The future of film
Ava Stephens, Staff Graphic Artist
The smell of salt and butter waft through the air as the sounds of action, comedy and mystery emit muffled from behind closed doors. Walking into the familiar room, eyes squint in the dim light and adjust to find…a theater with nearly all the seats unoccupied.
Once the heart of entertainment, movie theaters are now dwindling in their attendance numbers. Moviegoers are nowadays opting to stay at home to watch a new film as streaming services are on the rise. So, where did this decrease begin? Or is this the natural evolution that the movie experience and industry was bound to follow the entire time, with the increase of streaming simply being a part of that?
To understand this shift, it helps to look back at the pattern of film consumption in history. Movie theaters started to gain popularity and be recognized as a form of entertainment in the early 1900s with the invention of the motion picture camera.
The Video Home System, or the VHS, was released in 1976 and had become a cultural phenomenon by the 1980s. The concept for Redbox, a kiosk full of the newest movie releases at the time on DVD, was originated in 2002 and became instantly successful. In 2007, Netflix introduced its streaming services that allowed customers to watch movies directly over the internet. This was a gamechanger in the movie industry, as more and more streaming services began popping up.
Throughout all these years, theaters were still a decently popular sensation. However, competing with DVDs and renting online, to eventually streaming platforms, the cinema slowly began to see a decrease in its audience numbers. The Harvard Gazette mentions a survey that shows the percentage of moviegoers who frequently see films in theaters decreased from 39% in 2019 to 17% in 2025.
While the competition has always been present, another occurrence in history accelerated the decline. That was COVID-19. Theaters are built around proximity and being able to enjoy the shows with friends, family or just strangers that share a love for movies. During the pandemic in 2020, movie theaters had to shut their doors. Variety states that due to theaters closing, ticket sales collapsed 81% in 2020. Box offices are still to this day not up to the numbers that they were at pre-pandemic.
After the pandemic ended and all the businesses went back to their usual way of operating, theaters struggled to get back on track. This is because while everyone was stuck at home, they discovered how nice convenience could be.
Streaming services secured their popularity as people found it was simply too easy to pay for a subscription or rent a movie then watch it on their own couch with their own snacks. So, when the cinema did open back up, lots of people stuck to watching movies at home for the convenience of it. Therefore, that has led to the box office difficulties they continue to face today.
All of this has shifted the movie watching experience to what it is now, which is a multitude of streaming platforms to pick from and the ability to watch new releases right at home.
However, this decline of regular theater attendance does not necessarily signal the end of all movie theaters. The evolution of movie theaters is not going in the direction of total extinction, but rather towards a new general purpose.
This alteration in purpose is reflected in how professional and those in the film industry look at the future of film. Shurajit Gopal, a film professor at North Greenville University, highlights this change in the film industry pointing out that “The core strategy has been that theaters can no longer be standard retail hubs, but they are becoming ‘out-of-home luxury event spaces’ which would ensure theaters would be around over the next decade and even more.”
This idea points to a broader pattern in film industry, where formatting is frequently adapting to the technical advances and the needs and wants of audiences. Moving forward from here, streaming services will likely stay steady in the spotlight while the future of movie theaters will continue on in the rising premiumization of the theatrical experience like Gopal brought up.
Some people even still remain steadfast to the traditional cinema experience, which shows how powerful the feeling of a theater is and the nostalgia that it holds.
One of those people is Will Harper, a sophomore at NGU and a film major. He prefers going to the theaters rather than watching a new movie at home. Harper believes that “The theater experience in general is better. You get the experience with a crowd of people that share the same passion for the film. They’re there for a reason.”
People who still attend the movie theaters on a more regular basis are commonly there for the experience and for their love of film.
Cinemas have not completely perished because of moviegoers like Harper and because of the new luxuries they provide and the event style they have taken on. This presents a new challenge for professors and teachers on how to educate about film. This transformation not only affects audiences, but it also raises new questions for the education of movie making and the industry. Should they teach the history and attempt to keep more traditional cinemas alive? Or should they adapt to the way the movie experience is changing and focus on the future?
As a film major himself, Harper has thoughts on how film education and professors should prepare students for the ever-evolving world of movies, especially considering streaming platforms. “I think that they should teach about the trajectory of the film industry and how it is going to more AI and streaming platforms, but I think that the way they should point the students to that is through showing the traditional role of movie theaters,” says Harper.
With his insights as a film professor, Gopal suggests that “Modern film education has already included all these new technological developments into its curriculum, and the new film graduates are already quite knowledgeable with the modern trends in filmmaking and are adapting themselves to that.”
Movie theaters have not disappeared yet because evidence suggests the move towards cinemas becoming more like special events and luxury places. The industry is changing so that movie theaters are now special in a new way and have become an experience that you cannot get at home from streaming. So, the real question was not one of extinction versus survival, but rather it was how movie theaters are adapting to fit in with the ever-changing pattern of film.
