The box office is bleak. Here's how local theaters are surviving the downturn

As the twelvemonth started, movie theatre proprietor Damon Rubio was feeling optimistic.

His six-location theatre chain’s gross projections for January and February were tracking up of 2024’s anemic theatrical grosses. Rubio himself was looking guardant to films similar Oscar-winning manager Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” and Paramount Pictures’ comedic Jack Quaid thriller “Novocaine.”

But by the extremity of February, “things benignant of dropped retired connected us,” said Rubio, proprietor and president of D’Place Entertainment, which operates theaters successful California cities including successful Barstow, Cathedral City and Bonsall. His chain’s gross is inactive up of past twelvemonth but lone “marginally.”

“I wouldn’t telephone it apocalyptic, but I would telephone it abysmal, truthful I conjecture it’s a measurement up,” helium said with a laugh.

Rubio is luckier than many.

Ahead of this week’s CinemaCon convention, wherever Hollywood studios contiguous footage of their upcoming films to hype theatre owners up for the twelvemonth ahead, the manufacture is grappling with a brutal commencement to the twelvemonth astatine the container office.

So far, container bureau gross is down 11% compared with the aforesaid play past year, which was already down importantly from pre-pandemic levels, according to Comscore. March was particularly weak, down 50% from the aforesaid period successful 2024, according to Eric Handler, media and amusement expert astatine Roth Capital Partners.

Walt Disney Co.’s troubled unrecorded enactment “Snow White” was the main offering astatine theaters successful March, compared with past year, which boasted blockbusters similar Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” and Universal Pictures’ “Kung Fu Panda 4.”

The wide diminution successful attendance is simply a semipermanent inclination that accelerated during the pandemic and hasn’t recovered since. Theaters are besides inactive grappling with the nonaccomplishment of casual moviegoers, an assemblage that got utilized to watching films from their sofa and shortened theatrical windows.

“The 4th volition astir surely limp to the finish,” Handler wrote successful a enactment to clients.

Handler attributed the slower concern to the deficiency of compelling releases, noting that the upcoming 2nd 4th looks “extremely strong” compared with past year. Theater operators are counting connected films specified arsenic Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie,” Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch,” Universal’s live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” and Sony Pictures’ “Karate Kid: Legends.”

And with upcoming films similar Universal’s “Jurassic World Rebirth,” Warner Bros.’ “Superman,” Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and the animated “Zootopia 2,” cinema owners anticipation the remainder of the twelvemonth volition battalion a punch.

“We’re approaching mean again,” Handler said by phone. “The industry’s got cleanable aerial for the archetypal clip successful years.”

Domestic container bureau totals for each of 2025 are expected to full $9.5 billion, an 8% summation compared with past year, though inactive down 17% compared with an mean of the past 3 pre-pandemic years, according to a study from Gower Street Analytics. (That $9.5-billion fig was revised downward from an earlier anticipation of $9.7 cardinal owed to the “lack of breakout hits truthful acold successful 2025,” Gower Street said.)

For Rubio of D’Place Entertainment, it’s not that the films aren’t good. He said helium fears moviegoers are pulling backmost connected discretionary spending amid an uncertain economical scenery dotted with concerns astir President Trump’s tariffs, ostentation and a wobbly banal market.

“I bash deliberation it possibly spooked the mean user conscionable a small bit,” Rubio said. “They’re taking a breath, waiting to spot it play out. Unless the movie is conscionable overwhelmingly compelling to them, I deliberation they’re consenting to beryllium connected the sideline.”

The 4th has been “a small spot disappointing” astatine Temecula’s Temeku Cinemas, arsenic films similar Marvel Studios’ “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Snow White” underperformed, said Heidi Robertson, main enforcement of Tristone Cinemas, which owns the theater.

But household films similar Universal’s “Dog Man” and StudioCanal’s “Paddington successful Peru” (distributed by Sony successful the U.S.) did good for the theater, and their quarterly results volition extremity higher than past year’s numbers, she said.

To marque up for gaps successful the movie schedule, the theatre hosts peculiar events, specified arsenic its screening of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, oregon the 2004 romance “The Notebook,” implicit with photograph backgrounds, trivia, prizes, and a themed acquisition and menu.

“They person been hugely palmy for america and person decidedly filled the voids financially and besides socially with our customers,” Robertson said. “Every clip we get to moving connected them, it feels to maine similar I’m readying a large day party.”

The Southern California wildfires deed already-struggling Gardena Cinema hard this quarter, resulting successful the postponement of an lawsuit for a punk set and the premiere of a section filmmaker’s abbreviated movie. Owner and relation Judy Kim chose a fewer comedies and showed them for escaped successful an effort to bring radical in, springiness them a diversion for a fewer hours and ideally merchantability immoderate concessions.

The 800-seat, single-screen theater, which mostly plays older movies, has been tally by her household for decades, and she said she hopes to support it going successful grant of her mother, who died successful 2022.

“I’m trying to support my mom’s bequest alive,” said Kim connected the telephone from her theater, wherever she and a unpaid were packing up movie memorabilia owned by Gardena Cinema that they auctioned disconnected to wage the bills. “It’s similar my household home. To let the Gardena Cinema to vanish is similar allowing a large information of my past to disappear.”

However, immoderate creation location cinemas are doing beardown concern amid the doom and gloom.

At the Frida Cinema successful Santa Ana, societal media buzz pushed the autarkic theatre to a record-breaking archetypal quarter. Ticket income for January and February were 37% higher than they were past year, and January was the theater’s biggest period ever.

“I pinch myself,” said Logan Crow, founding enforcement manager of the Frida Cinema. “I’m good alert that we person an unthinkable magnitude to beryllium grateful for.”

He said helium thinks portion of the surge successful enactment whitethorn beryllium owed to enthusiasts’ tendency to enactment the arts, particularly arsenic backing opportunities person taken a deed amid the economical uncertainty.

The 11-year-old theatre shows a premix of classical cult restorations, successful summation to caller specialty releases. In the past fewer months, the Frida has shown A24’s “The Brutalist,” the Oscar-winning animated movie “Flow” and Neon’s fearfulness flick “The Monkey.” The theatre besides hosts themed months, specified arsenic A24 fearfulness films, oregon the movies of David Lynch.

Independent theaters similar the Frida are the “backbones of a batch of communities,” said Colleen Barstow, seat of the Independent Theater Owners Coalition subgroup of the Cinema United commercialized organization, which represents much than 600 independently operated companies accounting for astir 13,000 screens.

Local theaters were deed hard by the pandemic, followed by the writers and actors strikes of 2023, which thinned retired the studios’ merchandise schedules.

Many diversified — adding restaurants and different activities — arsenic good arsenic sprucing up their theaters to pull caller patrons. Though the archetypal 4th has been slower, respective theatre owners said they felt much optimistic astir the remainder of the year. They’re hoping the studios consciousness the aforesaid and volition reciprocate astatine CinemaCon.

“What we’re hoping to perceive is simply a committedness from the studios with a beardown and dependable slate of theatrical releases,” said Barstow, who co-owns Omaha-based Main Street Theaters/ACX Cinemas. “From what we spot close now, we’re going to person that. 2025 volition physique into a precise beardown 2026.”