For two decades, movie theaters have consistently wrestled with how to get people into seats. Today, that challenge has become an existential threat.

While consumer spending on video streaming subscriptions surged from 2010 through 2024, North American box-office revenue in real terms fell during the same time frame. Ticket prices in real terms are close to flat since 2010, but the cost of a visit has risen as the increase in concessions revenue per patron has outpaced inflation. As a result, consumers now see cinema as expensive.

The pandemic put these trends into overdrive. In 2020 and 2021, release schedules collapsed, consumer habits changed, and digital platforms gained ground. Although a 2025 Bain media consumption survey of more than 5,000 US consumers found that about half of them wish they attended more in-person events, this hasn’t translated into a recovery for theatrical exhibition, with domestic cinema attendance still just 64% of prepandemic levels, according to data as of November from The Numbers.

At the same time, major studios’ annual number of wide releases during the past couple of years remain down a fifth from prepandemic levels, with those studios using output from smaller affiliated studios to fill the gap.

Nevertheless, audiences haven’t abandoned theaters. They simply need a more compelling reason to go. Theater executives recognize that the industry must adapt to the evolving media landscape. Leading companies are focusing on three keys: premiumization, personalization, and partnerships.

Capturing attention in the Flooded Era

Media is entering a new era in which anyone can compete, but not everyone can compete profitably. In what Bain calls the “Flooded Era,” media is everywhere. It’s enmeshed with our lives, and new technologies enable a deluge of “good enough” content. Franchises and intellectual property (IP) remain important, but creative content and revenues will increasingly come from new places.

Today, media isn’t just consumed; it’s lived, shared, shopped, and multitasked. As digital content creation and distribution become increasingly cheap and democratized, the industry faces intense pressure from outside competition for consumers’ time. In addition, tighter theatrical release windows, down from 90 days before Covid-19 to 30 days today (or even less), make it easier than ever for consumers to hold out and watch new movies at home.

Cinema remains a differentiated “third space” whose greatest strength is its ability to deliver immersion, spectacle, and shared experiences. But this is at odds with people’s evolving consumption of media, which is increasingly short-form, interactive, and digital.

Studios and theaters are coming up with creative ways to address these challenges.

Deliver a premium experience. Industry leaders recognize that, more than ever, cinema must reframe itself as a premium experience, not mere content. Seeing a movie in theaters is an event, a destination, an experience that is far more affordable than a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert. Theaters can deliver on this promise via premium auditoriums, service, and personalization that can’t be replicated at home.

Historically, premium features (such as recliner seating, expanded food offerings, and enhanced viewing formats) have led to significant upticks in per-theater profitability. For example, theaters that upgraded to recliner seating saw average attendance increase by between 40% and 80% in the 2010s.

The theatrical experience can also be improved and customized through personalized offers, rewards that surprise and delight customers, and streamlined ticketing journeys (e.g., the online purchasing portal defaults to the seats the customer is most likely to select). Investments in consumer data, customer group segmentation, and technology can help deliver all of this in a cost-effective way.

Invest in community. Cinemas can harness community to draw people in. One path is to provide social spaces and host community events, taking a cue from independent cinemas, which sometimes offer film clubs, themed watch events, and director Q&As.

Adding facilities, such as atriums, bars, restaurants, and dedicated members’ lounges, could offer spaces that foster community and give filmgoers reasons to go more frequently.

Facilitate social sharing. Theatrical releases are social and cultural moments. They live on Instagram and TikTok as well as in memes, video essays, podcasts, reaction videos, and cosplay. Our 2025 media consumption survey found that 64% of US location-based entertainment attendees share their experiences on social media. This is earned media that cinemas and studios can lean into and actively support.

Instagrammable lobby designs and film-themed backdrops (think the human-sized toy boxes from Barbie), exclusive augmented-reality photo filters, and in-theater contests can all drive social sharing. This generates urgency to buy tickets and watch a film early to stay current.

Studios can offer tools to support creator content and partner with social platforms and influencers to monitor and fuel viral content (think the “chicken jockey” in Minecraft and sing-along showings of Wicked). This approach can spur ticket sales. A 2023 survey by Meta and GWI of nearly 7,000 short-form video users worldwide found that 53% are more likely to purchase a movie ticket if promoted by a creator on Instagram Reels.

Deploy marketing tech to reach new audiences. Online audiences are fragmented across platforms, making it challenging to engage them at scale. To cut through this noise, studios, theaters, and social media platforms are forming data partnerships that leverage ticket sales data to deliver targeted marketing messages to high-value customers. Sophisticated algorithms are used to identify and segment high-potential audiences, encourage them to consider movie ticket purchases, and then track sales conversion rates.

According to data that Meta shared with Bain, algorithm-enabled campaigns on the company’s social platforms run by eight entertainment advertisers in the US in 2024 boosted showtime lookups and ticket sales.

Getting this right creates an opportunity not only to target new consumers but also to leverage organic earned media. Studios can adapt and redirect campaigns to amplify user-generated content and double down on viral marketing successes.

Remaining fresh with new content and new formats

Owning popular IP remains key. In 2024, the top-grossing US films were overwhelmingly franchise extensions of original IP. But great IP and large marketing budgets alone don’t guarantee movie success, and they’re insufficient in a world where 89% of theater seats go unfilled, according to the Los Angeles Times. Audiences crave novelty. Note the perennial breakout successes of innovative original movies, live streams, and concert films. The Flooded Era will offer new content as the output gap closes between the major studios and indies, which will be able to produce higher-quality films with much smaller budgets.

In response, we expect more theaters will forge new kinds of partnerships to deliver creative content and innovative formats for customers. Cinemas can offer a premium platform to new content partners, which can curate their distribution and advertisement for theaters’ local areas via owned channels. These partnerships aren’t restricted to traditional theatrical content: Concert movies and live sports have shown that there are other ways to draw audiences to movie theaters.

Theaters can also deliver enhanced and novel experiences through premium and tech-forward formats such as IMAX. New immersive theatrical experiences are emerging, from the wide field of view of the Sphere to multiscreen setups in Cosm’s The Hall. Audiences want this. Bain’s media consumption survey found that 33% of US location-based entertainment attendees are interested in new immersive live experiences.

Innovating to surprise and delight theatergoers

Executives of major theater companies are well aware that they must get creative to grow attendance and revenues, especially given that cinema is already perceived as expensive and the opportunity for broad-based price increases is limited. We see a few places to start.

First, theaters can boost attendance with revamped loyalty schemes and more sophisticated pricing, e.g., targeted discounting. However, they must be careful to avoid the mistakes of earlier carte blanche movie pass programs and instead leverage customer behavior data to encourage profitable repeat visits.

Second, they can cater to movie superfans, who are willing to pay more to get more. Superfans value premium and exclusive offerings and experiences (e.g., midnight releases, merch and collectibles, early bird tickets), themed concessions, and special events (e.g., anniversary re-releases). Such offerings create opportunities outside the regular purchase cycle and reinforce community building.

Third, theaters can participate more deeply in the economic ecosystem surrounding them. This can range from integrating studio-owned merchandise outlets alongside concessions to forming referral partnerships with local businesses to encourage visits.

Last, by expanding their knowledge of audiences, theaters can better tailor advertising to them. Targeted ads on social media will be an increasingly important channel. Theaters could also adapt preshow ads to each audience and command a premium from advertisers.

The way forward

More than a century after the first movie theater opened in the US, the industry faces difficult challenges. Cinema executives recognize that they have no choice but to reimagine the movie theater experience.

The winning companies will invest in premium, personalized offerings that can’t be replicated at home. They’ll nurture data partnerships and embrace social sharing, all with the goal of creating and expanding communities. If they get it right, cinema can thrive for the next century, even if moviegoing looks a lot different.

The authors wish to thank Tom Burton for his contributions to this analysis.