On the heels of last summer's "Barbenheimer" takeover, movie theatres are seeing a slow start to the summer blockbuster season. Both Ryan Gosling's "The Fall Guy" and "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga", expected to be crowd pleasers, underperformed at the box office in May. But Pixar's animated sequel "Inside Out 2" debuted in theatres last weekend with the biggest opening since "Barbie" last July, earning an estimated US$155 million in North American ticket sales.
Download the CTV News App for breaking news alerts and video on all the top stories Film critic Richard Crouse said this proves a couple points. "It proves that if you give people movies that they want to see, they'll go to the movie theatres," he said. "And it proves that people are still wanting to be entertained in kind of an old-fashioned way.
" Summer success is vital for the health of movie theatres, which had been facing a 26 per cent deficit before the release of "Inside Out 2." The summer season typically runs from May through Labour Day, and accounts for about 40 per cent of annual box office sales. People are not rushing back to theatres post-pandemic and as a result ticket sales are taking a hit, Crouse said.
That doesn’t mean theatres will start dying off, but he said the industry may have to adapt. Despite the drop in ticket sales, there are movie lovers who still prefer the big screen over streaming videos at home. "There are some nuances that you can't really capture when you're watching a streaming service.