Ted Sarandos, the CEO of Netflix, proclaimed that his company is saving Hollywood.

“You mentioned the box office being down,” Sarandos said. “What does that say? What is a consumer trying to tell us? That they’d like to watch movies at home, thank you.”

If that’s true, it’s another instance of the internet substituting real-life goods with those that can be sent to a private screen. I think that’s only the smallest factor.

The decline in movie-going is multi-factorial. The biggest issue was the pandemic and the launch of streaming services. These two things together induced the industry to obliterate the theater-exclusive window themselves. The studios began releasing directly to streaming to juice early subscriptions. It wasn’t consumers who demanded this — the executives did.

Secondly, the industry concluded that it just wasn’t worth the manpower and effort to hit singles and doubles anymore. Every theatrical release should be a guaranteed nine-figure-earning behemoth, based on previous IP, often from Marvel Comics or DC. Theater-goers tired of this. Oppenheimer proved there is an audience for big, ambitious films. But the mid-tier films, the ones that used to win Oscars in the 1990s and early 2000s, could still thrive — if they were being made. Sometimes, these movies come back into theaters who don’t have enough fresh content to run, and they make $40 million in a weekend without a single dollar spent on advertising.

I think the message from the consumer is: Make more original films with charming actors.