The movie business died right around the time of its greatest success. Domestic box office and global box office numbers hit their all-time highs in 2018 with 2019's numbers being very similar.
As those heights were being hit, however, it had started to become obvious that only certain types of movies could drive box office returns. People would turn out for the latest superhero movie, certain action franchises, Star Wars movies, and a limited number of kids' films.
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Romantic comedies and anything even vaguely aimed at a solely grownup audience has very little chance to make a mark at the box office. Regular comedies, even the so-called "Hard-R" genre that gave us "The Hangover," and "Bridesmaids," no longer have any real chance of success in theaters.
Kids movies, at least the high-quality ones made by Walt Disney's (DIS) Pixar and Comcast's (CMCSA) animation divisions used to fall into the "must see in a theater," but with a few exceptions that's no longer the case. The bar to make it "worth" seeing a movie in theaters has basically become too high for theaters to be a viable business.
That's something that has become increasingly evident as moves that would have at one time been major successes, if not blockbusters, underperform.
Image source: Warner Bros. Discovery
Disney and DC Prove the Rule
Disney's latest Pixar movie "Elementals" and Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) "The Flash," its latest DC comic books superhero film, both had mediocre at best opening weekends. This has been a trend for both companies and while it's easy to make excuses, those excuses cover up the real problem.
Pixar films used to be guaranteed box office hits, but unless a film truly registers with the audience, as only "Encanto" has in recent years, there's simply no reason to see it in theaters. A family can wait a few months and watch it on Disney+ without spending any extra money.
The same logic applies to all but the biggest Marvel movies. Americans might go to theaters to see all the Avengers get together, but we can wait a few months to see what Ant-Man is up to.
You can argue that "The Flash" or "Shazam" failing at the box office is at least partly because those films are likely dead ends because DC's management has changed and sequels were unlikely, which makes the movies much less of a draw. The reality is that the DCU has never drawn like the MCU and now both superhero franchises can only get people to the theaters for the biggest team-up films, not the ones leading up to those.
We No Longer Need Movie Theaters
Covid showed us that aside from a few films worth experiencing with a crowd, most movies play just fine at home. Why pay AMC (AMC) or Cinemark (CNK) $11-15 for a ticket along with jacked up candy and popcorn prices to watch most movies in a crowd full of people just as likely to ruin the experience as make it better?
This was inevitable as soon as large televisions started to become cheap and common and streaming services began offering theatrical releases only a few months after their initial release. It's a perfect storm that covid hastened, but one that was always inevitable.
Watching a movie at home might be a different experience than seeing the film in a theater, but it's generally not worse. There are films that will bring out a crowd, just like there are bands people will pay over $100 to see in an arena or stadium, but the number of them will only decrease.
Disney, Comcast, and Warner Bros. Discovery will inevitably scale more of their product for streaming, not theaters. That makes AMC, Cinemark, and movie theaters in general, relics of an era that has mostly passed.
