Shrink the silver screen / Vote by conscience

Today: Osita Nwanevu, a contributing editor at The New Republic and columnist at The Guardian; and Hafizah Augustus Geter, poet, writer, editor, literary agent, and author of The Black Period: On Personhood, Race and Origin.

Issue No. 44

Nonstop Hollywood Movie Show
Osita Nwanevu

The Price of No
Hafizah Augustus Geter

Nonstop Hollywood Movie Show

by Osita Nwanevu

The American film industry has substantially recovered from the slump of the last few years, but given trends that were only exacerbated by the pandemic, it seems unlikely that moviegoing will ever be the same again. In the fall, the National Endowment for the Arts reported that only 43 percent of Americans had reported going to the movies in the past year, a 16 percent decline from 2017. And there are fewer theaters now—between 2019 and 2023 alone, the number of screens in America fell by about 3,000. 

For a variety of predictable reasons, including the cost of tickets and concessions and “the comfort of viewing at home,” two-thirds of Americans now say they prefer streaming movies instead. Generally speaking, I am one of them.