The legendary actor and filmmaker Orson Welles believed {that a} glad ending depended upon the place you stopped your story.
Motion pictures have had an extended and unimaginable story from these early days, after they have been often called “flickers” or “shadow plays” to the Golden Age of the Thirties–50s, by means of the New Hollywood of the late Sixties–Seventies.
For the final 20 years, nevertheless, the story has taken a darker flip because the trade has struggled with shrinking audiences and the rise of dwelling leisure, an trade that was upended by streaming providers.
“For two decades, movie theaters have consistently wrestled with how to get people into seats,” analysts at Bain & Co. mentioned in a current observe. “Today, that challenge has become an existential threat.”
Whereas shopper spending on video streaming subscriptions surged from 2010 by means of 2024, the worldwide consulting agency mentioned, North American box-office income in actual phrases fell throughout the identical timeframe.
Ticket costs in actual phrases are near flat since 2010, however the price of a go to has risen as the rise in concessions income per patron has outpaced inflation, Bain mentioned, in order that “as a result, consumers now see cinema as expensive.”
Film theaters have been contending with shrinking audiences.
Picture supply: Shutterstock
Agency says cinema should reframe itself
“In 2020 and 2021, release schedules collapsed, consumer habits changed, and digital platforms gained ground,” the research mentioned.
“Although a 2025 Bain media consumption survey of more than 5,000 US consumers found that about half of them wish they attended more in-person events, this hasn’t translated into a recovery for theatrical exhibition, with domestic cinema attendance still just 64% of pre-pandemic levels.”
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On the similar time, main studios’ annual variety of broad releases through the previous couple of years stays down a fifth from pre-pandemic ranges, with these studios utilizing output from smaller affiliated studios to fill the hole.
The Bain report pressured that cinema’s best power is its means to ship immersion, spectacle, and shared experiences.
“But this is at odds with people’s evolving consumption of media, which is increasingly short-form, interactive, and digital,” the report mentioned. “Cinema must reframe itself as a premium experience, not mere content. Seeing a movie in theaters is an event, a destination, an experience that is far more affordable than a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert.”
Ed Maguire, head of analysis at Freedom Capital Markets, urged that maybe “Hollywood itself may be in terminal decline at this point.”
“The future of the movie theater experience is something that’s at issue,” he mentioned through the Dec. 10 version of the Shares & Markets Podcast. “Hollywood has been suffering over the last couple of years in the in the wake of the writers’ strike in the pandemic.”
Maguire cited reviews stating that the variety of movie and tv trade employees in Los Angeles County dropped by roughly 100,000 by the tip of 2024, down from 142,000 two years prior.
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Portfolio supervisor wonders if megaplex days are over
“So, the industry itself has reached a stage of maturity where it’s starting to contract,” he mentioned. “I don’t have a great read on what the future is going to be.”
“I do think there is a counter to the cyclical trend where you’re seeing a lot more people showing up for in-person events. Live Nation and MSG Entertainment and some smaller companies are investing in the live experiences because people do want to connect person to person. I think that in many respects that experience will continue.”
The content material, nevertheless, is extra fragmented, Maguire mentioned, including that “it might be time for the indies carry the torch and we might see a new player on the scene.”
“It’s obviously cheaper watching it at home and streaming it on an increasingly larger TV with greater sound systems,” mentioned Chris Versace, lead portfolio supervisor for TheStreet Professional.
“I do wonder, though, if perhaps the megaplex movie theater days are over. Perhaps we’ll see a return to the movie theater that has two screens or four screens. It’s easier to program and movies play for a longer period of time. Kind of like when we were kids.”
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Analysts at PwC see prospects within the native, in accordance with the accounting and auditing agency’s World Leisure & Media Outlook 2025–2029.
Whereas Hollywood blockbusters and Bollywood films in India stay well-liked, customers’ preferences are persevering with to maneuver in direction of domestically produced movies. Globally, the market share of the highest 5 US studios dropped from over 60% earlier than the pandemic to 51.3% in 2024.
In Brazil, demand for native films is booming, spurred by the success of I’m Nonetheless Right here, the nation’s main streaming service Globoplay’s first authentic characteristic, which gained the 2025 Academy Award for Greatest Worldwide Characteristic Movie, the agency mentioned.
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