Will moviegoers go back to the movies?

The pandemic hit the American film industry hard. Consumer spending on movie tickets across the United States declined by nearly 80 percent between 2019 and 2020. This is likely to change as nationwide vaccination efforts continue and mobility restrictions are eased. By the end of March 2021, consumer spending on movie theaters in the U.S. started to increase. During a week in June 2021, for instance, expenditures grew by almost 120 thousand percent compared to the same period in 2020. Meanwhile, video streaming has become even more of a competitive platform. In mid-2020, less than one out of five Americans paid to watch premium video-on-demand (VOD) films that skipped the cinemas because of the coronavirus outbreak. A year later, about one-third reported doing so.

The outlook for American filmmaking

Despite the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, the United States has a solid entertainment industry. Along with the sound recording segment, the field of motion picture employed about 257 thousand workers in the U.S. The strength of American moviemaking is projected to not only gain stability but to expand. The U.S. is among the top ten countries with the highest forecast growth rate of filmed entertainment revenue between 2019 and 2024, with an increase of over 25 percent estimated for that period. If that projection proves to be correct, the revenue of American filmed entertainment will add up to almost 32.5 billion U.S. dollars. That would be more than the results of China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Canada altogether.

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