LOS ANGELES — An age-old debate has roared back to the forefront in Hollywood.
The so-called theatrical window has long been a hot topic for studios and movie theater owners. The discussion about how long a film is in movie theaters before it’s available for home viewing ramped up during the pandemic, when some studios dramatically shortened their windows before releasing movies for video on-demand and streaming.
Then top theater lobbyist Michael O’Leary threw down an unexpected gauntlet.
Speaking before thousands of theater operators and film business professionals in Las Vegas, he called on the industry to establish a new standard: make viewers wait longer — at least 45 days — to watch movies on the couch.
“A clear, consistent starting point is necessary to affirm our collective commitment to theatrical exclusivity and to provide clear expectations for movie fans,” said O’Leary, president and chief executive of the Cinema United trade group, in a speech earlier this month at the CinemaCon trade convention at Caesars Palace. “We cannot sacrifice long-term success for short-term gain.”
After that, the topic dominated the convention — and industry chatter. From private conversations to public proclamations, everyone, it seemed, had an opinion on theatrical windows.
Before COVID-19, the wait was often as long as 90 days. Theaters would loudly protest any attempts to shrink windows, until the pandemic and resulting theater closures forced the issue. Chains such as AMC and Cinemark reluctantly accepted the new realities through deals with the studios. Now the average is around 30 days.
Andrew Cripps, Walt Disney Studios’ head of theatrical distribution, told an audience that the company’s films were in theaters longer than those of any other studio, at an average of about 60 days.
Peter Levinsohn, chairman of global distribution at NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios, noted during a panel discussion that there is now more competition for “discretionary time” than there was a handful of years ago.
“To think that it’s just the windowing issue, I think we, as an industry, need to be innovative and flexible to meet the audience where they are,” he said.
Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, said a day before O’Leary’s speech that “cost and windows can work for us or against us,” adding that “Sony will work with you on both” to the applause of the assembled movie theater owners.
But whether the industry will collectively decide on a baseline window — much less coalesce around O’Leary’s stated 45 days — is an open question, and many insiders have serious doubts.
Exhibitors argue that shorter windows cut into box-office profits by decreasing the number of casual moviegoers who look up showtimes on a whim and encouraging audiences to wait to watch a film at home.
Distributors counter that a one-size-fits-all window doesn’t work, especially for smaller and mid-budget movies, and that once a film taps out its earning potential at the theater, moving it to home viewing helps profitability.
“It’s really tough to go backwards,” said one studio insider who was not authorized to comment. “I don’t want to say it won’t happen, but I think we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
For his part, O’Leary said he considered his 45-day window proposal a “reasonable and fair starting point” for further discussions. Any final decisions must be set by the studios, as windows are a market-based determination in the U.S., he said.
But O’Leary said he felt the time was right to broach the topic in a substantial way. The last half of 2024 felt like the first period of extended “normalcy” since the pandemic, the dual writers and actors strikes and industry upheaval rattled the movie business, he said. This year and 2026 will be strong, O’Leary said, which would give the industry breathing room to consider its future.
“There’s a recognition that we need to have a period of exclusivity,” O’Leary told The Times. “I do think you’ll see some windows get longer. The larger question is, can we get some kind of stability and uniformity so we’re creating consistent expectations for the moviegoing public?”
Movies generated $8.7 billion in box-office sales last year, down 3 percent from 2023 and far below prepandemic levels, prompting concerns that audiences’ habits have fundamentally changed. So far this year, revenue is down 5 percent from 2024.
There has been much debate over whether shorter theatrical windows cuts into box-office profits, and if so, how much.
