Over the past decade, the number of Hollywood studios has declined significantly, driven by acquisitions such as Disney’s consequential purchase of 20th Century Fox in 2019. Exhibitors point to studio mergers as one key reason for the decreasing number of new movies coming to their theatres.
However, the downward trend may be reversing based on Amazon’s increasing presence the market. Coming off their well-received presentation to exhibitors at the annual CinemaCon conference, Amazon has announced their commitment to deliver 14 new movies releases to theatres in 2026.
Exhibitors complain that the decline in new releases since the pandemic has caused lower attendance and ticket sales. According to Comscore, there were only 94 wide theatrical releases in 2024, a 17% drop compared with the four-year average from 2016-2019. Some of this decline can be attributed to studios choosing to open some of their new releases on streaming.
But another factor is the fact that there are fewer studios. As one example, 20th Century Fox released 14 new movies to theatres in 2017 whereas under Disney’s ownership, the studio reduced that number to only four new titles in 2024.
Amazon received a lot of attention in 2022 when it announced its intention to spend $1 billion annually to make movies for theatrical release, with an annual output of 12-15 new titles. This matched the reduction in new movies that had been coming from 20th Century Fox before their Disney acquisition.
While Amazon has only managed to release a handful of new movies since making this much-publicized commitment, the studio appears to have ramped up since then and is now on track to meet its annual commitment in 2026. At their CinemaCon presentation, Amazon showed teaser trailers for 2026 releases that include PROJECT HAIL MARY, AFTER THE HUNT, and VERIFY.
