Dont Tell NetflixDont Tell Netflix

By George Robbins

Movie theaters have been in a strong state of decline ever since the start of the pandemic back in March of this year and that hasn’t changed as time has gone on. Things have been nothing short of just straight complicated for theaters ever since this pandemic began and they’ve had nothing to do. When this pandemic began, theaters were just trying to figure out when they would be able to open their doors once again and eventually, they had to figure out how they would open. Theaters were originally just in the same boat as any other business that was forced to shut down at the time and they couldn’t do anything other than stay shut down. With that in mind, they immediately started facing pressure which involved them not being able to bring in revenue and it is still a problem now.

Due to the pandemic, people have been trying to figure out exactly what they could do to keep themselves busy while they wait to be able to go out. Despite there still being a lot of risk involved with going out in general, businesses have managed to bring people back as time has gone on. This is because a lot of businesses function off the principal that they can draw people in for a specific reason for short periods of time. This is not something that movie theaters are really capable of because they function on bringing people in to sit still near other people for long periods of time. In order to try and make up for that fact, movie theaters have come up with new rules they put in place to follow the new health guidelines.

The new health guidelines are rules that have been put into place in just about every single business out there and they are almost the same everywhere you go. Basically, those new rules state that businesses have to have some kind of limited capacity and they must ensure that everyone remains a certain distance from one another to enforce social distancing policies. While these rules may be the same wherever you go, the effect that it has on each individual type of business varies wildly based upon how that business functions as an entity. Therefore, it is no surprise that movie theaters are among those businesses that have suffered the worst as a result of being forced to follow these rules. After all, the main point of being at a theater is to sit with many other people and watch movies for hours at a time.

It is due to the fear people have when it comes to sitting in a theater for hours with others that we have seen the rapid decline in attendance since they have reopened their doors. Taking away the fact that movie theaters haven’t really had any new movies to show, they have been stagnating heavily and it has affected them all for quite some time now. Even when they got their hands on the new blockbuster movie ‘Tenet’ things did not end up going very well for them over the following weeks. The movie started off strong but then lost all of its appeal over the following weeks due to people not wanting to go out and risk their health in theaters. This only further cemented the fact that theaters are in a decline with no way out in sight, especially after studios decided to delay their films.

After the perceived failure of ‘Tenet’ at the box office due to the lack of patrons going out to movie theaters, studios decided to pull their upcoming movies from the line-up. These movies are being pushed into some time next year, and although many now have releases dates, those schedules are still tentative until they figure out exactly when they can release to a market with a lot of customers. After this decision was made, Regal Cinemas decided to once again close all of their theaters in an effort to save money and prevent themselves from going bankrupt for awhile. AMC on the other hand has been staying open, but they will most certainly reach a state of bankruptcy by the end of the year. It has already been reported that they have already lost a total of 90% revenue for the year, so it isn’t looking great for the company.

At this point, movie theaters have lost almost all of their business and it has become a much more dangerous venture to be in the movie theater industry. For the time being, it would appear that movie theaters are slowly starting to inch closer to the point where they may never actually end up recovering even after this pandemic ends. This is a reality that they must now face as we move closer to the end of the year and as the new year begins. There isn’t really very much that theaters can do right now because they have no choice but to continue following along with the pandemic hoping that things get slightly better soon. Unfortunately, with a possible second wave of the virus essentially here, it seems unlikely; so those losses are likely to just continue racking up as time goes on.