The cinematic future is bright

Cinema audiences are dwindling and “The End” is in sight for communal film-watching, right? Wrong. The future for picture houses is looking much more bright, argues Robert Hutton

FOR HUGH GRANT, IT WAS ANOTHER example of how the internet is destroying all we hold dear. “Fulham Road cinema closing after 94 years,” he wrote on Twitter. “Strangely unbearable. Let’s all sit at home and watch «content» on «streaming». While scrolling.” The closure of a beloved picture house, one whose façade and foyer evoked the golden era of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, is indeed a sad moment. But what if Grant is wrong? Because although this decade has been a horrible one for the movie industry, and although some cinemas are closing, the surprising reality is that there were more cinemas open in 2023 than five years earlier. Indeed, you can make a case that, given how badly the industry was ravaged by pandemic and strikes, what’s amazing is…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August/September 2024

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