Cinema isn't dead – there's no business like show business

Daily Maverick

a day ago

When news broke that Ster-Kinekor was closing its Cavendish Square cinema in Cape Town, it felt like another nail in the coffin for movie theatres in South Africa. This cinephile, however, knows the makings of a comeback story when she sees one.
I may not be old, but I'm old enough to remember when showing up at Cavendish on a Friday night without a pre-booked movie ticket was asking for disappointment.
Unless you and your date were satisfied with sitting in opposite corners of the cinema, separated by seven rows of moviegoers, you booked your seats the day before. Anything else was considered a rookie move.
I couldn't help but think of those once-packed cinemas when I first read the news about Cavendish closing. Where had the audience gone? What were people now doing on Friday nights?
For more than 30 years, Cavendish had played host to first dates, school holidays, Marvel marathons and rainy-day escapes. The popcorn counter, the sticky floors, the 'Silence Your Phone' ads – they were all just set dressing for the real show: the memories. I've visited plenty of cinemas over the years, but this curtain call hits differently. There's something unusually poignant about losing this screen.
But here's the twist (doesn't every good story have one?). While the Cavendish closure reads like a sobering sign of decline, the bigger picture is – surprisingly – more hopeful.
The end of the beginning
In early 2024, Ster-Kinekor announced it was preparing to retrench nearly a third of its workforce. Nine cinema closures were on the cards. On paper, it looked like another textbook example of disruption, a legacy business buckling under the weight of streaming, economic pressure and post-Covid consumer shifts.
But as we find ourselves entering the second half of 2025, only two sites – Greenstone Mall and Boardwalk in Richards Bay – have shut their doors. And only 52 staff were ultimately laid off, not 236. That's still painful, of course, but also evidence of something rare in a corporate survival story: restraint, negotiation and a willingness to adapt.
Ster-Kinekor, fresh out of business rescue since 2022, hasn't collapsed. Instead, it appears to be recalibrating.
That doesn't mean that the outlook is all roses. There's no denying the very real pressure, not just on Ster-Kinekor, but on cinemas everywhere. Globally, the rise of on-demand streaming has reshaped audience behaviour. Platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ offer thousands of hours of content, including Oscar-winning films and star-studded series, available at home, on demand, and often at a lower cost than a single cinema ticket. Many of these releases hit streaming on the same day as the cinema, if not sooner.
Then there's the hardware factor. Large-screen TVs have become cheaper and more accessible. A 65-inch UHD TV no longer costs three months' salary, and when paired with decent sound, the 'home theatre' now rivals what used to be a luxury cinema experience.
Add inflation, rising fuel costs and stretched entertainment budgets, and it's clear that Ster-Kinekor isn't just competing with other theatres. It's competing with couches.
A company in motion
And yet, the numbers reveal that people are still going to the movies.
Admissions are up 20% year on year between November and April, according to Ster-Kinekor CEO Mark Sardi. It's not a fluke – it's the result of a business trying new things. Ticket sales are up, and not just for the usual Marvel blockbusters.
'We've seen material increases in footfall,' Sardi told The Money Show. 'Our biggest challenge now is staying nimble.'
Staying nimble means offering more than just a movie. It means curating an experience, at a price people are willing to pay. Ster-Kinekor's R50 Throwback Cinema experiment is a perfect case study. One week, one classic, one cheap ticket. The first rotation of titles included Notting Hill, Back to the Future, Chicago, and Meet Joe Black – films that practically beg for the collective gasp and chuckle of a live audience.
The idea started as a test in 2024, with only a handful of Ster-Kinekor cinemas offering Throwback titles. In 2025, the experiment has not only been proven to be a success, but has subsequently been rolled out to more Ster-Kinekor cinemas across the country.
Read any article about the state of the cinema business, and you're sure to be met by an avalanche of commenters complaining about the cost of going to the movies. These people have a valid point.
If I were to take myself, my partner and two children to see the live-action remake of Disney's Lilo & Stitch on the big screen today, the total cost of four tickets plus snacks would come to just over R1,000. By comparison, my Disney+ subscription costs R1,590 for 12 months of limitless streaming, and they'll probably start streaming that same movie in August.
Fortunately, Ster-Kinekor appears to be listening. The price quoted above is for four full-price movie tickets. However, if I were an Edgars Club member, I could have saved up to 40% on tickets and 50% on selected snack combos. With a Discovery Vitality membership, I would have paid 50% less for the adult tickets and the kids would have watched, free. I could have used my Smart Shopper points (thanks, Pick n Pay) to buy tickets, or I could have paid 50% less on a Tuesday, if I were a Ster-Kinekor Club member.
And then there's the weekday 'Epic Deal': popcorn, Coke, and a movie ticket for R149, even for those of us who don't carry any of the aforementioned cards. That kind of value – often brought to the table through strategic partnerships – helps ease the affordability issue that's long plagued Ster-Kinekor's mainstream business.
Doing what the couch can't
On the opposite end of the affordability spectrum, Ster-Kinekor is also doubling down on premium experiences, because some people want to pay for a night away from the couch. To meet this audience, Ster-Kinekor is expanding its Cine Prestige offering, which features luxury recliners, boutique service and fewer children in the cinema. Kids' Cinemas, which are reimagined with child-friendly layouts and programming, are also in development.
Though Ster-Kinekor has only a handful of IMAX screens, they punch well above their weight when it comes to filling seats. When a film is released in this format, bookings surge. Audiences want to see Dune, Oppenheimer, or Avatar on the biggest, loudest, most immersive screen possible, and they're willing to pay for that experience.
The 2025 box office will feature at least 14 IMAX films, double the number released in any previous year in the 'filmed for IMAX' slate. This isn't a Ster-Kinekor decision – IMAX films are made in a specific format, so it's up to the whims of Hollywood how many are released in a year. This just happens to be a bumper year for IMAX, and Ster-Kinekor stands ready to reap those rewards.
All this careful positioning is a sign that Ster-Kinekor is thinking in segments, not averages. It's building experiences for specific audiences, not trying to serve everyone the same way. Cinema isn't dead, it just needs to pitch itself as something worth leaving the house for.
Writing the next act
The easy comparison is Blockbuster – a symbol of an old industry that failed to see the future in time to pivot. But Ster-Kinekor is doing something different. It's listening. It's experimenting. It's taking the nostalgia people feel for cinema and packaging it into formats that work in 2025.
Most tellingly, the company isn't just closing doors, it's preparing to open new ones. In the same Money Show episode, Sardi said Ster-Kinekor was in the advanced stages of launching cinemas at four new 'commercially attractive' sites. Not just replacements, but opportunities to start afresh, using the lessons of the past few years.
They're betting that there's still a role for the big screen in a small-screen world. But only if they get the experience, the pricing, and the product right. The curtain hasn't fallen yet. And for now, at least, the projector is still rolling. DM