The hits just keep on coming for movie theaters. With their businesses already thrashed by Covid, theaters are now having to deal with the threat of movies going "straight to streaming" and bypassing the box office altogether.
Disney, for example, said that its Disney+ service would have 100 new titles per year and that 80% of these would bypass the box office.
Which means that theaters like AMC are going to be in a precarious position heading into 2021 regardless of what happens with the pandemic. There's currently 40,449 movie screens in the U.S., according to a new Bloomberg op-ed - a massive supply that will likely have to narrow in size even as people eventually start to trickle back to theaters.
Even prior to the pandemic, box offices were struggling mightily. Box office sales adjusted for inflation have plunged over the last several years.
And post-pandemic, it's going to take theaters months - if not years - to get back to the occupancy they had prior to Covid. Some who used to go to movies simply won't go anymore, not only as a product of the pandemic, but also due to increased options in streaming. It simply won't be necessary anymore.
Recall, it was just days ago we wrote about Warning Bros. deciding it was going to snub studios in favor of streaming services. We called it "a move that is almost certainly going to set off a devastating chain reaction for what's left of the movie theater industry" when Warner Bros. decided it is going to release its major movies next year in...