Every year people talk about the gap between movies that garner big box office returns (e.g., Deadpool & Wolverine, Inside Out 2) and those that win awards with smaller, more cineaste audiences (e.g., Anora, The Brutalist). Those in the former category are practically everywhere, while many would be moviegoers have never even heard of the latter.
Are movies just becoming less mainstream? Is it an art form in cultural decline in favor of TV, music, gaming, and other forms of entertainment?
Box office and moviegoing habits point in this direction. Most people are heading out to theaters and splurging on PVOD less often, focusing mostly on huge blockbuster “events”. The rest of their free time goes elsewhere. If a movie doesn’t end up on their streaming service of choice, it ceases to exist.
Movies face an uphill battle with the utility-like standards for digital distribution. Most music, TV, and gaming are beamed in as all you can consume flat monthly subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify), or free (social media, free-to-play games as a service like Fortnite), available on the device of your choice day and date to everyone at the same time.
Movies are different: a premium, multi-tiered experience that starts in theaters, moves to $20 PVOD rentals, then standard VOD at $5 or $6, and finally to subscription streaming services a few months later. Many films effectively disappear at this point, at best popping up on a homepage for a few days before being shuffled off to another anonymous tile in a search result. Many eventually shift to other streaming subscription services or drop back to just VOD rentals and purchases.
Take Charli XCX’s Brat and Sean Baker’s Anora as examples. Brat was made available to everyone worldwide on Spotify, Apple Music, and even individual tracks on YouTube overnight. Anora started its run across the fall festival circuit, transitioned to a limited release in October, only to expand wide to about a quarter of all US theaters for all of two weeks before slipping off to PVOD in December. Distributor Neon likely will hold off on any streaming plans until after awards season. While both are successes, the fact that people could listen to Brat right away while Anora may not reach a service like Netflix until March or April explains the awareness gap.
Nor can we discount the kinds of movies get the most attention, marketing, and accessibility. For TV and music, while there are returning seasons of popular shows, in addition to long standing musical acts, a lot of it stems from original concepts, across a diverse range of genres.
Not so for movies, which today at the big budget theatrical level are dominated by four quadrant, PG-13 franchises. Data from Box Office Mojo shows that of the top twenty US movies by revenue over 2024, only three were not direct sequels. Within those three, Wicked and It Ends With Us were technically derived from popular IP across other media. Only The Wild Robot could be considered an original hit. This lack of originality might turn off some people, especially older audiences.
But I’m optimistic on the state of moviegoing. A passionate film crowd, mostly clustered in big metro areas like NYC and LA, is flocking to repertory theaters to watch exponentially more than their mainstream counterparts. They write Letterboxd reviews, collect Blu-rays, and subscribe to niche services like the Criterion Channel, Mubi, and Shudder. And if you’re a little adventurous in your hunt online, there’s a cornucopia of great new releases available to rent or stream. Meanwhile, many will still flock to see mega hits and keep the general economic model humming along.
Nor would I ever want film to shift to the utility-like Spotify model as a standard. It would be a financial disaster and untenable for many releases.
There’s even bright spots for smaller movies like The Substance. Coralie Fargeat’s satiric, bloody body horror was made for under 20 million and distributed by small upstart Mubi, with few big stars or traditional marketing campaigns to lean on. Thanks to positive word of mouth and a successful awards campaign by Demi Moore, the movie made over 70 million worldwide in theaters and strong sales on VOD. It likely drove many new customers to Mubi’s streaming service as well.
Mind you, The Substance’s breakthrough is still more the exception than the rule. I don’t think big studios will suddenly start focusing on original, independent ideas. Money talks, and a move at that level demands either that the biggest blockbusters repeatedly flop or that a lot more movies like The Substance make serious bank. Nor will film industry exhibit give way to a more auteur driven era like the New Hollywood 1970s or indie boom of the 1990s. Cynically, with so much corporate consolidation and the diversification of entertainment, fresh investments will likely fall outside of movies.
So if you love film, it’s up to us to support it. Go grass roots and share great movies with your friends and family. Look beyond what the algorithms show you. VOD at home has never been easier, cheaper (if you’re patient), or provide this vast a selection. Films aren’t going anywhere.