In recent years, multiple movies have been released that have either been successes or complete and utter failures. After COVID-19, going to the theaters has not been the same. Many people have said they used to go to the cinema multiple times a day. However, nowadays, people say otherwise.
When COVID-19 hit, everyone was in a vulnerable state, everyone was meant to stay inside, and if they were outside, they were meant to adhere to social distancing. This impacted theaters greatly and severely all around the world, to the point where many thought theaters were going to close for good.
One reason why people thought theaters were going to shut down was due to financial instability, as not many people could afford to come to the theaters themselves, although it was an issue that existed way before COVID-19. When everyone was quarantined, it became an issue more than ever. According to Purdue University, they stated that, “Due to the newfound affordability, online theater options recruited patrons who might have never been able to participate in viewing theatre performances before.” Meaning that as an alternative to watching movies in the theaters, people started using streaming services to watch what they wanted.
For instance, before the theaters we know today, before the time VCR was a thing, if you missed a movie, then people would just have to wait until a studio reshot the movie. It wasn’t until VCR or paid cable where a thing that people were watching movies from home, but even then, it was rather difficult to obtain as they were expensive, said to be around 100 or so dollars, so instead people opted for rentals.
It wasn’t until Universal introduced a new approach that took the world by storm. Even the Los Angeles Times asked, “Which studios would follow Universal’s lead in breaking the traditional theatrical window, in which multiplexes have exclusive access to new movies for an average of about 90 days before they’re released for home viewing?” Universal aimed not only to lessen the time window but also proposed to charge 20 dollars to rent a movie and be given a 48-hour time window. A shocker for many.
Although cinemas have plummeted compared to before 2019, that doesn’t mean that things aren’t improving. As stated by CNBC, “Already, the industry is seeing improvements in ticket sales. Through Monday, the 2023 box office has tallied $958.5 million in ticket sales, up nearly 50% compared to last year and down just 25% from 2019, according to data from Comscore.” Although cinemas are not the same as before, they haven’t exactly plummeted, cinemas are slowly getting back up and running, which demonstrates significant progress compared to the start and end of 2020. Even more so when promising movies are being released ever so often.
