Are movie theaters back in vogue? Crowds have returned to big screens in droves over the last few weeks behind Toy Story 5, Michael, and The Odyssey. The release of Spiderman: Brand New Day set new box office records this weekend. I went with my son & his friends last nigh for the 9pm show.

Related: Spiderman Leads Box Office Record Weekend

After a brutal 5 years of the pandemic, the North American box office is up +15% this year to $6.2B. Analysts say that is just behind the $7.0B in record 2019. Movie tickets have risen in cost over that period of time (+27% nationally), so the revenues don’t represent the same number of people in seats, but it’s good to see.

I love going to the movies, so I’m happy to see that the industry is bouncing back. We went to 15-20 movies/year in theaters before the lockdowns, but that fell to a low of 4 in 2023. Only half of Americans go to a movie theater at any time in a year, with the average person going 2x per year.

So far this year, we are at 7 movies. I think we’ll definitely be back to double-digits by the end of the year. (Last year we stalled out at 9).

I’m not sure how many movies we’ve watched at home on streaming this year. I’d guess it’s another 7. We tend to watch more TV series / specials at home than movies. Things that are split up into 30-60 minutes episodes are more likely to fit our schedule than full movies. We just finished the Little House on the Prairie reboot on Netflix.

Are you starting to go back to the movies, or still watching at home? Any good movie recommendations?

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