Why movie theaters aren’t dead yet

The “theatrical window“ has shrunk. But it’s still there. Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don’t miss any videos: Covid-19 looked like it could have been the end of movie theaters. Theaters couldn’t show movies. Some of the biggest American theater chains were on the brink of bankruptcy. And US movie studios started trying something new: releasing big movies digitally and in theaters at the same time. The “theatrical window,“ when a movie plays only in theaters, typically has a minimum length set by deals between movie studios and movie theaters. You might remember a time when the theatrical window was long, and you had to wait close to a year before a movie would come out on video or DVD. But over the years, as options for home viewing have proliferated, that window has shrunk. By 2019, many movies were becoming available at home less than 3 months after their original release. Behind that shrinking window were decades-long negotiations between theaters and studios over h