Covid-19 has forced many studios to postpone their premiers, with movie theaters closed as part of lockdown measures. As people stuck at home have switched to streaming platforms, some are predicting the death of the big screen.
However, in an interview with RT’s Boom Bust, senior media analyst with Comscore, Paul Dergarabedian, says the idea that the movie theater era is over is completely wrong. He believes that, while there’s currently a boom in streaming because we can’t go out yet still crave new content, as soon as we’re allowed to, we’ll return to the cinema.
“The movie theater will be back and, when it does, people are going to be really anxious to be back too,” the analyst said. “For those who think that streaming is going to take over and the movie theater is something from a bygone era, I think that’s completely misguided.”
“If you have a movie that has a US$200 million budget, I don’t see how you can ever earn that back with streaming alone, and that’s why you’re seeing a lot of big movies waiting for the movie theater to return.”
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