CinemaCon, studios will land in Sin City with a renewed appreciation for the money that can be made in cinemas.After experimenting with different release strategies and launching their own streaming services, many studios better understand that there’s no substitute for the attention and treasure that comes with a big, old-fashioned theatrical launch.
Bold moves like Warner Bros.’ decision to send its entire 2021 slate to HBO Max at the same time the films opened in cinemas proved to be a mixed bag, and every major studio has opted to have some kind of exclusive theatrical window for the foreseeable future.That means that the palpable tension that hung over last year’s gathering will have lifted, even as the box office has failed to recapture its pre-pandemic stride.
But there are plenty of unpleasant realities still facing an exhibition industry hoping to move on from COVID. As CinemaCon kicks off on Monday, here are five burning questions facing the movie theater business. Are movies making money?It’s a caveat that accompanies the box office reporting on even the biggest hits of the past two years, with sages noting that such and such a gross is a strong result “for a pandemic.” Those words are a grim acknowledgment that with the possible exception of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($1.9 billion globally, baby), most of the would-be blockbusters that have debuted since COVID hit the scene have failed to perform at the box office in the same way that they would have before the virus disrupted things.
That’s partly due to the fact that older audiences remain skittish about returning to cinemas and have yet to come back in force.
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