Commentary

Streaming Vs. Theaters: More Competition for Movie Screen Time?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 6, 2025

Are consumers still going to movie theaters to see films -- even as streaming platforms continuing to dig into entertainment behavior more broadly?

Of course, and possibly for the near term.

One key measurement is attendance days after a movie’s initial weekend opening -- which, on average, for regular wide-release movies isn’t that bad over recent years -- at least according to one major theater owner's chief executive.

“We haven’t seen a steeper decay of a film’s trajectory through its life cycle after it’s released into theaters,” said Sean Gamble, CEO of Cinemark, speaking at a Morgan Stanley investor event recently.

“That’s held pretty consistent with pre-pandemic patterns. And even when it enters the home like a PVOD [pay per view video-on-demand] service, we haven’t seen a steeper decline at that point, so that’s encouraging.”

Still, a maturing streaming market might see a different kind of behavior -- especially if there is more of a gradual shortening of theatrical windows for all movies.

“As consumers become more aware of these short windows, does that ultimately lead to some form of reduction in attendance overall? I think that’s something that’s still to be determined over time.”

Overall theatrical attendance has declined over the past few years -- but that has more to do with the number of releases by studios that have been pulling back -- first with the pandemic disruption, and more recently due to actors' and writers' strikes.

There were 823 million tickets sold in 2024, down 24% from the pre-pandemic 2019 period, and down 3% from 2023.

Gamble says the good news for theater owners is that new, digital-first companies now producing and distributing theatrical movies -- Amazon MGM and Apple -- could be ramping up the number of releases. Amazon will go from around five a year to 16 wide releases. Gamble also believes Apple will add more releases.

What does this all mean for streamers? Well, they are not going away. One recent survey from MX8 Labs says 46% of U.S. adults prefer to stream flicks at home, with only 15% saying they favor theaters.

No doubt more of those big franchise expensive adventure, fantasy, computer-generated content-based movies for the summer or the end-of-the year holiday periods will still be the major drivers.

The two biggest U.S. domestic movies in terms of box-office revenue in 2024, per IMDb’s Box Office Mojo, were Walt Disney’s “Inside Out 2” ($653 million) and “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($636.7 million).

That leaves more of the off-holiday, mid-level movies for the summer period -- especially older, adult-focused films -- which may find less interest in theaters.

Concert films? Special big-screen events, such as gaming competitions and the like? Movie theater operators have talked up content like this before in attempts to spike attendance in off periods.

Other remedies will be needed in the coming years. Big screens will always need high-quality, hit-them-over-the-head visually compelling content.