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The Butter’s Back on the Popcorn at Movie Theatres
Among the retail sectors that suffered the most extensive impact from pandemic-related shutdowns, movie theatres by and large have demonstrated that the show must go on, eventually. The resurgence goes beyond the stock-market performance of AMC Theatres over the past few months. “The theatre recovery has been fascinating to watch, and June marked another significant step forward for AMC and the wider sector,” Placer.ai reported earlier this month.
Visits at AMC locations were down just 57.2% when compared to June 2019, “the best mark since the onset of the pandemic’s retail impact by far.” Six months earlier, the monthly gap compared to 2019 traffic was 81.9%.
Another way to gauge the recovery is to look at the weekly box-office numbers since the year began. In February of this year, when theatres in major markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago were still shuttered, the total weekly gross for the top 10 movies fell as low as $8.9 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
Fast-forward to late June, when F9: The Fast Saga, the latest in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, debuted at more than 4,000 U.S. and Canadian locations. For June 25-July 1, the Top 10 weekly total was $137 million. It’s a far cry from the depths of the pandemic, when many local theatres resorted to curbside pickup of popcorn orders just to keep the lights on.
However, while most theatres in both major and secondary markets have now reopened—and a few new locations have opened their doors for the first time—cinemas by and large are still operating with government-mandated capacity limits, which also limit their potential box-office intake.
Moreover, concerns remain about whether the at-home convenience of streaming services has permanently eroded the appeal of a communal experience at the local multiplex, especially one for which masks are still required. To illustrate the attendance shortfall, consider the top 10 gross for the comparable late June/early July week in 2019: $301 million.
That being said, Placer.ai reported, “the recovery is on, and is picking up speed. While visits improved only 0.9% between February and March, and 1.6% from April to May, the jump between May and June showed a ‘furious’ pickup, with visits increasing more than 11%.”
The recent surge, “likely driven by the release of major summer blockbusters and a continued return to ‘normalcy,’ could indicate that even a sector like movie theatres could recover,” according to Placer.ai. “While there are longer-term questions about how the sector may need to evolve to stay relevant, the continued return of visits is an incredibly positive sign for the long-term viability of the segment.”
- ◦Economy
