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The effects of the pandemic are prolonged. The film industry felt the blow like few at the time and the damage is still visible, so much so that it is possible that they are permanent. The decline in the number of theaters in the United States is evident. Since 2019 there are 3,000 fewer nationwide, slightly below 40,000, and that shows in the box office turnover figures, light years away from the 11,892 million dollars that were entered in 2018, the year of Black Panther and The Avengers: Infinity War. There is no other way out than to reinvent ourselves.

Experts predict multiplexes with much fewer rooms and a conversion of old spaces for varied uses such as restaurants, bars, bowling alleys or video game rooms. The goal is to rethink the experience to appeal to the consumer, provide existing movie theaters with better sound and image quality, offer food and drink beyond the everlasting popcorn and wait for viewers to return in droves.

It's the scenario left by what Jason Squire, professor emeritus of film arts at the University of Southern California, describes as "the perfect storm," when the film industry had to face the closure of theaters for more than a year and the rise of streaming. "Before the pandemic, the movie theater industry was in good health," he explains to EL MUNDO. "If this hadn't happened at the same time, theaters would be much stronger than they are now." With the pandemic, everyone stayed home "just at the moment when streaming platforms were becoming a serious and viable option. Now consumer habits have changed, maybe forever."

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The numbers reflect this clearly. The recovery at the box office is evident with respect to the year of the great cataclysm: the 2,113 million dollars of 2020 (81.4% less than the previous year). However, it is far from having recovered the muscle before the pandemic, when Marvel and Star Wars dragged huge masses to the cinemas. 2022 closed with an improvement of 64.4% compared to 2021, although its 7,369 million dollars are far from the record figures of yesteryear.

This year has started at a faster pace than the previous year, with a 25% improvement in the first three months, spurred in part by the effect of Avatar: the sense of water. Even so, the partial figures are 64.2% worse than in the record year, 2018, with the black clouds of a possible recession still hovering over the world's largest economy.

Rolando Rodríguez, president of the National Association of Movie Theaters, argues that the moment the sector is going through is directly related to the crisis in stores and shopping centers, with constant closures of stores throughout the country. "We are witnessing a consolidation of retail stores in general," he says. "Customers are more selective and I don't think we'll ever see multiplex cinemas with 30 theaters again."

If they did not undertake this reduction, they would be doomed to extinction. Cineworld is good proof of this. The second largest cinema chain in the US announced at the end of January the closure of 39 stores throughout the country, four months after filing for bankruptcy to restructure its debts and continue operating.

Stalls of a movie theater. WORLD

There are already those who predict the end of cinemas as such in the US, suffocated by the power of streaming and its dizzying offer of content. Squire, however, flatly rejects the defeatist and catastrophic visions of some in the guild. "The movie theater is the very essence of drama, of enjoying what happens on stage, in this case the big screen where films are projected. This is just a bad time, but it will pass."

Paul Dergarabedian, media analyst at the firm Comscore, maintains that everything will depend on the pull of the films produced in Hollywood. "If the right movies are part of the formula, people will run to theaters to see them." As an example, the success of Top Gun: Maverick, which raised almost 1,500 million dollars worldwide, or the sequel to Avatar, the first film to exceed the barrier of 2,000 million in the post-covid era.

Squire agrees that the viewer's appetite is still there. "The sad thing is that neighborhood cinemas have been lost in small towns, and those will not come back. But the damage has already been done and the future is assured for movie theaters."

  • cinema
  • Films
  • United States
  • Hollywood

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