Americans are more likely to watch newly released movies from the comfort of their own homes instead of heading out to a theater, according to a new poll.
Meanwhile, about two-thirds of Americans said that they’ve watched a recently released movie in a theater in the past year, and only 16% said they went at least once a month.
Sherry Jenkins, 69, of New Jersey, turns to streaming for all of her moviegoing needs.
“It’s much more convenient,” Jenkins said. “I can watch anything I want, I just have to wait a month or two after the movies are released because they usually go to streaming pretty quickly.”
There is some overlap between theatergoers and people who opt for streaming — 55% of U.S. adults have seen a new movie in a theater and skipped the theater in favor of streaming at least once in the past year — but only watching new movies on streaming is more common than only going to the theater.
Some in the film industry believe that movies that start in theaters still have more cultural cachet, but Jenkins doesn’t see it that way.
“The studios now are so closely affiliated with the streaming services,” Jenkins said. “There’s really no logic behind why some skip the theaters.”
Maryneal Jones, 91, of North Carolina, said she likes to go to the movies but finds them too expensive.
“There’s some movies I would like to see, and I say to myself, I’ll just wait until they show them on TV or I’ll go visit a friend who has those apps,” Jones said. “But I just don’t want to pay 12 bucks.”
The average cost of a movie ticket in the U.S. is $13.17, according to data firm EntTelligence. In 2022, it was $11.76.
The AP-NORC poll also indicates that streaming may be a more accessible option for lower-income Americans. Higher-income adults are more likely than low-income adults to be at least occasional moviegoers for new releases, but the gap is smaller for watching movies on streaming instead of going to the theater.
New movies are more popular among young adults, regardless of how they see them. But streaming is more of a go-to for the younger generation.
Slightly less than half of adults under age 30 say they watched a recently released movie on streaming instead of going to the theater at least once a month in the past year, compared with about 2 in 10 who watched a movie in the theater with that frequency.
“A couple of my friends wanted to see it,” Lin said. “And there were the memes. I felt like the audience would be more interactive and it would be enhanced by being there with, like, a bunch of people.”
The North American box office is currently up more than 4% from last year, but the industry has struggled to reach pre-pandemic levels of business. Compared with 2019, the annual box office is down more than 22%.
___
Bahr reported from Pittsburgh.
___
The AP-NORC poll of 1,182 adults was conducted Aug. 21-25, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
