Study: Movie theaters must rethink experience

LOS ANGELES — About 49% of pre-pandemic moviegoers are no longer buying tickets. Some of them, roughly 8%, have likely been lost forever. To win back the rest, multiplex owners must “urgently” rethink pricing and customer perks in addition to focusing on coronavirus safety.

Those were some of the takeaways from a new study on the state of the U.S. movie theater business, which was troubled before the pandemic — attendance declining, streaming services proliferating — and has struggled to rebound from coronavirus-forced closings in 2020. Over the weekend, ticket sales in the United States and Canada stood at roughly $96 million, compared with $181 million over the same period in 2019.

The study, published online Monday, was self-commissioned by the Quorum, a film research company led by David Herrin, former head of research for United Talent Agency; Cultique, a consultancy run by longtime brand strategist Linda Ong; and Fanthropology, which describes itself as a research, strategy and creative agency.

“The research clearly shows that theaters are suffering because the pandemic intensified, accelerated, amplified all of the nascent trends that were already underway,” Ong said. “That is the definition of a perfect storm; not that various problems exist at the same time, but that they have an intensifying effect on each other.”

The trends are rising ticket and concession prices; decreasing “experiential value;” the rundown state of shopping malls, which house many theaters; and a generational shift toward streaming and gaming.

“Before, maybe you went every now and again — overlooking the drawbacks,” Herrin said. “Now you add safety concerns to that mix, and you suddenly become a former filmgoer.”