CinemaCon is supposed to celebrate the magic of the big screen and the power of the cinematic experience. Instead, this year’s Las Vegas gathering was a tense, testy affair that threatened to resurface old tensions between studios and exhibitors. All the frustrations of the past five years, during which a pandemic and two labor strikes left the movie theater business a pale shadow of itself, nearly boiled over.
2025 has been positioned as the movie theater industry’s grand return to the glory days as cinema operators and Hollywood promising that a wave of superhero adventures, star-driven vehicles and fantasy adventures would reinvigorate ticket sales. Instead, revenues are down 10% from 2024, as the likes of “Snow White” and “Mickey 17” flopped at the box office. Whose fault is it?
Studios believe that exhibitors haven’t done enough to innovate. They think too many venues are outdated, and cinema operators haven’t embraced discount pricing to entice cost-conscious consumers. Theater owners argue that their business has been hurt by studios’ insistence on releasing new films on home entertainment within a few weeks of their theatrical debuts. Oh, and they’d like a lot more movies!
These disagreements kept things interesting, if sometimes uncomfortable, in the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Here are five takeaways from a CinemaCon that laid bare the existential crisis the movie business faces.
All About the Windows
For weeks, AMC Theatres’ CEO Adam Aron been pitching to Hollywood that movies need to stay exclusively in theaters for 60 days. The deals that cinemas signed with studios during the height of COVID, allowing them to release new product on demand within 17 days of their debut were a pandemic-era concession, he argues, and he’s ready to renegotiate those terms.
Aron had company at CinemaCon, where exhibition executives argued the new distribution models cannibalize their business. Michael O’Leary, head of Cinema United, brought the receipts. He used his welcome remarks to make the case that blockbusters are still doing well, but the farther you travel from the top-grossing films, the wider the delta between pre- and post-pandemic grosses. He wants the window to sit at 45 days. (Before the pandemic it was closer to 90.) That could be a tall order for some studios, which feel that keeping movies in theaters for months prevents them from fully capitalizing on marketing campaigns.
At least one traditional player was sympathetic. Disney got some of the conference’s biggest applause when its distribution chief used his presentation to remind the audience that his company leaves its movies in cinemas longer than any of its competitors.
“Trust me, that is not by accident,” said Disney chief distribution officer Andrew Cripps. “We believe in the theatrical experience.”
The Return of “Us vs. Them”
Last year’s edition of CinemaCon was held only three months after the crippling 2023 Hollywood labor strikes. Sympathy was high and stars seemed relieved to promote their projects again. The studios took longer than expected to grease Hollywood’s massive content pipeline (some would argue it’s still not up to speed). This year, there was no such compassion from exhibitors. Much of that stemmed from debates about the theatrical window and the lack of new product.
For their part, theater owners are frustrated that studios have trained audiences to view anything that’s not comic book related as a streaming only proposition. One studio executive bemoaned the exhibitors’ indifference, especially as the majors spend a ton of money flying talent to Vegas and cutting thrilling trailers for films (many of them unfinished). “It’s “us vs. them” again,” the exec lamented.
Amazon MGM trotted out major stars like Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Chris Pratt, Ben Affleck, Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield for the studio’s first-ever CinemaCon presentation
Getty Images for CinemaCon
Will Amazon MGM fill the 20th Century Fox void?
Theater owners, for years, have complained that they don’t have enough product to screen. Ticket sales weren’t down because people weren’t inspired to go to the movies, they insisted. Rather, studios were debuting fewer of them. (That much is true. Pre-pandemic, approximately 120 wide releases were scheduled annually but that number has dropped to high double digits.) The gap could be attributed, in part, to the loss of one major studio after Disney swallowed 20th Century Fox whole in 2019.
Well, Amazon MGM seems to be the last, best hope to fill the void. In the studio’s first-ever CinemaCon presentation, Amazon MGM chief Mike Hopkins boldly promised to get “15 big cinematic films annually into theaters by 2027 […] with 14 titles already lined up for 2026.” That’s a huge development for exhibitors, who desperately crave sci-fi, fantasy, action-adventures, romance thrillers and family-friendly fare to populate their screens in between the tentpoles. Now, they just need audiences to show up.
Curb Your Exhibitors
For many of the rank-and-file workers who constitute the exhibition business — theater managers, candy vendors, projectionists, leather-seat salespeople — CinemaCon is the time to glimpse at movie gods on stage (and gamble until dawn). Conference-goers, this time around, appeared tougher to impress. It started with a muted response to Leonardo DiCaprio (“One Battle After Another”), one of the last true box office draws. The lackluster reaction in the room continued with Scarlett Johansson, who earned more slack-jawed stares than thunderous applause. Are theater owners no longer dazzled by star power? The only real moments of excitement were for Tom Cruise, who won over the audience by holding a moment of silence for his late “Top Gun” co-star Val Kilmer, and everyone’s favorite “Wicked” duo, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. Other than that, theater folks seemed a lot less shaken and stirred by the charm offensive on display.
Survive Until… ‘26?
“Survive till 25” was the rallying cry of studios and theater owners, until they realized that the box office recovery remained around the corner. “Survive till 26” may not have the same ring, but it’s the new goalpost in their quest for box office normalcy. After all, 2026 is when sequels to some of the biggest film franchises in history – from “Avengers” and “Spider Man” to “Minions” and “Toy Story” – return to theaters. Throw in new movies from Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg, and you have the making of a spectacular rebound. On paper, at least.
