What's the latest theatre to close or open you have heard about?

[Scott Jentsch]

159 days into the year 2024. I don't have the exact numbers, but I had been keeping track and lost count at 100, - but I'm fairly certain that at least 150 movie theatres have closed in the United States so far this year. Possibly more? Maybe even as many days as there are in the year so far.

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I've been trying to keep up with the closings here:

https://www.bigscreen.com/journal.php?keyword=26

I count 62 articles since Jan 1, so there's at least that many that have closed. I'm sure there are some that I have missed, or just didn't have time to document other than closing their entry on our site.

On June 27, 2023, we listed 5,451 active theaters in the US showing movies and now there are 5,196 (-255).

In October 2019, that number was 5,849.

[Dennis Benjamin]

Scott,

With the articles you mention, I'm sure some of them mention more than one location closing. For example: The 5 or 6 that just closed in Texas with the Alamo Drafthouse announcement. Also, how many locations have closed and were never mentioned in a news article?

Those June 2023 to June 2024 active theatre numbers are gut wrenching.

[Bobby Henderson]

Only so many theater locations can be closed before it starts badly impacting the various businesses that supply industry-specific hardware and services to cinemas. What is the tipping point going to be to force a company to stop making cinema-grade digital projectors? Those appliances have to be produced at a certain level of scale.

I find it kind of scary to see AMC continuing to close "AMC Classic" (former Carmike) locations, such as the 14-plex in Fort Smith and 16-screen site in Allentown. The situation makes me wonder if the Patriot Cinemas here in Lawton could be in any danger. Those two former Carmike locations are older (the Fort Smith one looks like a 1990's build). Still, multiplex theaters less than a decade old aren't immune from being shuttered.

[Ed Gordon]

Number of cinema sites in the United States from 1995 to 2020

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Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...es-since-1995/

[Ryan Gallagher]

Number of cinema sites in the United States from 1995 to 2020

Where is our "dislike" button! ;-)

[Martin McCaffery]

Number of cinema sites in the United States from 1995 to 2020

Got an overly with the number of screens for comparison?

[Ed Gordon]

Got an overly with the number of screens for comparison?

Is this what you are looking for?

Leading cinema circuits in the United States and Canada as of March 2023, by number of screens

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Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...er-of-screens/

[Martin McCaffery]

Was thinking more along the lines, did the number of screens decrease with the number of locations. Or did they increase as fourplexes were replaced by 24 plexes. And while we're at it, did the audience decrease with the decrease in locations? Ie: Did more screen attract more people?

[Armand Daiguillon]

Only so many theater locations can be closed before it starts badly impacting the various businesses that supply industry-specific hardware and services to cinemas. What is the tipping point going to be to force a company to stop making cinema-grade digital projectors? Those appliances have to be produced at a certain level of scale.

I find it kind of scary to see AMC continuing to close "AMC Classic" (former Carmike) locations, such as the 14-plex in Fort Smith and 16-screen site in Allentown. The situation makes me wonder if the Patriot Cinemas here in Lawton could be in any danger. Those two former Carmike locations are older (the Fort Smith one looks like a 1990's build). Still, multiplex theaters less than a decade old aren't immune from being shuttered.

Its been a while since I worked for AMC, but it was there policy previously to close ALL "Classic" locations once their leases were up.
Locations that did well enough to justify some renovation would be renovated and be under the regular AMC banner. But if its a "Classic" .....it will close.

[Bobby Henderson]

The situation here in Lawton with its only remaining first run multiplex looks like a mixed bag.

One thing on its side is the Patriot Cinemas is newer than other former Carmike locations AMC acquired. It opened in November of 2015, just a couple or so months before AMC announced plans to buy out Carmike (the deal took until 12/2016 to get finalized, due to an anti-trust lawsuit from the DOJ). The Patriot Cinemas has the second largest IMAX digital house in Oklahoma (after the Moore Warren screen in Moore, OK). Funny thing: to this day, there has never been any chain-specific branding signage installed on the building. The exterior signage just mentions Patriot Cinemas and IMAX.

A factor that makes me pessimistic about the theater's future is how AMC has operated and maintained the cinema over the past several years. Staffing is minimal, even by Carmike's old standards. Anything that's broken can stay broken for a long time. I don't know what the life span is for digital projection systems, such as a pair of 2K IMAX xenon lamp projectors. I don't have high hopes for any big laser upgrades, although the big IMAX house would do pretty well with new projectors and a 12 channel sound system.

When the Patriot Cinemas first opened the Lawton market was arguably over-screened. There was a little 12-plex theater in Central Mall, operated by Starplex (which was acquired by AMC). Our old Carmike 8 theater was operating as a bargain theater. And we had the old Vaska Theater, a single screen theater that's still operating on a wing and a prayer.

It didn't take long for AMC to shut down the old Carmike 8 theater; it has been boarded up for the past 6 years. AMC had to spin-off the 12-plex mall theater to New Vision Theaters. That chain got liquidated in 2020; the mall theater has been closed ever since. That left Lawton with just the Patriot Cinemas and Vaska.

I think the old Carmike 8 building will eventually be demolished. Locally there was talk several months ago about a church renovating the building, but nothing has happened. The theater was battling mold issues during its first-run years. It's probably utterly riddled with mold now and beyond repair. Our old 1970's style mall has only one remaining anchor tenant, JCPenney. 20 years ago that mall would be packed on the weekends. Now it's like a ghost town. The former Dillard's and Sears spaces have been renovated into facilities for defense technology companies. You need a security clearance just to walk inside. Some of the other empty retail spaces are being converted into office space too.

Our old Vaska theater is just getting by. The lack of competition kind of helps. But they don't have enough money to install features we take for granted, such as surround speakers.

With the way the movie theater industry is suffering the chances look pretty good for Lawton to end up with no operating movie theaters at all. This is a market with around 120,000 people. I would like to think if AMC closed the Patriot Cinemas another chain might buy it. But with foot traffic at theaters being what it is that prospect does not look likely.

[Scotty Wright]

Sony bought the Alamo Drafthouse chain

[Bobby Henderson]

I guess Sony buying Alamo Drafthouse could be a good thing. At least it might get those closed Alamo locations re-opened. It looks like two private equity companies were involved in the previous ownership structure. Having an actual movie studio involved in theater ownership could actually be an improvement. But what's going to happen with the whole franchise arrangement? Is that going to stay in place?

Will Sony's ownership affect the kinds of movies Alamo is able to show? Or will Sony push more Sony movie studio product into Alamo theaters?

I wonder if we'll see other big studios, such as Disney and Warner Bros, buy stakes in theater chains or buy them completely. Maybe if the studios have some skin in the cinema game it might encourage them to lengthen those theatrical release windows.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I wonder if we'll see other big studios, such as Disney and Warner Bros, buy stakes in theater chains or buy them completely. Maybe if the studios have some skin in the cinema game it might encourage them to lengthen those theatrical release windows.

Does everything come full circle? In the historical arc of motion picture exhibition... wasn't studio owned cinemas very early in the real brick&morter incarnation of cinemas, the Cinema Palace era... (after the travelling projectionist era and nickelodeons and a handful of independents proved it was workable)

Back then they definitely showed predominantly their own pictures I think. Not sure I see a reason for THAT to change outside of filling gaps in a schedule.

It's worth noting it was a 1948 Anti-Trust suit that broke up the vertical monopolies of the "Big Five". Now I feel like it has to be a monopoly of ONE or TWO before it is even a blip on the anti-trust radar.

[William Kucharski]

The question is, will Sony go for the dollars and drop Alamo's "ejected without a refund" policy for talking/texting? Will they allow repertory showings of non-Sony product going forward? For that matter will they show new non-Sony product?

[Martin Brooks]

Was thinking more along the lines, did the number of screens decrease with the number of locations. Or did they increase as fourplexes were replaced by 24 plexes. And while we're at it, did the audience decrease with the decrease in locations? Ie: Did more screen attract more people?

By every measure - box-office, tickets sold, per-capita admissions, % of people going to a movie per week, etc., the industry is in big trouble.

In 2002, North American box-office was $9.16 billion ($15.99b in current $$), 1.576 billion tickets were sold, there were 30.3 million weekly admissions, 9.5% of the population saw a movie each week and per capita movies was 4.94 per year per person.

In pre-pandemic 2019, North American box-office was $11.257 billion ($13.8b in current $$), 1.229 billion tickets were sold, there were 23.63 million weekly admissions, 6.44% of the population saw a movie each week and per capita movies was 3.35 per year per person.
In 2023, box-office was $8.9 billion ($9.16b in current $$), 848m tickets were sold, there were 16.3 million weekly admissions, 4.37% of the population saw a movie each week and per capita movies was 2.28.

If the rest of this year continues as the first 23 weeks has, we'll come in at $6.37 billion box-office and 591m tickets. In the first 23 weeks, 2.99% of the population saw a movie each week and the prorated per capita movies is just 1.56 per year. If that doesn't change, a LOT of theaters are going to close.

As to whether fewer theaters caused lower box-office or lower box-office caused fewer theaters to survive, that's a chicken-and-egg question.

What we do know is that in pre-pandemic 2019, AMC, the largest chain, averaged ticket sales of just 92 per day per screen and they lost $149m that year. In 2023, they averaged ticket sales of just 59 per day per screen and they lost $397 million. In Q1 of 2024, they averaged 53 tickets per day per screen and they already lost $364 million. This is quite obviously not sustainable. No consumer business could survive so few customers. If there's four shows per day, we're talking an average of 13.25 tickets per show. Customers are simply not showing up.

Interestingly, in NYC, the average number of screens has been dropping a bit as theaters close. It peaked at 8.74 screens per theater in 2022 and it's now 8.32.