Movie Buffs Desire Vintage Films: Global Resurgence of Theatrical Re-Releases

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the streaming wars, movie theaters have had a hard time bringing back audiences ever since 2020.

The seemingly endless supply of poorly-received big-budget blockbusters isn’t helping any — the 2023 box office suffered numerous financial failures.

One growing trend utilized by an increasing number of theaters, however, seems to finally be getting butts back in seats: Re-releasing classic movies.

Last week (from April 12 to April 18), the eighth highest-grossing film in the U.S. was “Shrek 2,” an animated feature that first debuted 20 years ago.

The film’s re-release, which Universal Pictures greenlit in honor of the film’s 20th anniversary, raked in more at the box office than several Disney films brought in in recent years.

Perhaps even more impressively, on Monday, another 2004 film, Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2” starring Tobey Maguire, was the highest-grossing movie at the U.S. box office.

A week prior on April 15, the re-release of the first Raimi-directed “Spider-Man” movie from 2002 managed to snag the third place box office spot.

According to IGN, Sony Pictures is re-releasing each of the eight “Spider-Man” films in theaters over the course of eight weeks in an event that’s being dubbed “Spider-Mondays.”

This re-release trend isn’t only happening in the U.S.

In the U.K., the re-release of the 1989 dark comedy “Heathers” brought in £110,000 (roughly $137,000 in the U.S.) at the U.K. box office just four years ago, per Screen Daily.

Since then, U.K. theaters have been pushing a growing number of re-releases.

Doug Davis, the CEO of film distributor Park Circus the current theatrical state of affairs is “a definite boom time” for re-releasing popular classics.

“As a company and a classics market, we think it’s an all-time high,” Davis told Screen Daily.

David explained: “That’s partly because during Covid, exhibitors – while they were still able to operate – had a dearth of product.”

He added: “They experimented with classic products and, in almost all cases, it worked and they wanted to stick with it.”

According to Davis, the re-release strategy doesn’t just work for bringing in older audiences.

Newer “modern” audiences seem to be returning to the theater for classic films as well.

This trend seems to be popping up across all entertainment mediums.

Streaming audiences are watching older shows more than newer ones and gamers are playing older games more than newer releases.

Perhaps most telling, in both cases — on a year-by-year basis — audiences seem to be consuming an increasingly greater share of older content.