Did the Pandemic Save Cinema?

I was chatting with my cousin about some recent releases and he mentioned he was on Letterboxd… I never realized he was this much of a film buff, so when I asked him how he got into movies, he just said COVID. Stuck at home with nothing to do, he started watching movies to fill the hours.

That conversation sent me down a rabbit hole and I started realizing that the same pandemic that almost killed movie theaters is actually the reason why the movie industry is doing so well right now.

Let’s go back to the lockdowns… For nearly two years, the entire business of movie theaters shut down: Warner Bros. fully committed to streaming and fumbled Christopher Nolan away, Tom Cruise fought with Paramount to hold off on Top Gun: Maverick’s theatrical release. But as the studios fought to stay alive, social distancing gave birth to a new generation of film lovers.

If you want proof, look no further than Letterboxd. I’ve been on that site since 2018, and I saw more engagement during COVID. The actual data backs this up, the number of Letterboxd users spiked from ~2 million to ~26 million users from 2020 to 2026. This app used to be a niche thing for film nerds and now it’s something my co-workers know about.

The streamers are also responsible for this boom. Netflix’s focus on quantity over quality makes them the worst out of all the streamers, but I can’t deny that their catalog is the most accessible. Maybe your Netflix subscription led to a Criterion subscription, and suddenly you have access to cult classics and foreign movies… the history of cinema just a click away. This is similar to the effect VHS and local video stores had in the 80s when they sparked love for movies onto a whole generation.

If I compare today’s box-office to the one we had before COVID then we are clearly in a better shape. We’re hitting new highs and setting new records, and sure we still rely on sequels to popular franchises and superhero movies, but those types of films are no longer guaranteed hits. We got more original movies succeeding… look at last year with Sinners, One Battle After Another, and Marty Supreme, or this year with Backrooms, Obsession, Project Hail Mary, and The Odyssey, all bigger hits than anyone expected. Today’s audience wants to see a movie in a theater because the movie itself is the event.

We have to keep this momentum going, support original work and indie movies so that studios continue to take more risks, support theatrical releases, support physical media, support the communities that celebrate this art form through local screenings of classic movies and sites like Letterboxd and FilmStack.

My cousin got into movies because of boredom, curiosity, and tons of free time… we gotta hand the next generation that same spark without waiting for a pandemic.

Follow me on Letterboxd