Why Movie Theaters Wont Die
Jeff Bezos Agrees With Me
Despite being in serious cost-cutting mode following over-spending during the pandemic boom, Amazon is still willing to spend big on making movies for the theaters.
Even though platforms like Netflix largely bypass the traditional theater system, Amazon Plans to spend $1 billion in an effort to produce 12-15 movies a year.
The willingness of Amazon to spend about as much on production as Universal and Warner must mean that they have some confidence in the theater-first model.
I personally think there’s something still attractive about the theater first model as a consumer. Rather than being forced to pay a monthly fee to watch a movie you're interested in, you can just buy a ticket and watch the movie you want no matter who produced it.
The highest grossing film of 2022 was Top Gun Maverick… at the box office it made over $1.5 billion! It is set to debut on the streaming Service paramount + on December 22.
Based on the box office numbers that means that well over 100 million people went to see Top Gun in theaters. I’m sure some of them are already paramount + subscribers, and some will subscribe to the service as a result of the movie. So from going theater-first Paramount is able to make money from ticket sales, and gain new subscribers.