More than three years after the pandemic ravaged movie theaters, slowing the flow of new movies and keeping customers away, operators are hoping that a slew of wide releases this summer will finally bring those accustomed to streaming movies at home back to the cinema. will get.
When they return – for “The Little Mermaid,” “Barbie” or the latest of the Spider-Man and Indiana Jones franchises – moviegoers may notice that the spaces look and feel different.
Movie theaters were already upgrading before the pandemic – with more comfortable seats, bigger screens, better sound equipment and tastier food and drink options.
But many theaters also entered 2020 with thin margins and may have only survived thanks to federal pandemic aid programs. Now movie theaters are spending millions of dollars to increase their offerings and surpass the movie attendance of yesteryear.
“There’s an urgency now,” said Mike Polydoros, president of PaperAirplane Media, a movie theater marketing agency.
Theaters are installing heated lounge seats that recline fully or have built-in trays and buttons to summon waiters. Some seats move in sync with the movie’s action or provide special effects, such as an air blast during a windy scene, tricks that were once common only in amusement parks. Some halls now have screens on both the sides and the front. Menu options have become increasingly sophisticated. Sushi, anyone? You can wash it down with an IPA
Theaters offer different thrills. One outside Fort Worth built a gangway 22 feet above an arcade floor – walk it if you dare. Another in Dobbs Ferry, NY, has a kitchen and lobby bar with TV screens so a customer can see the end of a ball game before the feature begins, for example.
Emma Boonshoft, 30, a public relations consultant, said she hadn’t been to the movies with her husband since before the pandemic. But they tried the Dobbs Ferry location, part of the Look Dine-In Cinemas chain, after it opened, and shared a pizza and salad for ’80 for Brady.
“It felt like a real date night,” she said.
Not surprisingly, such excursions now cost more, and not just because of more expensive refreshments: Some theaters charge 65 percent more for a movie shown on the jazziest new screens like ScreenX and RealD 3D.
The upgrades are part of an effort to make up for lost time. Domestic box office receipts so far this year still fall short of pre-pandemic levels. And experts say it could take years for the movie theater industry to recover from pandemic losses, potentially hampering operators’ ability to make investments to stay competitive.
“There is tremendous optimism in the industry right now, but we also need to consider what happened a few years ago,” said Michael O’Leary, president and CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners, a trade organization. “That forces us to keep innovating.”
Streaming posed a challenge before the pandemic, but as theater owners were forced to shut down and limit capacity, Hollywood studios began releasing movies simultaneously on streaming services and theaters, or bypassing theaters altogether. Movie theaters, also known as exhibitors, lost 80 percent of their domestic box office revenue in 2020, according to Comscore, which compiles movie theater data.
Many exhibitors renegotiated their leases during the pandemic and used money from the federal government’s closed-site operator subsidy program to pay rent.
Some theaters didn’t make it. About 5,000 remain in the United States, up from 5,869 in 2019, according to the theater trade group; the number of screens dropped from 41,172 to 39,007. Even drive-ins — which enjoyed a renaissance during the pandemic due to concerns about the safety of covered locations — shrank in numbers.
The new emphasis is on quality over quantity, industry experts say, with new theaters getting smaller, with fewer screens. Lounge chairs take up more space than upright chairs, so auditoriums can accommodate fewer patrons.
“They’re not building 24-screen theaters anymore,” said James O’Neil, an executive director at Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm.
EVO Entertainment, one of the few companies to create “movie theater entertainment centers,” turned a 14-screen theater in Southlake, Texas, into an eight-screen venue with a restaurant, climbing wall, ropes course, bowling, bumper cars – and those aforementioned gangway. The cost: More than $10 million, about the same to build a complex from scratch, said Mitch Roberts, the company’s CEO.
“You can’t do the bare minimum anymore,” he added.
Such extravaganzas may be difficult to pull off in densely populated urban locations. But movie theaters everywhere have upgraded their technology, from ticketing to projection systems.
“It’s become an arms race,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Many operators are installing premium large-format screens, including IMAX systems, with their giant, curved screens, and ScreenX, which projects movies to the front and sides.
Shows on these screens are often the first to sell out and account for an increasing share of box office revenue. Screens generated about 9.2 percent of domestic sales in 2019, according to Comscore, which predicts they will account for nearly 17 percent of sales this year.
At some Marcus Theaters locations, auditoriums with large format screens also have recliners that warm up – and the company even sells blankets so you can get really cozy.
The average ticket price increased from $9.16 in 2019 to $10.53 last year, according to the Cinema Foundation, a nonprofit organization of the National Association of Theater Owners. That can add up to $20 or more for a movie in an auditorium with oversized screens or 3D. And customers seem willing to pay to see blockbusters at their best.
Theater chains are also experimenting with premium prices for the best seats in the house and hotly anticipated movies on opening weekends.
Some operators continue to lean on food and beverage offerings, including enhanced concession items that moviegoers can order in advance and restaurant operations with servers requested by customers.
New on the menu: bowls and salads. Cinépolis theaters now serve nachos with real or vegan cheese. Look Dine-In brews its own beer in Chandler, Ariz. Theater bartenders make movie-themed cocktails.
Food and alcohol sales generate higher profits than ticket sales, much of which goes to studios. “That’s why you see so many theaters adding bars,” said Mark Hunter, general manager at CBRE, a commercial real estate company.
Exhibitors are also drawing investment cues from their loyalty program data, said Jackie Brenneman, president of the Cinema Foundation.
Even as they push for an upgrade, many companies continue to struggle financially, and some chains are losing locations. AMC Entertainment, the largest circuit in the United States, is saddled with debt. And investment in technology is expensive — an IMAX system costs about $1 million, not including installation, which may require tearing down a wall between two small movie theaters to create a large enough space, said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond .
Some theaters get help paying for renovations from landlords or developers who hope that a successful movie theater’s attendance will help neighboring retailers. Box office hits like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” could make it easier for theaters to borrow money for capital improvements, industry experts say.
“We’re starting to see couches getting a little more comfortable,” said Brock Bagby, executive vice president and chief content and development officer of B&B Theaters.
Exhibitors are also trying to get more out of their real estate. Some screen concerts and TV shows or host trivia nights and video game tournaments. In a theater in Wesley Chapel, Florida, a suburb of Tampa, B&B leases one room to a spin studio and another to a live comedy club.
But all new gimmicks aside, popular movies ultimately draw customers, and operators hope this summer’s releases will continue the momentum of the Mario Bros. hit, which helped drive April’s domestic box office up 11.5 percent in compared to the three-year prepandemic average for the month, said David A. Gross, who heads Franchise Entertainment Research, a film consulting firm.
“It was a breakthrough,” he said, “the first month we’ve had since the pandemic was better than pre-pandemic.”