Bring me back to the movie theater… Please?

It’s been a year since movie theaters have opened earnestly for big pictures, but as pandemic restrictions relax, streaming is still bigger than ever.

It’s weird that one of the activities I miss most about the time before the COVID-19 pandemic is sitting in a large, dark room surrounded by 100 strangers and a sticky floor. But I miss being at the movie theater!

Marvel wants us back in theaters

Despite the success of Disney+, the ROI on major superhero blockbusters is too great to pass up. Yesterday, Disney and Marvel decided to drop a trailer of sorts that featured callbacks to their previous Marvel Cinematic Universe installments, but also gave us a better look at future projects and release dates to view them in theaters.

Throw in the new Fast 9 trailer from the other day and I’m absolutely hyped about being in a movie theater this year after being vaccinated.

Amazon gasses up streaming to advertisers

Streaming has only gotten more prevalent as we’ve been inside and I’m worried that movie theaters may get squeezed out of the picture, however.

On May 3, Amazon’s first ever NewsFronts presentation to advertisers made some announcements on how well its streaming options are doing:

• Amazon Prime will see Thursday Night NFL games starting in 2022, instead of 2023 when a 10-year agreement was set to begin.
• Amazon’s free streaming option, IMDb TV, viewership increased 138 percent year-over-year.
• Overall, Amazon OTT and the Twitch platform reached 120 million viewers across the U.S.

Big tech streamers have entered the chat and they’re not likely to leave.

Add this to the historic ArcLight and Pacific Cinemas announcing that they won’t be reopening their doors in the Southern California-area again, and you wonder if we’ll be able to see Gemma Chan own the big screen in Chloe Zhao’s Eternals or soak in the color palette of The French Dispatch while the booming speakers vibrate the auditorium.

The magic of movie theaters

Not only did Marvel give us some new footage of upcoming films, but the trailer included reaction shots of patrons in theaters going nuts during Avengers: Endgame. It reminded us of not just the joy of seeing these epics on large screens, but of the community experience we took for granted before the pandemic.

Movies make us laugh, cry, shout, and feel. Movies can make us do these things anywhere, on any platform. But after the year+ that we’ve had, I want more than anything to do these things together.