This summer, movie madness has mall owners reconsidering the value of theaters as anchor tenants. Tickets to “The Odyssey” in 70-millimeter IMAX sold out months in advance, ticket apps crashed, and scalpers worked the margins of a box office expected to exceed $10 billion in the United States, against $8.9 billion last year.
The question is whether this is a blockbuster summer or a structural turn. If Gen Z keeps its seven-visits-a-year habit, the mall’s oldest tenant may become its most modern one.
Mall traffic has climbed steadily for three years, spurred by dining, entertainment and experiential formats, with movies the newest engine. CBL Properties, which has theaters anchoring twenty of its campuses, reports properties with cinemas drawing 2.7 million average visits year-to-date versus 2.5 million for those without, and dwell time stretching to 64.3 minutes from 58.9.
The economics have shifted in the theater’s favor. Operators have reinvested in reclining seats, bigger screens and Dolby sound, and ticket prices have risen on opening nights, with discounts reserved for slower hours. Yet no developer is converting closed department stores into cinemas; those boxes are becoming housing, groceries and medical facilities.
“They’re all up high single-digit type percentages,” said Stephen Lebovitz, CBL’s chief executive officer. “We have some up over 20 percent in sales. It’s really due to the product and some of the hit movies that are out there.”
The resurgence is a post-pandemic signal: people want to leave the house, and they want a reason to gather. Gen Z and Millennial moviegoers are attending around seven times a year, and developers see every screening as traffic for the stores and restaurants around it.
