Many people used to love going to cinemas. Although they have not stopped completely going there, the audience has been declining since the pandemic. What went wrong for our once beloved entertainment destination?
According to numbers.com, over one billion tickets were sold in 2019 but since the pandemic after the reopening of theatres, the number of tickets sold is nowhere near a billion. This shows the decline of cinema audience in recent years. But shouldn’t people go to cinema more since they were forced to closed because of the pandemic?
Let’s take a look at movies during pandemic. While cinemas were forced to shut down, streaming services became popular. People have been watching movies at their home conveniently. Companies did not have much choice but to release their products through streaming platforms.
The quality of movies has also been declining objectively. They have been relying on sequels, remakes, and franchises becoming repetitive. Originality has been a lackluster for new movies which does not help to justify for audience to go to a theater. According to Businesswire, IMDb’s most anticipated movies for 2025 have listed 10 movies where nearly have of them are superheroes film and rest of them are sequels and remakes.
Another thing is that these theatrical releases will arrive on digital streaming platforms in a matter of month which makes people easy to watch and with much comfort. The increase in tickets prices does not help these cinemas at all. Since people already paid subscriptions for all these streaming services, they would rather save money and stay at home to watch on their own cozy couches.
Another reason is other entertainment products like YouTube and TikTok. Most young people have been on these platforms more than they watch any particular movies. There are a lot of movie clips and spoilers on these platforms which does recaps or explain the whole movie in 30 seconds short videos. When you have been watching these clips, they would rather not watch 2 hours long movies.
