After years of headlines about a struggling industry, movie theaters across the United States are drawing big crowds once again. As one analyst put it, the biggest comeback story in Hollywood right now is not any single film, but the movies themselves, with theaters filling up for the first time in years and audiences rediscovering the big screen.
The numbers behind that revival are striking. Theater chain AMC reported that 25.5 million people kicked off their summer movie season last month, a figure described as a pandemic-era high. After a long stretch of empty auditoriums, the return of packed houses has caught the attention of an industry that had grown used to bad news.
Box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, who says he has been tracking and analyzing the box office for more than 33 years, summed up the moment bluntly, saying he had never seen anything quite like this. He has labeled the turnaround a Gen Z phenomenon, crediting younger viewers with powering the rebound.
That generation now makes up nearly 40 percent of domestic audiences. Many had assumed younger people would be lost to their phones, tablets and streaming services, but the opposite appears to be happening. Instead, going to the movie theater has become, in the words of observers, the coolest place to be for the younger generation.
Part of the appeal is social. Young moviegoers are taking the hype online, turning nearly every post into a form of free advertising for the films and the theaters. There is also a financial draw, as a trip to the cinema is seen as a relative bargain compared with the cost of a concert or a meal out, an appealing factor at a time when many families are watching their budgets.
Industry watchers expect the momentum to continue through a packed release calendar. Upcoming titles such as Toy Story 5, a new Steven Spielberg film and other major releases are expected to keep pulling audiences into theaters, with Dergarabedian suggesting that this is just the beginning of what could be one of the strongest movie summers in years.
The financial picture underlines the scale of the rebound. Last year, the domestic box office grossed about 9 billion dollars, and this year is on track to surpass that total. The summer movie season alone is expected to gross more than 4 billion dollars, a result that would mark exactly the kind of success story Hollywood has been hoping for.