Cinema Attendance Remains under Threat

Revenues have yet to recover from the pandemic and last year’s actor and writer strikes.

US Industry Box Office revenues were between $11billion and $12 billion for five years running prior to the pandemic. They fell to $2.2billion in 2020 and then rose to $4.5billion in 2021, $7.4 billion in 2022 and for the last two years have been around $8.8billion.

Revenues have yet to recover from the pandemic and last year’s actor and writer strikes. Meanwhile, as costs of movie making have soared, streamers have had a negative effect on cinema attendance.

Cinema box office take is dependent on blockbuster movies that attract families and younger viewers during the school holidays. In 2024 the top-grossing movies were ‘Wicked’, ‘Inside Out’, and ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’. The 2025 box office take will rely on features such as ‘Snow White’, ‘Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning’, ‘The Fantastic Four-First Steps’, ‘Superman’, and ‘Jurassic World Rebuild’. And you’ll see a reliance on some old franchise titles in there. But the success of these films still does not add up to comparable earlier year attendance numbers.

Meanwhile, you’ve got to ask, where does this leave independent films that often focus on more serious topics and niche thought-provoking content? For these films to be financed, a theatrical run can be the defining factor in getting the film made in the first place. Both ‘Anora’ and ‘The Brutalist’ were made for under £10 million and swept the Oscars, but their box office take is modest. I watched both films at my local cinema alongside only a dozen or so fellow filmgoers.

The director of ‘Anora’, Sean Baker, talking at the Oscar’s ceremony about cinema viewing said, ‘It’s a communal experience you don’t get at home. And now the theatre-going experience is under threat.’

When you visit a cinema and see a great film, it is an experience you don’t forget. But how often do we watch a film at home and later can’t recall the plot or any of the details? It is a very different experience.

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