This week, we highlight a segment from Luminate Film & TV’s 2024 Year-End Report. This report showcases some of the most important trends impacting the global entertainment industry.
Since 2020, the disruptive effect streaming services have had on linear television and theatrical films has been a major industry concern. With the COVID-19 pandemic, two guild strikes and the arrival of more competitors to a crowded streaming market, streamers have had to go on the defensive to fortify their slates. Cable television has certainly seen widespread scaleback and consolidation in response to this evolving market, but has this disruption affected theatrical film in the same way? Data from Luminate Film & TV and Streaming Viewership (M) gives us some interesting insight.
While 2020-2021 saw a scaleback in theatrical releases, 2022-2024 saw a full rebound to pre-COVID numbers, likely due to a bumper crop caused by the pandemic and strike delays. (This, however, amounted to only a slight increase in studio titles.) Streaming releases, on the other hand, have shown a noticeable decline. As Netflix, Apple TV+ and others have pulled back spending on original films, the studios have largely shifted away from the pandemic-era direct-to-streaming model and returned focus back to theatrical.
Total viewership of streaming original films also saw a decline following the end of the COVID-19 lockdown, losing a third of total annual viewership of top-performing titles. This indicates that film studios still see a lot of value with theatrical releases and that putting these titles directly on streaming may have been an isolated trend fueled by pandemic disruptions.
This data bodes well for theaters, who weathered widespread devastation in the early part of the 2020s. This resilience also clashes with the popular theory that theatrical film is a dying business. Global catastrophe kept us inside our homes for nearly two years, making streaming the only real means of distribution during that time. As consumers return to theaters, that prior era may come to be viewed as a temporary accommodation instead of a permanent adjustment. After all, theatrical films offer what streaming films cannot: community and spectacle for viewers, and actual hard revenue for studios.
