2/3 of U.S. Adults Would Rather Wait for Movies on Streaming

A new poll by HarrisX, exclusive to IndieWire, found that 34 percent of U.S. adults prefer to watch movies in theaters, which means a solid two-thirds would rather wait for them to be released on streaming.

This checks out. I bet the numbers were vastly different pre-COVID. It all changed post-2020. Another report suggested that movie theater audiences shrank by 50% since 2018.

These last three years, the pandemic forced studios to stream much of their new content. An incalculable number of moviegoers realized just how much more comfortable, and less headache-inducing, it was to watch a movie at home than to go to the local cineplex.

You can now just stay in, save money, and not endure any of the annoyances that come with watching a movie in public — who wants someone texting and talking right next to them during a movie?

Films, like “Oppenheimer,” “Dune,” and “Avatar,” will continue to thrive because they are cultural events, which is another reason why the IMAX business has been booming these last few years. I don’t see those type of films losing steam anytime soon.

It also doesn’t help that more and more studios are making their theatrical films available digitally faster than before, a total disregard for theatrical runs in the post-pandemic era. Why dish out $15-20 a ticket for a movie when you know it’ll be made available soon for you to stream at home?

For some, it’s not even about the money. The experience of watching a movie isn’t always rosy, with audiences chatting, texting and just being inconsiderate of others during the show. It’s one thing for a movie ticket to be the priciest it’s ever been, but it doesn’t help that, after dishing out cash for your tickets, popcorn and parking, and watching 20 minutes of trailers, you then run the risk of encountering loud and obnoxious people on their cell phones during the projection.

A recent Wall Street Journal article pondered the lack of etiquette these days in movie theaters. The industry is already struggling to sell movie tickets, and the last thing it needs is for people to be turned off by the experience, but that’s what’s happening.

Many attendees are forgetting the cardinal rule: Never take out a phone during the film. Instead, people are picking out selfies to post, scrolling during dull moments, even taking pictures of the screen—with the flash on. The cinephiles sitting next to them have to decide whether to keep quiet or make an even bigger scene.

The WSJ piece calls the behavior the “concert-ification of movies.” I like that. Nowadays, entering a movie theatre is a bit like playing Russian roulette: you don’t really know what to expect and who will be sitting next to you.

There is no doubt in my mind that audiences are getting worse. The ease of streaming and smartphones has zapped people's attention spans. There seems to be a need and desire for people to “reset" themselves halfway through a movie by scrolling on their phones. Brains have become too dependent on devices.

I'd love for theaters to have a zero tolerance policy, like the Alamo Drafthouse, but regular theaters? They just don’t enforce those kinds of rules, and I don’t see a change coming anytime soon.

I’m part of that one third who still goes to theaters. I tend to only stream old movies at home. The sheer joy and experience of watching movies in a theatre is on a whole other level, but I’m also lucky in that a majority of the screenings I attend are for press, and critics tend to respect the art form.