If they build on it, will they come? Movie theater owners' plan to get butts in seats for summer blockbusters.

Yahoo

11-04-2025

LAS VEGAS — When Sean Baker won Best Director at the Oscars for Anora in March, he issued a 'battle cry' to the industry: 'The theatergoing experience is under threat. … It's up to us to support them.'
A clip of that acceptance speech played at CinemaCon, a yearly conference where studios screen footage of their upcoming releases to theater owners to get them excited about what's to come. Cinema United, the trade organization that hosts the gathering, rallies its members to think radically about how to keep theatergoing alive.
It's nice to have the academy's top filmmaker of the year in your corner, but Anora didn't come close to winning the box office last year — that victory goes to Inside Out 2, followed by Deadpool & Wolverine and Wicked. Still, Anora is a massive success story. Made for just $6 million, it's been in theaters for more than 25 weeks and made over $20 million at the box office, Neon executive Elissa Federoff said onstage at CinemaCon.
CinemaCon's star-studded presentations of footage from Superman and Wicked: For Good certainly drummed up enthusiasm about moviegoing, but the industry cannot live on familiar intellectual property alone — especially not when recovering from the devastating impact of pandemic theater closures, a slow trickle of releases following Hollywood strikes and increased interest in streaming services.
President and CEO of Cinema United Michael O'Leary said in his State of the Industry speech that the 'short-sighted quest for immediate financial return' is no longer enough. They need to 'craft a model that will thrive for generations.'
Though presenters at CinemaCon remained optimistic — they came to rally, after all — there's a chance that moviegoing audiences are forever altered. But, as CinemaCon's managing director Mitch Neuhauser said onstage, theaters have been 'defying gravity' by maintaining relevance through all sorts of technological advances and changing trends throughout the years, from television to VCRs.
The box office is expected to rally this summer. Here's what theater owners are doing to support its comeback.
In his speech, O'Leary called on studios to give movies 45 days to exist solely in theaters before putting them on video-on-demand or streaming services, earning thunderous applause from the crowd. That prospect was discussed and debated throughout the week as studios and exhibitors went back and forth about the risks.
O'Leary said the move would add a billion dollars to the annual box office and that even VOD and streaming services would benefit from seeing movies marketed for longer periods of time. Before the pandemic, the standard was 90 days. Now, the average is about 30 days or less.
At an industry think tank hosted by Puck's Matt Belloni, executives debated whether this could work. Theaters would have to demand that studios agree to 45 days of exclusivity in order to have their movies shown, but if studios want to rush to streaming to recoup their investments, that could result in fewer screenings for theaters.
Adam Aron, chief executive of AMC Entertainment, told Deadline that 'at least three of the six major studios … are completely in agreement that we need to bring back the 45-day window.' Disney, which has had the No. 1 movie at the box office for eight of the last nine years, is likely one of them, as many of its releases were exclusively in theaters for 60 days last year.
O'Leary said that if the only reason to go to the theater is a large screen format, that's 'destroying the heart of the business,' and called for all theatrical experiences to be premium ones. But butts in seats are butts in seats, and high-tech screening experiences can be enticing to audiences — even if they only make up 9% of the box office right now. Tickets are more expensive, but blockbusters like Oppenheimer and Dune: Part Two kept premium screenings sold out.
Here are some premium formats that some theaters offer:
IMAX: Taller, wider screens with more immersive sound.
ScreenX: 270-degree panoramic screens include additional footage in some scenes meant to be viewed in your periphery.
4DX: Special motion seats, water spray, wind, vibration and other touch-related effects turn theaters into low-key rollercoaster rides.
Dolby Atmos: Immersive sound that moves around the theater, even going overhead.
The up-and-coming values-based Angel Studios gave a presentation at CinemaCon in a venue that was smaller than those of the major studios, but it was totally packed. The studio broke out with the controversial box office success Sound of Freedom in 2023. Before presenting their upcoming slate, executives touted their unique distribution model.
Fans are invited to pay to join the Angel Guild, which allows them to vote on what films are then distributed to audiences around the world. Guild members then have a vested interest in the film's success, increasing box office revenue. According to the Angel Studios website, there are 360,000 Angel Guild members from more than 150 countries.
Nearly every year, the movie that tops the box office is based on something familiar, be it a sequel to a beloved film or an action flick based on a comic book.
Studios are taking that into account this summer — there's a new franchise installment (Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning), a reboot (How to Train Your Dragon) or a superhero movie (The Fantastic Four: First Steps) expected to land in theaters all but one weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and more may be added.
It can't be the only reason people are going to theaters if the industry wants to survive, but it can't go away, either.
O'Leary said in his speech that recent data from the National Research Group shows that audience awareness of new movies has decreased. There's a 38% decline in movies that reached an awareness level of over 50% by opening weekend. In other words, there's a huge shortage of movies that it feels like everyone knows about.
'There are a lot of ways to measure the falloff we've seen, but I think this gets to the heart of the problem: film's retreat from its central place in the culture and imagination,' the Ankler's Richard Rushfield wrote of the stat in his dispatch from CinemaCon.
Can marketing fix this cultural problem? O'Leary thinks it can help, and he called on theaters and studios to work together to get the word out. He suggested that trailers run for 90 seconds and that theaters show four to six of them before a movie.
'Moving forward, our goal should be audience awareness of over 50% for all wide releases. We live in a time of pervasive and relentless communication, and there is no excuse not to attain this target if exhibition and distribution work together,' O'Leary said.
Longer theatrical windows would also allow for longer time spent marketing movies, but studios would have to carve out extra room in their budgets.
Theaters definitely noticed when the Dune: Part Two popcorn bucket — ahem, sandworm — flew off shelves, but that's not the only 'elevated concession vessel' that has resonated with fans. Industry experts from the likes of AMC, Regal, Disney and Snapco Manufacturing gathered for a panel at CinemaCon, where they discussed how they're not only fun collectibles for fans, which make a little extra money — they're also an effective advertising tool for the films.
The Dune bucket may have taken the trend to a level that was then elevated by its Deadpool & Wolverine parody, but the craze got studios interested and more willing to work with manufacturers so they have more lead time to come up with something truly amazing. Fans have come to expect them, so the trend won't be ending any time soon.
Putting zip lines and pickleball courts into theaters to entice new customers is an often-referenced joke among theater owners, but some are serious. Eight of the biggest theater chains in the country announced in September that they'd be investing $2.2 billion to modernize their properties. It seems like that will mostly mean better seats, air-conditioning and carpeting, but there could be a few kooky attractions in the mix.
On the trade show floor at CinemaCon, a bowling lane product company had a popular booth. At a luncheon featuring a panel with the director and stars of The Running Man, Colman Domingo admitted he loves eating a plate of chicken wings while at the movies, a point in favor of dinner theaters like Alamo Drafthouse.
Regal Cinemas CEO Eduardo Acuna said at CinemaCon's industry think tank that the company is willing to at least try unique screenings that audiences have been clamoring for, including texting-friendly ones and sing-alongs.
2022 breakout horror hit M3GAN will be briefly returning to theaters with Meta's Movie Mate technology. During screenings, audiences will be able to use their phones to access exclusive content, including a chatbot. X users didn't love the sound of that, though.
One day after CinemaCon ended, A Minecraft Movie hit theaters and began making headlines about its rowdy screenings in which theatergoers are screaming and throwing popcorn. Though it's nice to see younger audiences at the movies, theater owners seem less than thrilled about having to kick people out and call the authorities. Perhaps next year's convention will propose a sanctioned middle ground.