If movie theaters don't survive, it will be due to the pandemic & those (especially in America) that failed to contain it, period. It wasn't streaming, it wasn't the studios, it wasn't the theaters "failing to adapt." It was a plague that led to a year w/ no new blickbusters.
It was an unplanned and unexpected event that led to no new products being released for a business that relies entirely on those products, partially due to governmental demands that their businesses be closed sans any financial assistance.
Yes they, like many businesses, had a thin margin, but theatrical moviegoing earned $42.5 billion in revenue last year. If the theaters don't survive, it won't be because TENET wasn't popular enough or MULAN went to Disney+.
It will be because unforeseen circumstances which were not successfully fixed (due to arguable willful US governmental negligence) prevented theaters from doing the singular thing, for over/under a year, that theaters do to make money. Everything else is trivia and a distraction.
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