Trouble at Theaters
April 2, 2025
The box office is in trouble.
The March 14-16 tally was the worst overall domestic weekend box office of the year and the slowest theatrical start for the month of March in 29 years. The 2025 theatrical market is off to a terrible start, with year-to-date North American ticket sales down 7% to $1.34 billion through March 25, according to Comscore.
It’s the shorter theatrical windows ailing theaters, according to theatrical executives and advocates.
Speaking Feb. 25 on a fiscal call, Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest movie exhibitor, said shortened windows, including 17-day and 30-day slots spearheaded by NBCUniversal after the pandemic, should be abolished, adding that
the minimum window should move back to 45 days and beyond (60-74 days) depending on the movie.
“I think that the current industry experiment on windows has failed,” Aron said, adding longer windows would benefit a title’s incremental revenue potential.
Speaking April 1 at the CinemaCon 2025 confab in Las Vegas, Michael O’Leary, CEO of Cinema United, the theatrical trade group formerly known as the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), said extending — not shortening — the exclusive window for new release movies in movie theaters is key to the survival of the box office and Hollywood.
Indeed, the box office launch has long offered a significant marketing push for movies in the subsequent release windows — with the take often touted as a measure of a title’s audience appeal.
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos has said consumers are voting with their feet and has called theaters “a fairly inefficient way to distribute some movies.” That may be true for some films, but if more revenue doesn’t come in, the box office may hit a breaking point.
The industry has long been held up with tentpole titles, but as those are whisked into home venues it may not be enough to sustain the theatrical business.
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