Superheroes are saving cinema
The pandemic killed cinema, superheroes are bringing it back. (Photo: Pixabay)
Box office sales over the past three years have been abysmal. In 2021, the American box office was down by 42.3% compared to 2020. In 2020, it was down 81.3% compared to 2019. Along with the travel and airline industry, the entertainment industry and the box office in particular was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic.
In 2020, and in Los Angeles alone, 890,000 people in the film and entertainment industry lost their jobs due to lockdowns and quarantine restrictions. Productions were stalled because of lockdown restrictions. Only 387 movies were released in 2021, compared to the 987 that were released in pre-pandemic 2019.
Cinemas were one of the hardest hit, as “nonessential businesses” were forced to cease operations at the height of the pandemic. That’s hundreds of thousands of movie theater personnel out of jobs. In the US, the number of cinemas open for business went from 5,839 in 2019 to 1,341 in 2020, and then back to 4,698 in 2021.
In the Philippines, theaters shut down completely for a whole year before finally reopening at 50% capacity in October 2021.
Now that we are entering a more stable, post-COVID world, cinema is facing a revival. But true to the entertainment industry, there is some added drama in this story. There’s conflict, villains, and of course, heroes.
Don't call it a comeback
After being forced to shut down, movie theaters had no choice but to adapt to the changes brought by the pandemic. Production studios themselves became the enemy of cinema. The likes of Universal and Warner Bros announced that they would debut their films in theaters and streaming platforms simultaneously– effectively killing sales for the box office.
But after some historical lows in 2020 and in the better half of 2021, and some sabotage from within the industry, the cinema finally had its first real, profitable quarter. American cinema giant Cinemark recorded a quarterly profit of $5.7 million in the last three months of 2021, compared to the loss of $239.3 in the same time period the previous year.
Much of the profit recorded from that quarter comes from Spider-man: No Way Home, which is now the highest grossing pandemic film thus far at $1.89 billion, and it’s Marvel’s second highest grossing film of all time. Although profits are still nowhere near what they were prior to the pandemic, No Way Home’s explosive success signaled the dramatic, triumphant return of cinema, and made experts optimistic about the industry’s outlook in 2022.
Heroes to the rescue
Notably, even in the height of the pandemic, Marvel films performed relatively well, making up the Top 4 films of 2021 with No Way Home, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Venom: Let There be Carnage, and Black Widow.
Following the success of No Way Home, Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has now surpassed the $800 million mark at the global box office, making it the No. 2 Hollywood film of the pandemic. The newest installment of the James Bond saga, No Time To Die ($774.2 million) comes in third, and The Batman ($768.5 million) comes in a close fourth.
It seems that superheroes are the ones leading the charge in the return of cinema. Experts point out that it might be because of the demographic: younger audiences have more confidence in their immunity to go to the theaters, while the “mature” crowd is still fearful.
Regardless, I’m just glad cinemas are open again, and that more films will come out, now that the industry’s finally on the road to recovery. I actually kind of miss shush-ing people who refuse to shut up in the middle of movies.
