On 22 July, Alice Thorpe from Ampere Analysis presented a webinar titled “Rethinking theatrical release slates: Strategies for success in a changing market”, focused on the challenges that the theatrical film industry has been facing in recent years and the sector’s new possibilities and needs. 

The presentation opened with the description of a new product, Ampere Movies, which tracks the production of new films from major international studios, distributors, and platforms from first announcement through to streaming debut on a title-by-title level and is available as a standalone subscription, and as a bolt-on to an existing subscription to Ampere’s Commissioning service. It tracks 150 new films monthly from over 750 key commercial backers.

Thorpe then described how, according to data drawn from nationally representative consumer surveys run across 30 markets globally, audiences have returned to the cinema in the post-pandemic era, but they’re visiting it less frequently than they used to. After the COVID period, major studios frontloaded slates with franchise titles to tempt back audiences, which might have inadvertently contributed to a feeling of oversaturation, leading to a drop in demand. For instance, half of superhero franchise movies released between 2021 and 2024 had a cost of over $200m, but only 38% of those passed $500m at global box offices. “That sort of margin isn’t what studios were looking for in terms of their superhero movies and indeed it wasn’t something that they were used to. Superheroes had always been very reliable box office plays before this little fatigue started creeping in with audiences,” Thorpe said. 

As of last year, 58% of major studio releases in 2024 had production budgets of over $100m, or under $20m, continuing a trend of betting on tentpoles and potential breakout titles over investing in mid-budget releases, which confirms the trend of safe playing for all films released by major US studios in national and international markets. “If your big franchise titles aren’t bringing the expected high profits, you can’t compensate for any losses on the more mid-tier slate, and conversely, if those superhero movies are becoming less predictable in terms of their box office returns, you have highlighted the fact that mid-tier hits also have a role to play in compensating for the instability in big budget titles”, the expert explained. 

According to their findings, the majority of cinema-goers are younger audiences (18-34), who skew towards more niche genres of scripted content. Older generations tend to favour more classic genres, like Comedy, Action and Adventure or Drama, whereas younger cinema-goers prefer Anime, Fantasy, Horror and Romance. 

In this constantly changing market, Thorpe has observed that family films are the new superheroes. Once targeted at streaming, with lower numbers of theatrical releases, kids and family films have been recently used by studios as a way to bring people back to the cinema, as data from 2025 already proves, with 79% of US family movies having a theatrical release, versus only 21% going direct to SVoD platforms. The choice is paying off, as Kids’ titles are now a crucial pillar of audiovisual products grossing over $100m in the US market and in the global market. Five titles were able to gross over $500m worldwide last year, while only three Sci-Fi and Fantasy managed to reach the same result. Most of these high-grossing blockbusters are franchises (96.8% in the 2021-2024 period). This genre also offers strong opportunities for success to European titles, which face a bigger difficulty from US ones, but still have a potential to get picked up in international marketplaces (with the examples of Paddington in Peru, Mummies or Flow [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Gints Zilbalodis
interview : Tapis rouge @ European Fil…
fiche film]). 

Another strong genre is horror, a favourite among younger audiences, where lower budget titles are rising. This element is causing a saturation of the market in the US, making it harder for specific movies to break out. Horror movie production in major international markets is on the rise, up 42% in 2024. The top non-US producing territories for horrors in 2024 were the UK (20%) and Japan (20%), followed by France (10%). The North American release market has little space left for new horror releases, considering that the genre accounted for 22% of scripted theatrical movies released wide H1 2023 – H1 2025, while there is still room in all the other markets, including Western Europe, where it accounted only for 5%. Thorpe commented on this data: “There is a clear opportunity of getting local horror movies into local theatres, which international distributors and sales can seize on, if distributors can capitalize on Gen Z’s openness to subtitled films and algorithms’ propensity to cater to fan niches”. 

Finally, the research focused on the impact that social media has on the younger generation’s choices when deciding on films to watch. The buzz generated on social media among Gen Z cinema-goers compared to other age groups is considerably higher, but at the same time this generation has a plethora of other media spaces competing for their attention outside cinemas, like short videos or videos by influencers published on social media, as well as streaming services or games on consoles, PCs or smartphones. A24 was taken as an example of the correct usage of this tendency, since the American production company has been targeting under 35 since their start. Their eclectic upcoming slate is in fact united by their intention to exploit younger audiences’ daily media habits, whether swiping on social media, streaming music, or gaming.