It’s been tough for movies because certain ones need to be in theaters to get the full experience. Since March 2020, we’ve seen limited theater action because of the pandemic. However, the summer is bringing us back to some of our former glory. Hollywood is ready to dazzle us again with some blockbuster flicks. From “F9” to “Black Widow”, the summer will be filled with a stream of big films that’ll get us excited to go back into theaters. Just imagine the experience of air-conditioned theaters, popcorn, soda, giant screens, and amazing sound that eclipses the smart TV and virtual watch party experience at home. For movie theaters, this is the perfect time to get back into the swing of things.
The summer movie season starts from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekend, which actually accounts for $4 billion in revenue (around 40% of the year’s grosses). The abysmal summer revenue of 2020 was just at $176 million, which was down 96% from 2019. That huge loss in revenue certainly was a sign that streaming may take over. However, there are still a lot of people that just want that in-person experience they can’t get from being in their living room. This summer will be a litmus test to see if things changed as far as people experiencing movies. In a lot of ways, the current movie calendar looks like a do-over of last year’s schedule because movies, such as “F9”, “Jungle Cruise”, “Black Widow”, and “In the Heights” were supposed to be released last summer. Many movies had to delay the release because they knew it needed the theatrical release to get the full effect. Jon Chu, director of “In the Heights” said, that he wanted this to be done on the biggest scale possible.
“F9” director, Justin Lin, also says that there’s a certain magic of being a kid and saving money to go watch a summer movie with a bunch of strangers. It brings people together when they’re cheering someone on or laughing at a funny scene. Pre-pandemic summers just meant it was movie time for family and friends. Retro summer hits in drive-ins gave them some fun back. However, there’s no telling what an “event film” will do these days as there are options to watch big movies at home. However, there are still tons of directors and actors that are happy the movies they worked on are going to the big screen instead of settling with a streaming release.
There are concerns if the theatrical releases will get those big box-office numbers of the past, but the main thing is people are excited to actually watch movies how they were traditionally meant to be seen.