• by Wayne Friedman , August 31, 2021

Total movie consumer 2021 spending will rise to $60.4 billion -- up from $46 billion in 2020 -- with streaming subscription video rising and theatrical business recovering, according to Omdia, the global marketing research company.

This year’s totals will still be down 8% ($5 billion) from 2019’s $65.4 billion level.

Theatrical movie consumer spending is projected to hit $19.9 billion in 2021, down from $35.9 billion in 2019. That number is up from around a $12 billion to $14 billion level in 2020.

At the same time, Omdia estimates suggest global streaming movie revenue to be roughly $35 billion in 2021, up from $25 billion in 2019.

Omdia estimates global theatrical movie consumer spending share will decline to one-third of overall spending, down from 55% in pre-pandemic periods.

Smaller components of movie consumer spending include physical video sales, digital video video-on-demand rentals, and digital retail sales.

Omdia sees the impact of releasing streaming movies on the same day and date as theatrical releases, taking as much as 20% of a movie’s box-office revenue. This would be much higher than the impact of releasing a movie via streaming 45 days after a theatrical exclusive window.

The company says this would only amount to a 5% impact.

In 2022, Omdia forecasts total movie spend will rise to a record $80 billion globally.

In the U.S., IMdb’s Box Office Mojo estimates total box-office cinema revenues in 2020 amounted to $2.1 billion -- down 81% from 2019’s total of $11.3 billion.