Five years ago I played poker at Bellagio with a producer of the movie Inception. His said the theater business is in trouble, that folks just wanted to stream Netflix/HBO, and that eventually movies would just be streamed right away after release.

$EPR $AMC $CNK $NFLX

Since then, attendance held on surprisingly well in North America. In Thailand the movies are popular, especially with low ticket prices of $3-4.

Will movies actually stream concurrently on theater release in the medium to long run? $DIS gets to test this model to some degree with Mulan's release and might make them change course long term.

Key question: what happens to theaters if this happens? My gut says bad things, but maybe not?

1. Studios would take a smaller cut on each ticket. Attendance could go up with lower prices.

2. Much of a theater's profit come from concessions, an extremely high margin business.