There’s No Happy Ending for Movie Theaters, No Matter Who Wins Warner

It’s far from certain who will end up owning Warner Bros. It’s more certain that, whoever does, the outlook for theatrical movies is dimming. 

The battle to acquire the fabled Hollywood studio has cast another cloud over an industry still recovering from the dual shocks of the pandemic and the writers and actors union strikes three years later. This year’s domestic box office of $8.3 billion as of Dec. 25 is a bit below last year’s and well below prepandemic levels of around $11 billion.