Distribution : 29-Year Low For Memorial Day Box Office by Sam Sokolow

I think it's because people are dealing with a lot of things and they're not thinking about going to the theaters right now, Covid, the economy, people's finances, rising ticket prices/theater food and drink prices, and streaming (a lot of people are waiting to see movies on streaming), Sam Sokolow. And people might’ve had different plans for Memorial Day Weekend.

How many disappointing movies can someone go to before they just give up?

I think Maurice is right, but I also think that Memorial weekend historically has always been a BIG Blockbuster release weekend as the first event weekend of the summer and I'm not sure that Garfield or even Furiosa was exciting enough to entice people. Furiosa is at least connected to a popular franchise, but I don't think it was marketed widely enough ahead of its release.

I was actually discussing this exact thing the other day with some of our Stage 32 Thought Leaders and the lovely Anna Henry rightly pointed out that Memorial Weekend is a very community-driven holiday. It's a time when people come together for pool parties, BBQs, and quality time. After so many years of people being kept apart from their loved ones, it would take a REALLY exciting release to entice people to spend the afternoon in a dark theater together instead of being out in the world connecting with one another. When she said that it really hit home for me.

It’s commonplace to see companies pursue risk-averse strategies when they come under financial and cultural pressure, including increased competition both within and outside the industry. So, that’s one reason why repeating stories that have been successful in the past (but now may be as interesting as yesterday’s newspaper) has been and is so frequent, budgeting is stricter, reliance on established/already salaried employee is high, etc. The problem with that, as I see it, is that this is an industry where innovative ideas/stories and techniques are very important to long-term corporate survivability. In other words, avoiding too many risks is likely to erode market share, and the bottom line.

Well, in Canada, it's NHL playoffs, and absolutely nobody in Edmonton will be going to the theater for the next couple weeks.