Viewers Who Stream More Also Go To Cinemas More (cnbc.com)

Video streaming services like Netflix and Hulu don't appear to be negatively impacting the box office like many would assume. Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush, expects the U.S. box office will grow about 1% to $12 billion this year, setting another record.

"Our takeaway is that Netflix and the expansion of [streaming video on demand] platforms will have minimal impact on box office given the vast supply of content, plenty of which is ideal for theatrical release (and most talent fiercely and contractually objects to a straight-to-streaming release)," Pachter wrote in a research note Monday. CNBC reports: Last year, the domestic box office had a record-breaking year, hauling in $11.9 billion, there was a 5% rise in the number of movie tickets sold, and 263 million people -- 75 percent of the population -- saw at least one movie in theaters. "Everyone has a kitchen, but everyone still goes out to eat," Charles Rivkin, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, said, quoting Sterling Bagby, the late co-founder of B&B Theatres, during a "State of the Industry" panel last week.

Rivkin said that with each new innovation in the entertainment industry, there has been worry that it will kill the movie industry. Talking pictures, technicolor movies, television, basic cable and smartphones were all seen as disruptors. "And yet we're still here," Rivkin said. "The theatrical and home entertainment sectors both grew strongly in 2018, and that's great news, because we are all part of the growth together," he said.

Comments

Streaming has better content

[Kiuas]

For me personally, streaming has reduced the times I go to a theater. In my teens I went probably on average a couple times a month. Last year I saw maybe 3 movies in theaters. What's changed? In my opinion the prevalence of streaming has put movie studios in a bind: now that nearly everyone has access to near unlimited amounts of content from their couch, movies have become a much more risk-averse business. Making movies costs a lot and competition is fierce. This has led to studios focusing heavily on franchises and sequels and cinematic universes. There's a reason disney paid a fortune for the Star Wars IP (and already made their investment back): they know SW is a franchise with a huge pre-existing fanbase and they know they can keep pumping these movies out at a rate of about 1 a year and keep raking in the cash. Marvel. DC. Harry Potter franchise being hastily expanded beyond the original series. It's all about risk-management: the studios are asking themselves 'what can we invest XXX million bucks into and be fairly certain that we'll make money?'

This is not to say all that is bad. I enjoy a mindless action-flick or a superhero movie here or there. But this has made it so that the selection of movies available in theaters, at least here in Finland, is pretty narrow. My personal taste in movies is story and character/dialogue driven. If the plot and the writing is good enough, I don't care if the special effects budget has been small. Movies like Coherence and Primer are good examples of how to make thoughtful and entertaining scifi/mystery films with a very limited budget. However these kinds of movies don't make it to the cinemas any more, they're too risky. The movie going public has been conditioned into expecting a 'larger than life' experience on the big screen.

Every once in a while a movie with a wide mass-market appeal hits the theaters that even a cinephile nerd like me can call excellent. Mad Max: Fury Road is a good example of a such a film and in my opinion the best pure action film ever made (because it uses action to actually tell a story beautifully, instead of having tons of crap dialogue that just acts as dressing to get the characters into the next action set-piece, you could cut what little dialogue there is out of the film and it'd still be more world building and immersive than the whole of the Transformers franchise combined), but outside such movies I don't often find myself wanting to go to the theater, because for people like me, the streaming services simply offer a better selection.