Movie Theaters Vs. Streaming

Yesenia Maldonado

Contributing Editor

We’re having a movie night! Where are we headed? Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, HBO, or how about Amazon Prime?

Today, we have access to many movies and TV shows thanks to several streaming services that have come about, providing their own and other studios’ content. With a monthly or annual subscription, you can access films that are new, old, or somewhere in between. The rise of streaming has also been signaling changing times for our theaters, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it has overthrown the moviegoer experience.

Streaming services have many pros, as they make for a comfortable and cost-effective experience, open to you anytime. But it’s not the first time the way we watch films has been revolutionized. From the introduction of VHS to DVDs, the way audiences have been able to experience films has continually changed, offering people a way to see a movie outside of a theater. However, access to streaming has brought this to new heights. According to an article written by

Caelan Corkery in The

Dartmouth, by 2021, 78% of US consumers had one or more streaming subscriptions. And surpassing the technology before it, streaming has also made it quicker and easier to access these services from your television to the palm of your hand. These platforms allowed consumers to choose from massive collections of movies and shows without leaving their couches.

On the other hand, movie theaters are arguably one of the best gathering places for casual movie-goers and film buffs alike, and they still play a valuable part in the entertainment industry. However, after the pandemic hit and businesses temporarily shut down, the future of theaters would only become more drastically different. Per a 2020 Statista survey, which notes a change since 2018, 36% of people expressed a preference for watching a new release via streaming versus 14% in a theater. Like many other businesses, movie theaters got hit hard as everything in the country began to shut down, as seen most notably seen with AMC losing over 4 billion dollars in 2020. The shutdown also led many films to either be postponed or head straight to streaming, as seen with the release of movies like Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max and Disney offering Black Widow and its Mulan remake for rent.

But aside from quarantine and health concerns, audiences’ preferences continue to change. Although theaters have been able to recover slowly, theater attendance has stagnated compared to its heights pre-pandemic,

“Reprogramming consumers out of the habit of watching filmed entertainment at home is going to be incredibly expensive, timeconsuming, and difficult for the studios,” Brandon Katz, a Senior Entertainment Reporter covering film and television, said in an article for the Observer.

The way films are consumed evolved even after the pandemic. This has led many studios to reconsider their release strategies and to more negotiations surrounding the theatrical window, which is how long a movie is exclusively available in theaters before further release. Traditionally, many films are available in theaters for an average of three months. Still, this window has been up for negotiation between movie studios and theaters.

According to an article by Travis Clark for Business Insider, many studios and theaters have made deals to shrink the theatrical window to 45 days, as seen between Warner Bros. and Cineworld, while companies like Universal have argued to shrink it even further to 17 days. The shift in release windows is an interesting shift in power dynamics, as the negotiations over the theatrical windows see the attempt of studios to benefit from both the theater and other platforms, but also a way for theaters to have still an opportunity to profit from box office success. But more than anyone, theaters are likelier to lose out, as they become just one of many options for film studios and their audience.

Additionally, this may change how we measure a film’s success. Can we determine whether a movie is good or bad if it bombs at the box office but excels on streaming? Further, we’ve seen many big names, between actors and filmmakers, move onto streaming platforms as well, as companies like Netflix have proven the ability to make their own movies as well, as seen with Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, which features stars like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino or Glass Onion, which is a sequel to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out that assembles another star-studded cast.

Nonetheless, we can argue that what you don’t get out of streaming is the actual movie-goer experience or the ability to “eventize” a film’s release. Films still can be widely desirable in theaters, as seen with the explosive success of Spiderman: No Way Home, which made over one billion worldwide and was referred to by Pamela McClintock in the Hollywood Reporter as “the first Hollywood release in the COVID-19 era to achieve blockbuster status.” Or movies like Top Gun Maverick and Avatar: Way of the Water, also making over one billion and finding a way to excite people by bringing back pop-culture sensations. While streaming provides easy access and comfort, something about the movie-going experience can’t be replacedgathering friends or family, some good-old popcorn and soda, and focusing on nothing but the big screen as the story unfolds. It allows movie-goers to have a collective, cultural fan experience.

While streaming is convenient and appeasing, does this mean the death of movie theaters? Not necessarily. It’s difficult to tell whether movie theaters will die as an industry or if it is just a sign of the times. And as things change, we learn to adapt, which could mean an entertainment industry that embraces more of a hybrid model between theatrical and digital releases. Both experiences provide something different, but one thing’s for sure - in today’s world, movies are being consumed in an entirely different way than ever before.