Theater halls still suffer from pandemic
ISTANBUL - Demirören News Agency
Theater halls, which had been closed due to the pandemic and reopened later, are still bearing the brunt as the number of moviegoers is still low, as some of them had to be closed due to financial troubles.
Welcoming 70 million people annually before the pandemic, theater halls attracted 24.9 million in the first 30 weeks of this year, which was 1.6 million in 2021, according to the statistics of Box Office Türkiye.
Beyoğlu Cinema in Istanbul, operating for 33 years, announced that it closed its doors for 20 days due to financial reasons.
“Beyoğlu Cinema does not have the financial means to remain open. We had to close in order not to increase the financial loss with each passing day,” the administration of the hall said in a written statement.
It was also pointed out that the discussions about the options the cinema could be handed over have started.
“We put four new films on the program every week, but no one comes to watch them. We do fortune-telling, sell tea and coffee; otherwise, we would close too,” said a projectionist of another theater hall in Istanbul.
There used to be a queue of people who came to watch a movie in the morning, according to the projectionist. “I have never seen anything like this for years.”
Digital streaming services, which flourished in the pandemic, took the place of theater halls in this process.
Executives of Netflix, the giant streamer with the most subscribers, expect the annual content spending of about $17 billion in 2021 to continue until 2023, which is a notable hike from its 2020 spend of $11.8 billion.
