“Will Movie Theaters Die off Due To Streaming Platforms?” (Op-Ed)

By Ashton Slaughter

Streaming services are obviously a very accessible platform to watch your favorite movies on. Whether it’s Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime or any of the other many options out there, most Americans have at least one of these platforms. A Leichtman Research Group discovered that “nearly three-quarters of households in the United States subscribe to a streaming service and 69 percent pay for more than one,” according to an article written by PC Magazine. Although these numbers are high, they’re only growing over time. “Just four years ago, only 52 percent of households in the US subscribed to a streaming service and 38 percent to more than one,” which really highlights the growing popularity for these easily accessible platforms.

photo from Leichtman Research Group

This growth over this four year span is under normal circumstances, compared to now in the midst of a pandemic when American’s have found themselves at home more than ever. In an article from The Mercury News, it says this: “A recent online study conducted by Invoke, a real-time market research company, found that 75 percent of respondents (80 percent of those age 35 and younger) are watching more streaming content than before the pandemic struck.” This article was written back in April, so imagine the skyrocketing numbers these companies have received as people have been working from home, quarantined, or while students are doing online school.

Obviously, movie theaters are still very popular, as you don’t have to drive that far in any direction before you find one. The rise of streaming services though can’t be denied, especially during the pandemic. Unfortunately for these theaters, no movies were showing for a few months, so that meant no way to produce revenue. However, the already near-extinct drive-in movie theaters still did business as they were able to show older movies in the absence of new ones. 

If you’re wondering how hard these theaters were hit, big blockbuster movies such as “Black Widow” and “Wonder Woman 1984” were postponed till 2021. “AMC’s stock is down 32% since the start of the year, Cinemark has stumbled around 70%, Marcus Theaters is down 75% and IMAX has slumped 40%,” which is quoted from an article written by Sarah Whitten from MSNBC. Witten continues saying: “On a combined basis, the sell-off has wiped out nearly $2.7 billion in market value for these stocks since January,” to highlight the overall revenue lost from the pandemic.

photo from Getty Images

Streaming services were already growing in popularity before COVID-19, as their libraries of easily accessible movies and shows attract people. Looking at the “Top 10 in the U.S. Today” section of Netflix, seven out of the ten movies/shows on this list are Netflix Originals. Which then begs the question: would big film production companies just sell their movies to streaming services exclusively?

We've already seen this happen before, but what if due to not only the rise in popularity of streaming services, but COVID-19 as well, movie theaters go completely extinct? This does seem like an unfortunate, but real, possibility. The best way to save these theaters would be for production companies to not settle to release their movies on a streaming platform. Christopher Nolan released his blockbuster movie “Tenet” for example, which didn’t do insanely well at the box office due to the lack of people getting out. Nolan, along WarnerBros, could have just as easily sold this movie to Netflix and probably made more than the 350 million dollars they made from theaters. 

In my opinion… the answer is yes; theaters at this rate will die off, but I sure hope I’m wrong. If we want to keep movie theaters around then that’s great, but we must support them by showing up and watching movies (that is, if you feel safe doing so). New movies are slowly coming out as production has come back to life in Hollywood. Even AMC all this month is showing old Christmas movies… who doesn’t love that? If you truly care about movie theaters staying around, you better go grab an Icee and some popcorn before they become as rare as drive-ins.