of COVID-19, enclosed space presents a greater danger of infection, and since the traditional movie theater brings strangers to sit closely in an enclosed room, customers are unwilling to return to theatres any time sooner.
More new films released on streaming platforms, therefore movie theater loses profit and attraction to the audience. I think one of the ways to let movie theatres survive is to have new movies keep releasing in theatre.
