{"id":584109,"date":"2026-08-05T16:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584109\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T16:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:30:10","slug":"us-box-office-booming-but-fewer-people-going-to-cinemas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584109\/","title":{"rendered":"US box office booming, but fewer people going to cinemas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US box office has seen its biggest opening weekend in history thanks to the one-two punch of Spider-Man: \u2060Brand New Day<\/a> and The Odyssey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the industry’s rebound is increasingly being powered by higher ticket prices, premium-format screenings, and a handful of blockbuster releases rather than a broad return of moviegoers.<\/p>\n

While domestic US box office revenue is on pace for its best year since the pandemic, film audiences have shrunk.<\/p>\n

Whether high-budget films can sustain this year’s momentum is an early test of how much the industry’s recovery depends on fewer people paying more to watch movies.<\/p>\n

Watch: Matt Damon and Tom Holland discuss The Odyssey with RT\u00c9 Entertainment’s Suzanne Keane<\/p>\n

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Cinemas sold an estimated 470.9 million tickets for the first 30 weeks of 2026, compared with 747.3 million during the same stretch of 2019, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.<\/p>\n

“Revenue growth for exhibitors for a long while now has been mostly driven by increases in average ticket price along with increases in concession prices,” said S&P Global Market Intelligence Analyst Wade Holden.<\/p>\n

Data from research firm Placer.ai, which tracks foot traffic, shows a similar pattern.<\/p>\n

When measured until July, US cinema attendance is up 8.1% this year compared with 2025, but down 27% against 2019 levels. <\/p>\n

A stronger \u2060and more varied slate of films, including non-franchise successes like Obsession<\/a> and Project Hail Mary<\/a>, has helped drive box-office growth this year.<\/p>\n

Domestic box office revenue reached $6.2 billion up to 2 August, up 15% from the same period last year, according to media analytics firm Rentrak. <\/p>\n

In 2019, box office sales topped $7 billion at this point in the year.<\/p>\n

Watch: Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon tell RT\u00c9 2FM’s Emma Power about making Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/p>\n

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Unlike recent years, when the domestic box office was dominated almost entirely by sequels and popular franchises like Marvel and Star Wars, this year’s biggest earners include a larger share of original or standalone films, suggesting audiences are responding to a broader range of theatrical releases.<\/p>\n

“This year’s success at the box office speaks to a well-rounded release calendar that features a bit of everything and appeals to a wide spectrum of moviegoers,” said Shawn Robbins, Director of Movie Analytics for ticket seller Fandango and the founder and owner of Box Office \u2060Theory.<\/p>\n

The high-profile summer releases of Spider-Man and filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s re-imagining of Homer’s epic, which has sold out higher-priced IMAX venues, are giving exhibitors some of their best results since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Covid-19 accelerated a shift that was already under way as streaming services gave consumers more home-viewing options.<\/p>\n

Many audiences now \u2060reserve cinema visits for major event films and franchise releases.<\/p>\n

Cinema chains responded by expanding premium large-format screens and upgrading the in-cinema experience, betting that consumers will pay more for outings that cannot easily be replicated in front of a television.<\/p>\n

Early signs are encouraging.<\/p>\n

\"Pillow
\nA stronger \u2060and more varied slate of films, including non-franchise successes like Obsession (above) and Project Hail Mary, has helped drive box-office growth this year<\/p>\n

AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest cinema chain, has said strong demand for premium screens helped it post its highest single-weekend revenue in its 106-year history and biggest-attended weekend of the decade. <\/p>\n

More than 10.2 \u2060million moviegoers visited its AMC and Odeon cinemas, it said.<\/p>\n

Even though inflation has partly weighed on the consumer appetite for the movies, higher prices have benefited a handful of major studios, with \u2060Universal, Walt Disney, Sony, Warner Bros, and Paramount Pictures accounting for 68% of domestic US receipts this year, according to an analysis of data provided by media measurement and research company Rentrak.<\/p>\n

Hollywood concentration has prompted concern from regulators.<\/p>\n

California, along with 11 other states, sued Paramount Skydance to block it from acquiring rival Warner Bros Discovery in a $110 billion deal.<\/p>\n

A combined Paramount and Warner would have made up nearly 11% of the domestic box office up to this past weekend, according to Rentrak.<\/p>\n

The success of titles such as The Odyssey and The SuperMario Galaxy Movie, distributed by Comcast’s Universal, helped lift its market share to 24%, underscoring how a small number of blockbuster releases are increasingly driving exhibitors’ financial performance.<\/p>\n

According to EntTelligence, an AI-driven data and analytics platform for the media and entertainment industry, the average adult ticket price was $13.46 (\u20ac11.66) up to 30 \u200cJuly this year.<\/p>\n

Admissions for premium formats such as IMAX averaged $18.22 (\u20ac15.78).<\/p>\n

Source: Reuters<\/p>\n

Click here for more movie news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US box office has seen its biggest opening weekend in history thanks to the one-two punch of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-584109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}