With 5,700 Movie Screens Shut Down and the Box Office in a Slump, Theaters Are Still Waiting for a Post-Pandemic Comeback

variety.com:

box office returns. It’s also less relevant and more imperiled, forced to compete with an endless array of streaming services.

There’s a sense that a few bad breaks could extinguish an art form that’s been built over generations. “The recovery has been much slower than people hoped,” says Eric Handler, an exhibition industry analyst with Roth Capital Partners. “It’s been a struggle.

You’ve had companies go out of business, and most of the major chains closed locations.” 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.