Paramount Pictures
- Movie theaters are staging a comeback, driven by new releases like "A Quiet Place Part ll."
- Disney's "Cruella" raked in $27 million over the four-day holiday weekend.
- The success signals that traditional cinemas aren't dead, even as the streaming market booms.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Movie theatre-going appears to be roaring back, even after some industry watchers speculated the pandemic would kill traditional cinema forever.
US screens pulled in $84 million in sales from new releases over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, Hollywood's best since the beginning of the pandemic, CNBC reported.
The record weekend came in conjunction with looser mask mandates at the nation's largest movie theatre chains. AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, and Regal cinemas in May no longer required vaccinated people to wear masks in accordance with CDC guidance, per their websites.
"A Quiet Place Part ll" led the weekend. The sequel is the biggest US box office hit since the beginning of the pandemic, raking in $57 million over the course of the four-day Memorial Day weekend, according to Box Office estimates. It's in theaters only until July 12, when it will be offered on Paramount's streaming platform.
Warner Bros.' "Godzilla vs. Kong" previously was the best opening yet for a movie at the domestic box office during the pandemic, bringing in $48 million over a five-day period.
Another sizable chunk in sales was driven by Disney's "Cruella," which brought in $26.5 million between Friday and Monday. Disney opted to debut the movie simultaneously in theatres and on its Disney+ streaming platform for an extra $30.
The streaming move was adopted by many in the industry during the pandemic, amid lockdowns and a rise in demand for at-home entertainment. The streaming market has seen booming business since March 2020, and the industry is still heating up.
Warner Bros. led the charge in late 2020 when it said it would release its films in theatres and on its HBO Max streaming service at the same time. The decision angered many in the film-making world, including Director Christopher Nolan, who worried that the move would lead to the death of traditional cinema.
"Some of our industry's biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service," Nolan said in early December.
But in early April, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar said the company's biggest films would be released in theatres in 2022 first before heading to HBO Max. Films slated to be released in 2021, like DC's "The Suicide Squad" sequel, will still be shown on HBO Max.