Several months ago, headlines said that movie theaters were getting back to normal. COVID-19 restrictions started lifting and people began returning to the theaters. Just a few months on and the Delta variant is raging. Movie theaters are once again struggling to recover.
During the lockdown in 2020, movie studios opted to show their films on their streaming platforms. Once vaccinations began, it looked as if a comeback was possible. Hollywood launched a PR campaign proclaiming “the big screen is back.”
And for a while it was. During Memorial Weekend, box office sales hit $100 million. Those were the best weekend sales since the pandemic began. Yet that was less than half of the sales from the same weekend in 2019.
Sharonne Hill brought her son, Jadon, and niece, Ashley, to see “Paw Patrol: The Movie ” recently. It was their first theater outing since the pandemic began. She thinks theaters may be forced to shut down again. So, she ventured out as a treat. “We’re all just tired of sitting in the house. Streaming movies at home was great at first, but with the way COVID-19 is coming back, I don’t know how long theaters will be open. I thought we’d better get here while we still can.”
