The Numbers Business Report: short theatrical windows cost domestic theaters about $100 million a year
April 9, 2025
CinemaCon buzzed with excitement over new release dates, sneak peeks, and announcements, but one topic dominated discussions more than any other: theatrical windows. We’ve been tracking this aspect of the theatrical business monthly in The Numbers Business Report, but in the latest issue, we took an deeper dive, applying our data analytics to offer an objective look of what's truly happening in the market.
Our cover story is about the economics of release windows, and specifically their impact on box office and home video earnings. The answer is a little more nuanced than you might think, but (spoiler alert!), we show that early releases reduce theatrical receipts overall.
Way back in October 2023, in the first edition of the Business Report, we ran an analysis to see how premium video (PVOD) releases were harming the theatrical performance of films. AMC’s CEO Adam Aron brought up this topic up on a recent earnings call, and that prompted us to take another look. Since it was also the hot topic at CinemaCon, we’re glad we did! Our new analysis shows that PVOD releases still impact box office, to the tune of around $80 million to $130 million a year in the domestic market, with shorter windows generally causing bigger harm, with the exception of films with 18-day windows, which actually seem to benefit slightly from an early PVOD release (we discuss why that might be in the report)…
With new data from the last four years, and the new VOD tracking we recently introduced in OpusData, we can also get a first idea of how much the studios are making from their shorter windows. The results aren’t conclusive, but our numbers suggest that the studios aren’t necessarily making much more money from a policy of short windows once lost theatrical earnings are taken into account. Read the report for our full, in-depth analysis and details of our methodology.
Additionally, as part of this edition, we put together a more comprehensive analysis of release windows for 2024 for both digital and streaming.
Also in this edition...
We have our final pre-release prediction for all of April’s wide releases, including Drop and Sinners (among many others), along with our full 2025 prediction.
Our domestic and international release schedules cover all films being released domestically over the next month, and all major international releases in 15 territories, organized by date and by movie.
For the home market, we have a monthly update on the theatrical window for new releases, including trend analysis. We’ve also added information on what films are available or coming soon to streaming services.
On the talent front, we include Bankability values for the top 250 creative talents in the business, expanding our unique perspective on the people in front of, and behind the camera.
Contact The Numbers Business Report team
