By Lynn Binnie
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com
In a Facebook post on September 6, Whitewater Cinemas, which is locally owned, announced that they are now open only Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Their website will not be announcing the following weekend’s movies until at least Tuesday, as they only learn their week’s bookings on Monday afternoon.
Facebook commenters made a number of suggestions in response to the post, including showing old movies and sporting events. The cinemas responded that they have considered many such possibilities, but there are many legal complications, for example, for showing Packers games on the big screen, and even old movies are not inexpensive to show.
The motion picture industry is beginning to recover from the pandemic, but, per the statistics shown on the table below, the domestic box office has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. Increased availability of streaming is among the factors that have taken a toll. Americans who went to the cinema more than five times in 2000 went fewer than three times in 2023. An even more stark statistic: “One out of every five moviegoers has vanished since the pandemic,” said The Hollywood Reporter. According to theweek.com, “Last year’s Hollywood strikes complicated the issue, as the strikes stalled or halted many anticipated film productions and left holes in the box office schedule.”
| Year | Domestic box office (billions) | Releases | #1 movie |
| 2024 (Through 9/1) | $5.848 | 452 | Inside Out 2 |
| 2023 | $8.908 | 590 | Barbie |
| 2022 | $7.370 | 499 | Top Gun: Maverick |
| 2021 | $4.483 | 441 | Spider-Man: No Way Home |
| 2020 | $2.113 | 465 | Bad Boys for Life |
| 2019 | $11.363 | 910 | Avengers: Endgame |
| 2018 | $11.892 | 993 | Black Panther |
| 2017 | $11.075 | 854 | Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi |
| 2016 | $11.375 | 855 | Finding Dory |
| 2015 | $11.149 | 845 | Jurassic World |
| 2014 | $10.369 | 849 | Guardians of the Galaxy |
The text of the Whitewater Cinemas Facebook post is as follows:
Hey Whitewater – we’re now open Friday-Sunday only!
We won’t lie, business has been tough since 2020. Costs are up, attendance is down, and we’re in an industry where we have to rely on a lot of outside factors like the studios, what they release, and their terms.
We love this community and want to continue serving you as long as we can, and this decision makes that feasible.
We’ll still have all of the latest releases at our famously low prices ($8 for adults, $7 at matinees – you can’t beat it!) Plus, free refills on our delicious popcorn and soda, and all of our concessions will continue to be available to go.
If you want to support us (or another locally owned theater near you), we suggest-
-Seeing a movie this weekend and buying concessions! We make very little off of ticket sales, but concessions balance that.
-Purchase concessions to go and bring our popcorn home for your next movie night or game.
-Engage with our social media posts and share them with your friends, family, and community groups.
Thank you all for your continued support. We are grateful to be one of the very few locally owned and operated movie theaters in Wisconsin. We’ll see you this weekend for a movie!
Check our our website for showtimes and to pre-purchase tickets:
http://www.whitewatercinemas.com
Editor’s note: The image on the homepage is from the Whitewater Cinemas Facebook page.
