Urgent vs Valuable: What Audience Need In Theaters Or Want At-Home
Everything in Hollywood ultimately boils down to what drives different outcomes. Some films generate massive box office revenue before lighting up the video-on-demand (VOD) market and racking up huge streaming viewership. Others are largely forgotten in theaters before slowly building an audience at home. Many fall somewhere in between. The point is that studios often treat theatrical ticket sales and overall monetization opportunity as one and the same. But is that really true?
Using Greenlight Analytics data, I analyzed the top 25 upcoming films (out of 45 titles) across two key metrics:
Theatrical Intent: Respondents who said they plan to see a given film in theaters. This reflects perceived urgency.
Willingness to Pay a Fee (WTP): Respondents who said they would either buy a theatrical ticket, make a VOD transaction, or subscribe to a streamer to watch. This reflects long-tail monetization potential.
The goal was to identify patterns around which genres remain theatrical-first and which genres audiences will pay for, but not necessarily in that opening window. The results highlight a meaningful divergence between “Must See” and “Will See.”
Theatrical Intent
Here are the top 25 upcoming films in Theatrical Intent, broken down by genre:
Sci-Fi/Fantasy (6 titles)
Horror (5)
Action/Adventure (5)
Family-friendly kids entertainment (4)
Biographical (2)
Comedy (2)
Drama/Thriller (1)
While Sci-Fi/Fantasy carries high variance at the box office, it’s clear the promise of spectacle still registers as highly theatrical. Horror and action remain event-driven, fueled by communal and immersive viewing experiences. Kids entertainment is remarkably consistent across windows—something any parent who has sat through multiple viewings of KPop Demon Hunters can attest to. Comedy and drama continue to lag, which has been par for the course in recent years.
Bottom line: Theatrical urgency is driven by scale and spectacle, shared experience, and an immediacy that sparks rapid cultural reaction.
Willingness to Pay
Here are the top 25 upcoming films in Willingness to Pay, broken down by genre:
Horror (6)
Kids Entertainment (5)
Action/Adventure (5)
Sci-Fi/Fantasy (4)
Drama/Thriller/Romance (2)
Biographical (1)
Overall, the split looks fairly similar. Horror remains in high demand, underscoring the genre’s staying power. Kids entertainment proves even more monetizable here, likely driven in part by its high rewatchability. Action remains stable. Drama/Thriller/Romance improves slightly in this window.
Bottom line: While a theatrical-first model often creates a larger waterfall of long-tail value, not every genre needs theatrical urgency. Some simply need broad access to monetize their target audience.
The Gap
Sci-Fi/Fantasy leads in theatrical urgency but slips in the WTP ranking. It’s an eventized genre that excels at driving upfront interest, where early reception often dictates downstream appeal. Horror performs well across both metrics, proving flexible—though the genre still contends with a clear ceiling on U.S. streaming viewership, limiting its library value outside of seasonal spikes (hello, Halloween).
Parents remain among the most consistent media spenders, making it no surprise that kids entertainment performs well across both rankings. Dramas, comedies, and biographical films increasingly require stronger theatrical hooks to break through (see: Michael), but can still connect meaningfully at home.
While studios should continue to prioritize theaters, that doesn’t mean the industry should manufacture urgency where none exists. The more profitable strategy is aligning release windows and promotional pressure with how audiences actually assign value by genre.
