What is the future of movie theaters?

What does it mean to go to the movie theater? At first glance, this question does not seem to be as deep as “to be or not to be”, but I guarantee that it raises debates as fascinating as the notorious sentence in Hamlet once did. I promise not to initiate (not that I would be fully able to) an extensive debate on all the philosophical, anthropological, social and political issues that certainly exist about cinema, what is it, what makes it so etc... My idea here is to share thoughts on how cinema exists in the biggest pandemic ever lived in modern times and how it survives the changes of our pandemic-ridden world. As a bonus, we also get to explore a glimpse of its symbolic weight in a time of crisis.

I invite you to think about the last time you went to the movies: what you felt, heard, saw, smelled, ate, said... What you experienced on that journey to the cinema — probably this memory isn't the same for everyone, maybe some don't even remember it with any degree of accuracy. What matters is: if you have had this experience in the last few years of your life, it was probably accompanied by other people, not necessarily people you know but people in general, all together in the same environment, sharing a unique experience that, in its own way, will leave a memory shared by everyone who was there. Simply put, going to the cinema is a shared experience, you partake in it with all around you, complete strangers connected for a brief moment. Seeing, listening, feeling everything cinema is and can be. 

If you want a current example of how movies are a shared experience, I recommend reassessing the crowd’s reactions to the last superhero blockbusters. Yes, in the long distant year of 2019. Then, the euphoric experience of the last moments where the hero gives the final blow (or, well, snap) and saves everyone, the emotion of the scene involves every single person in the audience and generates cries of joy where there used to be silence.

What has this movie theater experience become today? We live in a pandemic world, the way we interact with it and with others has changed =, nowadays, experiences previously shared with many - remain restricted to the depths of our homes and private lives. Going to the movies in its entire journey of sounds, images, odors… had to be transported from the big screen to our living rooms. 

Let it be clear that I intend to not forfeit credit for the emotional journey films are capable of transmitting, whether on a TV or a movie screen. It is due to the art of films, series and all kinds of cultural production that many people remain sane in times like this, but the cinema experience has changed, and the entire film industry has followed.

Hundreds of movie theaters around the world have closed their doors, ticket sales have plummeted, billionaire budgets have been compromised and productions have been postponed. In Hollywood, Nollywood and Bollywood, the big screen industry is suffering from the impact of the pandemic like never seen before. The giant Cinemark lost US$208 million in the first quarter of 2021 alone. The experience of cinema that for some time was already competing with streaming services, needs a reinvention, or maybe, a new societal place. 

Filmmakers, screenwriters, directors and producers have since reinvented the art of making films, respecting their stories as well as the health measures imposed by the pandemic. But the numbers have not been in favor of the cinema industry since before the pandemic; — from 2018 to 2019 there was a drop of approximately 3 million people who frequently watch movies on the big screen in the United States while in 2019 streaming hit US$100 million in revenue. Movie theaters around the world are negotiating with major studios to ensure that movies are released in movie theaters before they end up on TV screens. The new James Bond movie, for example, was postponed with the explicit purpose to have a safe big premiere and a theatrical release, moving ticket offices and giving a breath of hope to the industry.

But what does all this mean for the future of movie theaters? The experience of watching a movie at home is valuable, the warmth of home with those you love, a good blanket and popcorn... all of this deserves celebration and some people prefer this home experience to theaters. But there are those who still love going to the cinema, looking for the experience only a 22-meter-wide screen can provide - and a sound system capable of making their whole body tremble. From the euphoric gasps in superheroes films to the shared anguish of horror scenes, the shared experience of going to the cinema remains unique and perhaps its most important characteristic in this new era. The film industry has modified and it needs to keep changing, the pandemic and streaming services have brought new challenges and obstacles to a whole way of making art, but that does not mean the end of it. Movie theaters exist and will continue to exist, different, shaken, and in the process of overcoming the dramatic box office drop but always with the intact ability to thrill, shock, build ideals and, primarily, bring people together.