Ever since the widespread adoption of home TV sets, the cinema screen’s position as the dominant format for watching films has come under regular assault, from cable to VHS to DVD. Now it is streaming services, downloads and VoD that are presenting a significant challenge to what the film industry calls “theatrical exhibition”.
In the most recent quarter of 2015, spending on digital formats has increased by 15% to $2.12bn (£1.4bn) on 2014 levels. This threat has been readily apparent for several years, however, and cinemas in all areas of the market – from boutique to multiplex – have been taking steps to fight back.
Cinema’s big asset over home entertainment is size and scale, and it has been a conventional reaction to go bigger, louder, and more explosive.
Hence the re-emergence of 3D – last seen in a big way when TV first began to challenge the big screen – and the preponderance of superheroes, fantasy and large-scale sci-fi. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World and Avengers: Age of Ultron are just the most recent examples of the breed.
The mainstream multiplexes have also tweaked their experience to putatively make them more attractive, from online and automated booking, to premium seating and all-encompassing food concessions.
However, these are not new ideas. What has proved arguably the most dynamic growth area for cinemas is not movie-related at all: it is the success of so-called “live cinema”, where recorded or streamed performances of other art forms – opera, theatre, ballet, even art exhibitions – have achieved extraordinary results.
The live transmission of Kenneth Branagh’s production of The Winter’s Tale, from the Garrick theatre in London’s West End, was the UK’s most popular film on 26 November, outscoring even The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.
Similarly, the box office total for the National Theatre Live film of the stage production of Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch recently overtook that of the well-reviewed movie adaptation of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender, with current cumulative totals of £2.85m and £2.82m respectively.
Another area of audience growth is in films aimed at older audiences: The Lady in the Van, the Alan Bennett adaptation starring Maggie Smith, has enjoyed a significant amount of “senior discount” ticket sales, as well as seeing a spike in midweek and daytime attendances, a hitherto sluggish area for cinemas, which in recent decades has concentrated on younger and working audiences, who tend to dominate on weekends and evenings.
The “specialist” end of the spectrum – the term the industry uses to lump in everything from foreign-language comedies to art films – is also attempting to push back against digital, using its hardcore audiences’ natural predilection for the authentic cinema experience.
“Boutique” cinemas, such as the Dominion in Edinburgh and the Electric in Birmingham, have become a national phenomenon with plush seating and at-seat service. The UK is also in the middle of a rash of arthouse cinema building, with Picturehouses having recently opened in central and north London and a Curzon planned for Oxford.
Whether this will have the desired effect is yet to be seen, but it shows old-style cinemagoing isn’t dead yet.
