For a good seven years now, the death of cinema has been widely proclaimed. Why? Blame the pandemic, the rise of streaming platforms, or the increased laziness of younger audiences, who are more content to scroll through YouTube than jump on a bus to their local multiplex. Granted, cinema attendance is down from what it was before Covid hit – and by quite a margin. In 2019, admissions in the UK, US and Canada, when combined, reached 1.416 billion compared with 914.1 million in 2025. But while the aforementioned reasons may contribute to this dip, the cinema industry is actually a thriving one – just not for the reasons it once was.
Take 2019 as an example – the world’s top 10 highest-grossing films included four sequels, three superhero films, two Disney live-action remakes and Joker. In other words, all existing IP. And 2025 was largely no different, but F1 and Sinners proved you don’t have to be a sequel or a remake to zoom your way to box office bite. So what’s changed? Well, fewer high-budget films are cracking the billion-dollar mark; last year saw three Hollywood films achieve the feat, compared with nine in 2019 – and instead, the success stories lie with the smaller independent films breaking through in a big way.
