For generations, movie theaters were the only place to see brand new movies, which held a certain magic for audiences. The theater gave people a place to laugh, to cry, and to become invested in a story as a community.
The national “premiere” of the COVID-19 virus in 2020 completely shut down every movie theater for an extended period, and movie producers were forced to release new films onto subscription streaming services. Casual viewers began to think that the theater experience was irrelevant when they could see new releases from their couch at home.
But the truth is each and every one of us needs the magic that movie theaters hold. A theater is defined by much more than just a screen playing a movie; it is the rushing sensation we get when the light begins to dim, when the theater transports us to somewhere we’ve never been before.
During the national lockdown as a result of COVID, the nation lost the part of itself that loved going to the movies. For a long, dark time we seemed completely content waiting until a film hit the streaming services, but by the time a widely anticipated movie made the transition from well-received trailers to finally being dropped on streaming, the general population had already forgotten it.
So many great movies suffered this fate, most notably Pixar’s “Luca” and “Soul”, two wonderfully original movies that were not nearly as successful as they could have been if they had been initially released in theaters instead of churned out into the already enormous catalog of Disney Plus. In this “dark age” of the movies, theaters needed a miracle to be reborn.
But this year’s blockbusters were struck by a miracle: “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” “Obsession” and “The Odyssey” and others were released on silver screens across the nation to huge turnouts. The public has been flocking back to the movies, more so than they have for several years.
Audiences seemed to have missed being together with their friends, eating popcorn and being immersed in sound effects so powerful that you can feel them, or simply existing in a place where somehow, heartbreak can feel good.
Being back in theaters has allowed movie-goers to remember why they love to be there and has caused them to return more frequently than in previous years.
Nowhere can make a movie feel as big as a movie theater. At home you can laugh at a movie with your friends, or pick it apart piece by piece to the point where you are not even really watching the movie. But at a theater, stories feel perfect and powerful, because at a theater, they are.
The fact that people are returning to the movie theaters in massive numbers is no shock at all, because to put it simply, theaters make movies better.
