Are movies so back?
- Jennimai Nguyen
- Jun 22
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
A strong Memorial Day Weekend box office has analysts and marketers hoping for pre-pandemic levels of movie magic.
Picture this: It’s December 2019. Little Women has just come out, and Timothée Chalamet is still an artsy, French-leaning, burgeoning movie star. The domestic box office is shaping up to reach nearly $11.4 billion. Cinephiles everywhere let out a satisfied sigh.
It was a pretty good time to be in the movie business—and now, five years later, the movie industry is still trying to get back to those good old days.
After the pandemic brought record low attendance, Hollywood has had a difficult time convincing patrons to go to the movies the way they did just a few years ago. With waning interest in franchises that were once a sure bet, slowdowns in content due to the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, and more movies available to stream at home sooner, it’s been something of an uphill battle. But with 2025’s history-making Memorial Day weekend box office, which brought in an estimated haul of $325 million, it seems the movie industry could finally be on the rebound for real this time—though the price may have been trading in artsy Timothée for pro sports fan Timmy.
With more summer movies on the way, the multiplex seems poised to regain its dazzle through the summer, and Manu Singh, chief data and innovation officer at National CineMedia (NCM), believes marketers should be priming to take advantage, especially as the cinema could prove a cultural focal point amid an otherwise fractured entertainment landscape.
“Moviegoing is the No. 1 shared activity experience out there,” Singh told us. “This is now the new watercooler, because there is no other watercooler that exists.”
