For the first time in several years CinemaCon (April 13-16) attendees will descend upon Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in a relatively positive mood – despite the prevalence of debt loads and ongoing consolidation, specifically the impending Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) merger.
Buoyed by early box office successes, encouraging news on the Guilds’ contract negotiations, the emergence of Gen Z as a cinema-going class, and a bumper summer season on the near horizon there are certainly reasons to be cheerful.
By the weekend of April 3-5 North American ticket sales led 2025 at the same stage by approximately 25%, thanks to strong results from the likes of Amazon MGM Studios’ Project Hail Mary, Universal/Nintendo/Illumination’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Warner Bros’ Wuthering Heights, Pixar’s Hoppers, Paramount’s Scream 7, Indian record-break Dhurandhar: The Revenge, and A24’s indie hit The Drama.
The Writers Guild Of America has struck a tentative four-year deal with the studios and industry professionals will be hoping that upcoming negotiations involving SAG-AFTRA and Directors Guild Of America will yield agreements and avoid a repetition of the nightmare strikes of 2023.
In the week prior to CinemaCon, event organiser and exhibition lobby group Cinema United announced a council to champion cinema-going led by Jerry Bruckhaimer and Emma Thomas.
Yet it is not all plain sailing. North American box office trails pre-Covid years by approximately 20%, the dine-in iPic Theaters chain has filed for voluntary redundancy, AMC has been closing “underperforming” sites, and there are deep concerns over the Paramount-WBD transaction.
Cinema United president and CEO Michael O’Leary spoke to Screen about some of these issues. O’Leary continues to advocate for a minimum 45-day exclusive theatrical window, and recently welcomed Universal’s announcement that it will commit to a minimum of five weekends of theatrical exclusivity in 2026, rising to seven weekends in 2027.
So far so good this year at the box office. How do you feel?
We feel pretty positive about it. It’s going to continue to get better. We’ve known for a few years that there’s going to be a slow build back up, and you’re starting to see that pay off a little bit right now. We’re bullish on the future.
Can you elaborate on the slow build back?
We’re starting to see a greater diversity of films being made, a lot of original product. Project Hail Mary is an example. You’re seeing more PG movies, more family offerings – this fulfils our hope that there’s something for everyone at the theatre. The studios are stepping up in that regard.
From the exhibition side, I feel very good about the amount of reinvestment going on in our industry, whether it’s infrastructure, food and beverage, seats, or technology like bigger screens, better projectors, better sound. There’s certainly an ongoing evolution of creating special experiences for people when they go to the theatre.
Put all of those things together and you’re starting to see some real excitement. That’s being borne out by some of the numbers we’re seeing in terms of young people returning to the theatre, particularly Gen Z, which is the fastest-growing demographic in terms of getting people into the habitual movie-going category, which is six movies a year.
Amazon MGM Studios looks to be making good on their promise at CinemaCon two years ago and have built a theatrical slate of around 13 titles this year, with Project Hail Mary earning more than $430m worldwide after two weekends
They’ve shown a commitment to theatrical, which is illustrated by that film. Project Hail Mary is a tremendous movie. It had very high expectations, and it’s managed to exceed those.
What are your thoughts on the impending Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery merger, and the pledge to release a combined 30 films a year?
We have significant concerns about this transaction. Our view is that if you look at the recent past, consolidation leads to fewer films being in theatres. It leads to prices going up. It leads to fewer options for consumers, and it also concentrates, even further, control over how the industry works in the hands of distribution.
They’ve made comments about a certain number of films that they can put out each year. There is skepticism at best about that, and that’s not just coming from exhibition; it’s coming from people all across the industry. Statements like that aren’t things that we can count on in terms of how we structure the future of our industry. It’s not uncommon for people to say “We’re going to do X, Y and Z”, but there has to be a time when that doesn’t happen and frankly we’re in the show-me-don’t-tell-me phase right now.
Gen Z are turning out to cinemas. What are your members saying this audience likes to see?
They’re willing to see compelling films. People want to get away from all the other screens that dominate our lives and have two, two-and-a-half hours where they’re immersed in a special experience and a special story. You see people of all ages in all movies. When I went to see Project Hail Mary there were a lot of younger folks there. This age group is not solely focusing on this film though, and one of the wonderful things that’s going on right now is people have more exposure to all the different films out there and they’re trying different things. That’s to the benefit of the industry – people don’t make movies specifically for a certain age group or demographic.
In September 2024 the top eight chains said they would invest more than $2.4bn into upgrading their sites. There was an update last year. How is that plan going?
It’s actually playing out very well. We issued an update in September of 2025 which noted that $1.5bn in reinvestment was spent in the preceding 12 months just in North America. And when you see some of the innovation and reinvestment that is going on in Europe, that number is obviously going to get larger. There will be another update after CinemaCon.
What are some of the concerns you have about the industry?
One thing which is a reality of our industry is while we hear about the increased cost of making movies, at the same time the cost of running a movie theatre is also going up. You’re seeing that because margins are getting squeezed and at the same time, theatre circuits are working every day to maximise the revenue they have to provide the best experiences for people.
So there’s a certain amount of debt in the system right now. The people that carry that debt are working on it and if 2026 is the kind of year that many experts believe it will be, that will ease some of that pressure. We’re a consumer-facing industry that’s in a marketplace which is really, really tough, and so you’re going to have these kind of tensions in the system.
What do you understand we can expect from Apple by way of regularly supplying exhibitors with theatrical films?
It’s taking them some time to ramp up. They had a very successful movie last year with F1 and we would like to see more of that.
And what about Netflix? Can we expect more of a meaningful theatrical commitment from them?
One of the by-products of [their initial pursuit of] Warner Brothers was that they started to look more closely at the theatrical experience. My position has always been that if people are interested in putting movies in a theatre and supporting them with a meaningful window and meaningful marketing, our door is always open. So I don’t rule anything out and we’ll see where conversations with Netflix might lead us.
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