One of most notable things about Barbie’s success was that it brought a lot of people back out to movie theaters, many of whom hadn’t been to one since before the Covid-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, at-home streaming really took off. Americans were already leaning into it, but the lockdowns expedited the situation. As a result, Warner Brothers made the decision to release all of their 2021 movies in both theaters and streaming.

At the time, it was controversial within the industry, but the decision has definitely had legs. Right now, annual box office numbers are down over 22% since 2019, and a recent poll conducted on 1,182 adults confirmed the obvious: Most Americans prefer streaming new releases at home instead of seeing them in theaters. Why? Convenience, expense, and demographic changes. All of us need a reason to get off the couch and spend the money on tickets.

Streaming is more convenient: “The studios now are so closely affiliated with the streaming services,” [Sherry Jenkins, 69] said. “There’s really no logic behind why some skip the theaters.” The last time she regularly went to the movie theaters was, she thinks, about 20 years ago. But as a tech-savvy retiree, there just hasn’t been enough of a reason to make the trek to the theater. A subscriber to Acorn, BritBox, Paramount+, Peacock, Netflix and Hulu, Jenkins doesn’t even see the need for cable anymore.

“People tell me, ‘Oh, you have to go to the theaters and see ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ ” Jenkins said. “But my TV is 75 inches, and I’m comfortable. I’m at home.”

The cost of movie tickets is a factor: Maryneal Jones, 91, of North Carolina, said she likes to go to the movies but finds them too expensive. “There’s some movies I would like to see, and I say to myself, I’ll just wait until they show them on TV or I’ll go visit a friend who has those apps,” Jones said. “But I just don’t want to pay 12 bucks.”

The average cost of a movie ticket in the U.S. is $13.17, according to data firm EntTelligence. In 2022, it was $11.76. Jones does not subscribe to any streaming services, but she also sees more movies in theaters than many others. She estimates she sees about six to eight a year. Recent films she’s watched in the theater include “The Life of Chuck” and the French romantic comedy “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.”

The AP-NORC poll also indicates that streaming may be a more accessible option for lower-income Americans. Higher-income adults are more likely than low-income adults to be at least occasional moviegoers for new releases, but the gap is smaller for watching movies on streaming instead of going to the theater.

Younger adults watch more new movies, especially on streaming: New movies are more popular among young adults, regardless of how they see them. But streaming is more of a go-to for the younger generation. Slightly less than half of adults under age 30 say they watched a recently released movie on streaming instead of going to the theater at least once a month in the past year, compared with about 2 in 10 who watched a movie in the theater with that frequency.

Eddie Lin, an 18-year-old student in Texas, said he mostly watches movies at home, on streamers like Crunchyroll, Hulu, HBO Max and Prime Video, but will go to the theaters for “bigger things” like “A Minecraft Movie,” which is the biggest movie of the year in North America.

“A couple of my friends wanted to see it,” Lin said. “And there were the memes. I felt like the audience would be more interactive and it would be enhanced by being there with, like, a bunch of people. I used to go more when I was younger, with my family, seeing all the Marvel movies up to ‘Endgame,’ I like movie theaters. It’s an experience. For me, it’s mostly a time thing. But I do feel like a certain charm of watching movies in theaters is gone.”

[From AP]

The results of this poll aren’t surprising. All of these reasons make perfect sense to me. It sounds like movie theaters are sounding the alarm, but studios don’t really have an incentive to work with them because they get the best of both worlds. I think all of these reasons are also interconnected. I love going to see a movie in theaters, so I’m actually not in this camp at all, but I can believe when people say that they feel like the charm is gone. People came out for Barbie, Oppenheimer, Wicked, and Minecraft because they were “events.” Young people wanted to yell “chicken jockey!” with their friends. Women wanted to see their own struggles recognized on screen. Theatre kids were happy to have a big musical spectacle. The MCU movies had that element of spectacle at one point, but they started to wear out their welcome. Plus, everything is expensive, so people have to choose where to spend their money. Give them a reason to skip the convenience of the couch and spend their money on a movie ticket. If you build a movie for the masses, they will come.

Photos credit: HBO/Warner Brothers Press, Pavel Danilyuk, Andres Ayrton on Pexels