How to Save Movie Theaters

The massacre of cinemas continues. In recent years over 2 theaters have closed their doors, of which around a hundred in Rome alone. The Covid-19 period has undoubtedly been disastrous for cinemas, but Italy is the only European country, among France, Germany, Great Britain, and Spain, where even after the pandemic ended, theaters continued to close, box office receipts plummeted, and admissions declined. A desert. In 2024, Italian cinemas recorded total revenue of €493,9 million, with 69,7 million tickets sold, a slight decrease from the previous year but a far cry from 2019, before the pandemic, when box office receipts totaled €635,4 million.

Italy currently has 579 single-screen cinemas, 291 cinemas with between two and four screens, 123 cinemas with between five and seven screens, and 128 multiplexes with up to 22 screens. A rare instance of this trend is the case in Rome, where Fabia Bettini and Gianluca Giannelli, with the cultural association Playtown Roma, decided to reopen the historic Fiamma cinema (closed for ten years), focusing on the multipurpose venue formula: not only film screenings, but also events, concerts, shows, and cultural activities. On the other hand, the Parioli neighborhood of Rome, with its population of approximately 15,000, the quintessential residential area where the capital's middle and upper middle classes, including intellectuals, live, no longer has a movies in operation. The last one, the Roxy multiplex, was closed after the second wave of the coronavirus and is not expected to reopen. Only a small outpost remains, the Caravaggio arthouse, which deserves a special award at all the various film festivals held in Italy.

The pandemic was just the latest blow to the cinema industry. In reality, theaters have been abandoned for decades, both by owners (or tenants), by production and distribution companies (who determine the market's direction), and by administrative and political authorities who could effectively protect the sector. A general and unconditional surrenderMany remaining cinemas are ugly, dirty, with an outdated business model and no chance of withstanding the most formidable competition: free-to-air and streaming TV. In our lifestyles, the ritual of watching a movie in a theater has become an archaeological relic, a thing of the past centuries, and film consumption occurs through television platforms and even smartphones. The market thus also supports a widespread increase in laziness and a decline in the desire to socialize, to go out, to be with others. Furthermore, streaming movies, aside from the convenience of watching without leaving home, offer other advantages: they're (almost) free, you can schedule your viewing, pause it, and then resume it. And you don't have to reserve a ticket or buy it online.

The competition from digital platforms is unbeatableThere's no point in hiding it. Also because it has now been absorbed by those who decide the life of a film and where it is shown: the producers and distributors. And they have chosen to do away with cinemas. They don't care if a film only runs for a few days, even if it has received important recognition in Italy and abroad: that is no longer their source of income. On the contrary. In addition to producers and distributors, in this chain of horrors and waste, speculators are also included, well protected by local authorities. Cinemas lend themselves to urban transformations, and easily become supermarkets, bingo halls, shopping malls. All it takes is a signature, and everything changes. What was once a bottomless pit of losses is transformed into a spigot of easy profits. With the result, however, that the neighborhood, or entire small towns, lose a point of aggregation and culture, and finds himself with yet another mass-market outlet.

The architect Renzo Piano, who lives between Italy and France, has done some calculations that explain well the economic reason behind the destruction of a cinema and its reconversione. Renting a venue for film screenings in large cities from Paris to Rome and Milan has an average monthly cost of 5 euros, which for 15 years means revenues of 900 euros. The same venue, converted into a supermarket, in a shopping mall or a bingo hall, translates into rental revenues totaling €10 million over a 15-year period. It's understandable that an owner would choose to replace a cinema with a supermarket. Less understandable, however, is the surrender of local administrators who too readily approve rezonings and erase cinemas from the urban map.

And it's precisely from France that we find examples of what can be saved to save cinemas in Italy too. Here, the government has put a substantial sum on the table, €130 million per year (with funds drawn from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan) earmarked specifically for saving cinemas. 70 percent of theaters received significant funding, which were provided through local authorities and under the strict control of the National Cinematography Center. Furthermore, international streaming giants (from Netflix to Amazon to Disney+) must put aside between 20 and 25 percent of their revenues in France to finance cinemas and audiovisual products. As you will understand, these solutions are not handouts, and perhaps they explain why, despite the pandemic, the number of cinemas in France has increased and now exceeds five thousand.

Central government support could be supplemented by local aid, with funds drawn from the Culture and Urban Planning budgets. Financial interventions should be complemented by greater rigor in granting building permits, which should translate into a ban on cinemas' rezoning for at least twenty years. Finally, greater effort must be made by theater operators and distributors. The former should modernize their venues, adopting multipurpose formats to increase revenue streams. The latter should show more courage and extend the life of films in theaters before they are transferred to television platforms. In conclusion: Italian theaters, like French ones, can be saved. All it takes is the will and the action.

How to save cinemas in Italy

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