For more than a century, B&B Theatres has brought movies — from “Casablanca” and “Psycho” to “The Dark Knight” and “Barbie” — to audiences across the South and the Midwest. The family-owned and-operated cinema chain isn’t just a business — it’s a way of life for the Bagbys, who have provided escapism for their customers through wars, recessions and terrorist attacks.
Yet the coronavirus reoriented the Bagbys’ company in ways those other catastrophes did not. Now, on any given weekend, patrons at B&B Theatres aren’t just catching the newest release — they’re stopping by the multiplex to bowl, play pickleball and arcade games or grab a cocktail at the bar. These changes to the American institution of moviegoing are startling, but they’ve helped keep the lights on post-pandemic, when studios began producing fewer and fewer films and people fell out of the habit of going to theaters.
“The pandemic made us realize that we need to diversify,” says Bob Bagby, the company’s CEO. “We can’t just depend on studios to provide us with what we need to drive our business.”
So far, B&B Theatres, which serves audiences in states such as in Missouri, Mississippi, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas and Florida, has opened four of these venues and plans to add another four this year. The goal is getting patrons to “linger longer,” Bagby says, so they’re spending money whether or not they take in a movie.
“It’s harder to run; it’s more like you’re overseeing a cruise ship than a movie theater,” says Brock Bagby, Bob’s son and the company’s president. “It’s also a bigger risk; they’re much more expensive to build. But we need to create a better mousetrap to get people to come.”
So far, B&B Theatres is attracting crowds. But many of its competitors aren’t so lucky. Five years after COVID, the movie theater industry is smaller in terms of attendance and box office returns. It’s also less relevant and more imperiled, forced to compete with an endless array of streaming services. There’s a sense that a few bad breaks could extinguish an art form that’s been built over generations.
“The recovery has been much slower than people hoped,” says Eric Handler, an exhibition industry analyst with Roth Capital Partners. “It’s been a struggle. You’ve had companies go out of business, and most of the major chains closed locations.”
With fewer people stopping by the box office, Regal Cinemas, Pacific Theatres, Alamo Drafthouse and others filed for Chapter 11. Some of these companies have reemerged after bankruptcy; others have dimmed their marquees forever. As a result, North America has 5,691 fewer screens compared with pre-COVID times, according to research by media consultancy Omdia.
Box office grosses haven’t rebounded either. Ticket sales in 2024 fell to $8.7 billion, a 23.5% drop from pre-pandemic levels. It’s a far cry from the nearly $11 billion the industry was generating before the global health crisis. Theater owners maintain their business is about to regain its footing, but this year is off to a lousy start, with franchise fare like “Captain America: Brave New World” falling short and ambitious bets like “Mickey 17” failing to pay off.
But there are signs the situation is about to improve. Over the summer and into the holiday season, new installments of popular properties such as “Jurassic World,” “Avatar,” “Superman” and “Mission: Impossible,” will land in multiplexes. In all, studios are unveiling roughly 110 movies this year, at least 15 more than they did in 2024. That alone is reason to celebrate for cinemas, which have been desperate for more movies to put on their screens.
“Recovery isn’t at hand, but it’s just around the corner. You can reach out and almost touch it,” predicts Adam Aron, CEO of AMC, the world’s largest cinema chain. “And as good as the back half of this year looks, 2026 seems even stronger.”
But movie theaters need more than a few splashy sequels and a consistent influx of studio releases to shift their fortunes. Studios and exhibitors estimate that between 15% and 20% of moviegoers stopped going to cinemas after the lockdown ended, and it’s not clear what, if anything, will entice them to return.
“We need to find a way to get people back into the habit of going to theaters,” John Fithian, co-founder of consulting firm The Fithian Group. “You can’t stay stuck in a 100-year-old way of doing business — that’s not going to work anymore.”
Many theater owners are trying to do things differently. They’re selling a wider array of snacks, sprucing up musty auditoriums and enhancing loyalty programs to reward loyal customers. Some exhibitors are even experimenting with variable pricing, charging more for blockbusters than for less popular genres like dramas and comedies. A few films, such as 2023’s octogenarian comedy “80 for Brady,” have offered discount tickets to appeal to cost-conscious patrons. However, several theaters have been hesitant to more broadly embrace these initiatives, citing their already thin profit margins.
“The No. 1 barrier to entry for movies is price,” says a veteran studio executive. “There should be no limit to what you charge for an ‘Avengers’ or ‘Jurassic World’ or ‘Star Wars,’ but exhibitors need to give audiences an incentive to see other kinds of movies.”
Studio sources say they are ramping up production but note that they can’t produce tentpoles 52 weeks a year. If theaters want to boost attendance, they need to find a better way to get people to
see movies that don’t feature dinosaur attacks or Tom Cruise stunts.
Cinema operators, for their part, would rather have a range of different-sized films to show each week rather than hold out for the occasional blockbuster.
“[Tentpoles] are important, but quantity is more important,” says Chris Johnson, CEO of Classic Cinemas, which has 16 locations across Illinois and Wisconsin. “I’ll take six movies that are doing reasonable business over a giant movie that creates a vacuum.”
Exhibitors have other grievances. During the pandemic, they agreed to let studios dramatically shrink the theatrical window. Before, films couldn’t debut on home entertainment until 90 days after opening on the big screen. Now, that period has been shortened to as little as 17 days. Cinema operators would like
to expand it again. Aron, whose chain was among the first to negotiate shorter windows, now wants to relitigate their length so that movies won’t become available to rent or buy until at least 60 days after their theatrical release.
“This is going to be front and center of all our conversations with studios,” Aron says. “It shouldn’t have taken our business five years to come back. Shorter windows are the reason. You have to conclude that all this experimentation has failed. Hollywood is leaving money on the table.”
Privately, Hollywood executives are irritated that theater owners are harping on an issue they believe has been resolved. Still, they understand how necessary theaters are to their bottom line. Traditional studios spent much of the pandemic launching streaming services to elbow in on Netflix’s business, believing that was the best way to remain relevant and monetize their content.
However, these companies came to realize the films made exclusively for streaming failed to break into the zeitgeist like theatrical movies sometimes do. After all, there’s no Netflix equivalent of “Top Gun: Maverick.” So some studios are devoting more resources to making movies for cinemas or, in the
case of Disney, retrofitting something like “Moana 2” — which was originally setting sail on Disney+ — as a theatrical release.
Michael O’Leary, the head of Cinema United, the exhibition industry lobbying group, believes that studios’ and theaters’ interests are more aligned today than they were in 2020, when they first came to an uneasy truce on windowing.
“People have come to understand the importance of keeping movies in theaters longer,” he says. “If you cut that period down and put things on demand, it creates customer confusion, it harms studios and it harms exhibition. You end up cannibalizing ticket sales.”
One thing that both studios and theater owners are thrilled about is the surge in popularity of premium screens like Imax, Dolby and 4DX. (“Twisters” was a huge hit in the latter format, an exercise in sensory overload that adds moving seats, strobe lighting and rain machines to the cinematic experience.) These screenings sell out fast, with patrons sometimes crossing state lines to seek out the biggest and brightest presentations. That demand has been further fueled by Imax fanatics like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve, who rhapsodize about the power of watching “Oppenheimer” and “Dune: Part Two” in those auditoriums.
“You’re already seeing more studios advertising ‘See it in Imax,’” notes the company’s CEO, Richard Gelfond. Imax has spawned plenty of copycats, with Regal and Cinemark among those creating in-house knockoffs such as RPX and XD. Gelfond believes those offshoots are diluting the experience, since Imax takes painstaking steps to enhance a film’s resolution rather than just blowing up the image. “The world does need more premium screens, but they need to be real premium, not just your normal screens with ‘X’ in their name,” he says.
Tickets for Imax and other premium formats are more expensive than those for standard screens, which has increased revenues, offsetting the downward trend in attendance. “Premium formats have become more important since COVID. Their share of the box office has really increased,” says Cinépolis CEO Alejandro Ramírez Magaña.
Of course, building more 4DX and Imax screens or improving outdated theaters takes money. Given that what’s being written about cinemas these days focuses on the box office downturn or the bankruptcies of major chains, lenders are skittish about providing financing for theaters looking to make improvements. At Cinema United, O’Leary has spent a lot of time talking to Wall Street analysts and financial institutions, hoping to change the conversation.
“The cost of running theaters keeps going up and the access to capital has become more difficult, so it’s a challenge,” he admits. “The commitment to keep building our theaters is definitely there on the ground, but we need to keep putting out a positive message. We’re in a place where we are finally able to focus on the future. That means not just looking ahead two or three years, but really asking ourselves, ‘What does going to a theater look like for the next 20 to 30?’”
It’s been hard to have those kinds of far-reaching discussions, exhibitors say. The past few years have been spent hustling to stay alive. But for families like the Bagbys, who were born into the movie theater business, running a cinema feels almost like a genetic imperative.
Both father and son started working at B&B Theatres as teenagers, mopping floors and selling tickets, before rising through the ranks to run the company. Even with the grueling hours and the eternal struggle to fill seats, it’s a job they love.
“What makes this different than owning a Target or hardware store is that every week the movies change and we’re selling something new,” says Bob Bagby. “The merchandise is always different, and that makes this a magical place to work.”