Six years onward, it’s easy to take for granted just what a devastating blow to the theatrical experience the 2020 lockdowns were. Everything almost immediately dried up an industry that had just come off a record-shattering year in 2019, and the widespread and necessary adoption of streaming as a theatrical alternative (especially in the case of Warner Bros’ and HBO Max’s hybrid release model, which affected films like The Suicide Squad and Dune: Part One) was a shift theaters still haven’t quite recovered from. But with 2026 so far appearing like a return to form, due to movies as small as Obsession and as massive as Spider-Man: Brand New Day, one would think it’s officially safe to say “theaters are back.”
And while it’s a massive gamble to say whether that’s true or not, what can be said with certainty is that the theatrical experience is forever changed. Although the introduction of subscriptions like AMC Stubs and Regal Unlimited has undoubtedly made trips to the theater more convenient and less expensive for those with them, ticket prices continue to balloon, which has made theatergoing a more exclusive experience and has also led to the kind of premium ticket scrambling and scalping that plagued Christopher Nolan’s billion-dollar box-office smash The Odyssey. Now the exact same chaos has unfolded with regard to the pre-sales for the upcoming Dune: Part Three, and the intensity of the problem pokes at persistent questions about the future of the theater experience that feel overlooked by all the celebration about 2026.
