Will The People Who Say They Love Cinema the Most Come Back to the Movies?

The summer movie season is now all but over, the tea leaves are in, and everyone in the industry is working hard to read them. Sizing up the future of movies, should we be hopeful? Fearful? Somewhere in between? To recap the signs: There were many big hits this summer (“Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Twisters,” “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “A Quiet Place: Day One”), and that’s reason to celebrate. News flash: People still like to go to the movies! But .

..the total box-office receipts lagged behind those of 2023, so there’s reason to be wary.

But ...

the impact of the strike still registered this summer in a profound way, since there wasn’t enough product to satisfy demand. That’s good news. It means that the demand is there, and that the situation can be rectified in 2025.

And yet, if you stand back and look at the great big pie chart of moviegoing, there is still a major piece missing. Back in the ’90s, when the blockbuster age was in full swing, with the independent film revolution happening right alongside it, I knew who I was rooting for on a weekly basis. I’ll confess that I sometimes thought of popcorn-movie audiences as the “bad guys,” and the audiences for adventurous indie and foreign films as the “good guys.

” The bad guys kept the engine of escapism whirring. But the good guys helped to sustain cinema as an art form. That may sound snobby or unfair, but it’s.