If someone had told me in 1988 — when I was pulling cable and wiring automation systems for theaters at Minneapolis Theatre Supply — that one day a “movie theater” would include bowling lanes, ax-throwing cages, and seats that spray water in your face, I would have assumed they had been sampling something stronger than the concession stand coffee. And yet, here we are. The question “What is a cinema?” used to have a simple answer: a dark room, a big screen, and a projector. Today, that answer requires a flowchart, a glossary of acronyms, and possibly a poncho.
I have spent more than 40 years in this business — from field service and computer programming at MTS, to helping develop the industry’s first premium large-screen format at Marcus Theatres, to running global cinema sales for JBL at HARMAN, and now consulting through Collins Theatre Systems. In that time, I have watched the cinema evolve from a single-screen palace to a suburban megaplex, and now into something that defies easy categorization. The modern cinema is no longer just a place to watch a movie. It is a theme park, a restaurant, a sports bar, a concert hall, and occasionally — if you are sitting in a 4DX seat during an action sequence — a very expensive car wash.
This is not a complaint. It is an observation, and a necessary one. Because if we are going to survive in an era where 780 million annual tickets must do the work that 1.2 billion once did, we had better understand what we are actually selling.
Walk into a modern multiplex today and the format menu reads like a wine list at a restaurant where you are afraid to ask the prices. IMAX. Dolby Cinema. 4DX. D-BOX. ScreenX. MX4D. ICE Theaters. HDR by Barco. Samsung Onyx. Infinity Vision. Each one promises to deliver the “ultimate” cinematic experience, which is a lot of ultimates for one industry. At some point, the word loses its meaning — like calling every new Marvel film “the most ambitious crossover event in history.”
But let’s give credit where it is due. Premium formats are the single brightest spot in the exhibition business right now. PLF screens represent less than five percent of the total screen count in the United States, yet they generate fifteen to twenty percent of total box office revenue. The average PLF ticket runs about $17.69 — a 33 percent premium over standard admission. IMAX posted a record $1.28 billion in global box office in 2025, a 40 percent increase over the prior year. Its stock rose 44 percent in the same period, even as AMC’s shares fell 60 percent. The market is telling us something very clearly: the format matters more than the exhibitor.
So what exactly are all these formats, and do audiences actually know the difference? Let’s walk through the landscape.
IMAX remains the undisputed heavyweight champion of premium cinema, with more than 1,800 systems operating in 89 countries and 426 screens in North America alone. When Christopher Nolan shoots a film on IMAX 15/70mm cameras — as he did with The Odyssey — there is simply nothing else that compares. The image fills your peripheral vision. The sound rattles your sternum. You forget you are in a building. That is the magic.
Dolby Cinema, with more than 300 screens installed or committed globally, takes a different approach. Rather than sheer scale, Dolby focuses on image precision — Dolby Vision’s HDR delivers blacker blacks and more vivid colors, while Dolby Atmos places sound objects in three-dimensional space around you. The theater environment itself is designed by Dolby, from the light-absorbing walls to the optimized seating geometry. It is the audiophile’s cinema, and it consistently posts the highest per-screen box office of any PLF format.
Then there is the new kid on the block: HDR by Barco, deployed through Vue’s EPIC format in Europe. In less than a year, EPIC has expanded to 14 sites and 15 screens, racking up over 400,000 admissions. Barco’s Lightsteering technology delivers up to 300 nits of peak brightness — roughly six times the conventional cinema standard — and it has already secured a massive 2026 release slate graded specifically for its proprietary format. I have seen it in person. It is a genuine leap forward. But as I wrote in my Infinity Vision article, these proprietary silos are fragmenting the theatrical landscape at precisely the moment we should be rallying around the open DCI HDR standard.
And then there is Disney’s Infinity Vision, announced at CinemaCon in April 2026. On the surface, it is a certification program designed to help audiences identify premium auditoriums. In practice, it is a marketing play born of necessity — with Warner Bros. locking up the entire IMAX footprint for Dune: Part Three on December 18, Disney needed a premium brand for Avengers: Doomsday that same day. The spec requires a 50-foot-wide screen, 4K laser projection, and immersive audio. What it does not require is HDR. Which means Disney is effectively telling the world that standard dynamic range is “good enough” for the premium tier. I have opinions about this. I have shared them. I will spare you the full rant here, but the short version is: words have meaning, and “Infinity” should probably include the full dynamic range of human vision.
Beyond the global brands, every major circuit has its own proprietary PLF: Cinemark XD, Regal RPX, AMC Prime, B&B Grand Screen, Marcus UltraScreen DLX and SuperScreen, Cineplex UltraAVX. The consumer confusion is real. If you are a casual moviegoer trying to figure out whether “XD” is better than “RPX” or whether “Grand Screen” is the same thing as “IMAX,” you are not alone. You probably need a spreadsheet. Disney’s Infinity Vision, whatever its technical shortcomings, at least attempts to solve this branding chaos — and that part of the idea has merit.
If premium large format is the steak of the cinema experience menu, motion seating is the hot sauce. It is not for everyone, but the people who love it really love it.
D-BOX, the Montreal-based pioneer, now operates in over 1,000 cinema screens worldwide with more than 23,000 seats across four continents. The technology is elegant in its restraint: haptic actuators built into the seat deliver precisely programmed movements and vibrations synchronized to the film. No water. No fog. No mystery smells competing with your popcorn. Each film is hand-coded by haptic designers with over 65,000 individual movements, and the audience controls the intensity with a four-level dial on the armrest. It is the motion format for people who still want to watch a movie, not survive one. Nearly a third of Cinemark’s theaters now feature D-BOX seats, and the company recently crossed the 1,000-screen milestone globally.
4DX, from South Korea’s CJ 4DPLEX, takes the opposite philosophy: more is more. Nearly 800 screens worldwide deliver motion seats combined with wind, water mist, fog, scents, strobe lights, and what the company describes as “environmental effects.” The largest 4DX auditorium in the world, at Regal Times Square in New York, features 296 seats, a 60-foot screen, 30 rainstorm fans, four fog machines, and eight shaker amplifiers. The format adds roughly $8 per ticket and posted a $937,000 per-screen average in the United States in 2023. Cineworld CEO Eduardo Acuña has called 4DX auditoriums “the most productive screens we have in the company.”
Is it cinema? That depends entirely on your definition. I have watched people emerge from a 4DX screening of an action film looking like they just got off a log flume at Six Flags. They were grinning. They were also slightly damp. For a certain audience — particularly younger moviegoers and families — this is exactly the kind of experience that gets them off the couch and into a theater. And in an industry where getting people off the couch is the entire strategic challenge, I am not going to argue with results.
MX4D has carved out a niche with B&B Theatres across nine North American locations, while Lumma 4D E-Motion, based in Argentina, has expanded to more than 45 locations across 15 countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. The motion seating category is one of the fastest-growing segments in exhibition, and the economics are compelling: higher ticket prices, higher per-screen revenue, and a genuine point of differentiation that streaming cannot replicate. Your living room recliner, no matter how expensive, does not have rainstorm fans.
ScreenX, also from CJ 4DPLEX, takes a completely different approach to immersion. Instead of shaking your seat, it expands the image. Using multi-projection technology, ScreenX extends the picture beyond the main screen onto the left and right walls of the auditorium, creating a 270-degree panoramic viewing experience. First introduced in South Korea in 2012, the format has grown globally and now includes a “Shot for ScreenX” initiative where filmmakers create content specifically designed for the expanded canvas.
The effect, when done well, is genuinely striking — particularly for sweeping landscape sequences or aerial shots. When done poorly, it feels like someone accidentally left the side projectors on during a dialogue scene. The format works best when filmmakers embrace it as a creative tool rather than a gimmick, and the “Shot for ScreenX” program is a step in the right direction.
ICE Theaters — the Immersive Cinema Experience — takes yet another approach, using LED panels on the side walls to create dynamic colors and shapes that complement the on-screen action, paired with luxury seating, immersive audio, and Barco RGB laser projection. It is less about extending the image and more about creating an atmospheric environment that wraps around the audience.
And then there is the Sphere in Las Vegas, which is less a cinema format and more a declaration of war against the concept of a rectangular screen. With a wraparound display that is 240 feet tall, covers 160,000 square feet, and runs at 16K resolution, the Sphere represents the extreme end of what “immersive cinema” can mean. It is not scalable. It is not replicable. But it is a proof of concept that audiences will pay a significant premium for an experience that is genuinely impossible to get anywhere else.
If I had to place a single bet on the technology that will define cinema’s next chapter, it would be direct-view LED. Samsung’s Onyx — the world’s first DCI-certified cinema LED display — has been steadily expanding since its debut in 2017, and at CinemaCon 2026, Samsung introduced a new 14-meter standard size scalable up to 20 meters. The numbers are staggering: 4K at 120Hz, peak brightness of 300 nits (six times conventional projection), infinite contrast ratio, and true black levels that projection systems can only dream about.
Trilith Cinemas in Fayetteville, Georgia, became the first U.S. theater to install the latest generation of Onyx screens across five auditoriums. Pathé now operates 12 Onyx screens in Europe, more than any other cinema company on the continent. The technology eliminates the projection throw entirely — no more worrying about lamp life, alignment drift, or the fundamental physics of bouncing light off a reflective surface. The screen is the light source.
The cost remains prohibitive for most exhibitors, but it is declining rapidly. And as I have argued before, emissive LED is the only technology currently capable of meeting the full DCI HDR specification. If the industry is serious about delivering a premium experience that streaming genuinely cannot match, this is the path. Your 85-inch OLED at home is impressive. A 46-foot emissive LED wall running native HDR at 300 nits in a purpose-built auditorium is something else entirely.
The following table summarizes the major experience formats available in cinemas today:
| Format | Category | Key Feature | Global Footprint |
|---|---|---|---|
| IMAX | PLF | Massive screen, proprietary cameras, calibrated daily | 1,800+ systems, 89 countries |
| Dolby Cinema | PLF / HDR | Dolby Vision + Atmos, designed environment | 300+ screens globally (177 US locations) |
| HDR by Barco / Vue EPIC | PLF / HDR | Lightsteering laser, up to 300 nits | 15 screens (expanding rapidly) |
| Disney Infinity Vision | PLF Certification | Unified PLF badge (50ft+ screen, 4K laser, immersive audio) | 1,000+ eligible screens (US) |
| D-BOX | Haptic Seating | Precision haptic feedback, user-controlled intensity | 1,000+ screens, 4 continents |
| 4DX | Multi-Sensory | Motion seats + wind, water, fog, scent, strobe | ~800 screens globally |
| MX4D | Multi-Sensory | Motion and environmental effects | 9 locations (B&B Theatres, NA) |
| ScreenX | Panoramic | 270-degree multi-projection onto side walls | Global (CJ 4DPLEX network) |
| ICE Theaters | Immersive | LED side panels, Barco RGB laser, luxury seats | Select markets (US, India) |
| Samsung Onyx | Emissive LED | DCI-certified LED, 300 nits, infinite contrast | Expanding (US, Europe, Asia) |
| Sphere | Mega Venue | 240ft wraparound screen, 16K resolution | 1 (Las Vegas) |
Here is the uncomfortable math. The United States currently operates approximately 38,500 to 39,500 indoor screens — down from roughly 41,000 before the pandemic. That is a net loss of about 3,000 screens and 500 to 700 locations. AMC alone has closed 213 locations since 2020 while opening only 65. The locations disappearing are overwhelmingly the mid-tier suburban multiplexes built during the construction boom of the 1990s and early 2000s — the 12-to-16-screen boxes designed for an era of habitual attendance that no longer exists.
But here is the thing about a 16-screen multiplex: even if you only need 10 of those screens to serve your market, you are still paying rent on all 80,000 square feet. Stadium-sloped concrete floors, acoustic insulation, windowless auditoriums — this is some of the most specialized commercial real estate in America. You cannot just hang a “For Lease” sign on Auditorium 14 and hope a dentist moves in.
Or can you? Actually, in Flagstaff, Arizona, a former Harkins theater was converted into an Arizona Department of Transportation headquarters and MVD office, complete with 15 service windows where the auditoriums used to be. I am not making this up. Somewhere in Flagstaff, a state employee is renewing license plates in what used to be a screening room for Shrek 2.
The smarter operators, however, are not waiting for the DMV to call. They are reimagining that excess space as a strategic asset.
The Cinema Entertainment Center — or CEC, because this industry cannot resist an acronym — is the fastest-growing trend in American exhibition. The concept is straightforward: take a cinema, add bowling, an arcade, a bar, laser tag, and whatever else the local market will support, and turn a movie theater into an all-day entertainment destination.
B&B Theatres has been the most aggressive. The family-owned circuit now operates 130 bowling lanes, 530-plus arcade games, and has added duckpin bowling, pickleball, and bocce ball to its portfolio. Yes, bocce ball. At a movie theater. Their Grand Screen PLF auditoriums feature HDR by Barco, and their MX4D and screenPLAY! formats cater to different audience segments. B&B’s executive director of development, Dennis McIntire, summed up the internal debate beautifully: “Our CFO said, ‘Theaters are our core competency. Why would we want to go into a business that we do not have a core competency in?’ I didn’t have the data. At that point my argument was, we just should!” He pauses. “I was right; he was wrong.”
Cinergy Entertainment pioneered the concept back in 2009 when founder Jeff Benson bought a building in Copperas Cove, Texas, that was too big for just eight screens. “That was really the impetus,” Benson has said. “I bought a building that was too big and had to figure out something to do with the space.” From that pragmatic beginning, Cinergy has built a model that includes bowling, laser tag, ax throwing, ropes courses, arcades, and escape rooms. The key lesson Benson learned: people-flow within the building is critical. “I’ve got some that are laid out wrong and others that are laid out right, and the percentages of revenue between the two are radically different.”
ShowBiz Cinemas launched its “Bowling, Movies and More!” concept in 2015. Santikos Entertainment in San Antonio added 16 bowling lanes, an arcade, a sports bar, laser tag, and VR to its complexes. Evo Entertainment in Texas built 70,000-square-foot facilities with 11 screens, 14 bowling lanes, a 3,500-square-foot arcade, a bar and grill, and outdoor patios with fire pits. In Canada, Cineplex has rolled out Xscape entertainment zones at 38 locations, launched the Playdium and Rec Room concepts, and is now piloting Junxion — a hybrid cinema-entertainment-food hall that represents perhaps the most ambitious rethinking of what a “cinema” can be.
South Korea’s CJ CGV went even further, redefining its entire chain as a “cultureplex” — a cultural playground where people gather to experience film, music, performances, games, food, and drinks. As then-CEO Jung Seo put it at CinemaCon: “If that’s how we define ourselves — as a place for people to go watch a movie — then we will constantly be under the threat of being replaced.” Today, CJ CGV operates more than 450 cultureplex locations in seven countries.
The cinema that only opens when Hollywood delivers a blockbuster is not a business; it is a vending machine. The cinema entertainment center is the opposite: a destination that happens to show movies, rather than a movie theater that happens to have a lobby.
The economics are compelling. These hybrid venues drive longer dwell times, higher per-visit spending, and — critically — traffic on days and at times when a traditional cinema would be dark. A family that comes for bowling on a Tuesday afternoon might catch a movie afterward. A group that arrives for a birthday party might spend three hours and $200 in a building they would never have entered for a Tuesday matinee of a mid-budget drama.
But the model is not without risk. As Cinergy’s Benson has noted, entertainment trends are fickle. Escape rooms exploded five years ago; now the market is saturated. Ax throwing was hot; it may cool. The CEC operator must constantly reprogram the non-cinema attractions to stay relevant, which requires a fundamentally different operational mindset than running a traditional theater. You are no longer just a projectionist and a popcorn vendor. You are running six sub-businesses under one roof, each with its own maintenance requirements, staffing needs, and revenue cycles.
While exhibitors are busy reinventing their buildings, the studios are quietly redrawing the map of who owns what in this industry — and the implications are profound.
Sony’s acquisition of Alamo Drafthouse in 2024 made it the first major studio to own a significant exhibition chain since the Paramount consent decrees were relaxed in 2020. Sony is now in talks to take over Hollywood’s iconic Cinerama Dome and the adjacent ArcLight complex, dark since the pandemic. A studio that makes the movies, distributes the movies, and now shows the movies in its own theaters. If that sounds familiar, it is because it is exactly the vertically integrated model that the federal government spent 70 years prohibiting. History, as they say, does not repeat, but it does rhyme.
Disney, meanwhile, is playing a different game. Rather than buying theaters, Disney is certifying them. Infinity Vision is a branding exercise that gives Disney influence over how exhibitors present and market their premium rooms — without the capital expenditure or operational headaches of actually owning real estate. It is a clever strategy, and it gives Disney leverage in the increasingly competitive battle for premium screen real estate, particularly as Warner Bros. locks up IMAX for Dune: Part Three.
The 2026 release slate tells the story of an industry that still depends on a handful of massive tentpoles: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Avengers: Doomsday, The Odyssey, Dune: Part Three, Toy Story 5, and a live-action Moana. Industry forecasters project the domestic box office could reach $9.5 to $9.8 billion — the highest post-pandemic figure, but still 12 to 15 percent below 2019. The top eight theater chains have collectively pledged $2.2 billion over three years for modernization. AMC’s “GO Plan” alone commits $1.0 to $1.5 billion to renovations.
The message from the studios is clear: they will continue to make event films, but they are no longer willing to let exhibitors be the sole gatekeepers of the theatrical experience. Sony wants to own the gate. Disney wants to brand it. Warner Bros. wants to control which format gets the biggest films. The exhibitor’s job is to figure out how to remain relevant in a world where the content providers are increasingly interested in controlling the entire value chain.
One of the most significant — and most underappreciated — shifts in modern exhibition is the maturation of event cinema from a curiosity into a year-round programming discipline. At CineEurope 2026 in Barcelona, an ICTA panel made the case that event cinema is no longer “alternative content.” It is simply content.
The numbers are still modest — event cinema accounts for roughly 0.5 to 4 percent of box office revenue depending on the market, with the UK at the upper end. But the category is growing, and more importantly, it is teaching exhibitors how to think like programmers rather than passive recipients of whatever Hollywood ships.
Cinépolis programmed more than 80 event titles during 2025. Vue International has moved to what its Head of Event Cinema, Johnny Carr, calls an “always-on approach,” with some form of event cinema available virtually every day across the circuit. The 2026 FIFA World Cup was screened live in cinemas around the world — Cinépolis alone scheduled 32 matches in its Mexican theaters. The Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” series has been running for 20 years. Concert films, from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour to BTS broadcasts, have demonstrated that fan communities will pay premium prices for a communal viewing experience.
The insight here is critical: the cinema’s real competitor for event content is not the living room. It is the live venue. A fan who cannot afford a $400 concert ticket, or who lives three hours from the nearest arena, will happily pay $20 to watch the show on a 60-foot screen with Dolby Atmos and 300 fellow fans. The cinema is not replacing the concert; it is democratizing access to it.
Carr identified digital creators as the next frontier — Vue recently carried “The Amazing Digital Circus,” a digital-native animated property with a massive online following, giving it a theatrical platform. “There’s an audience that’s growing up that’s fully digital,” Carr said. “It’s going to be about leaning into that and bringing it into the theatrical space.” Schools are using cinemas to stream graduation ceremonies. Companies are transmitting executive presentations across multiple territories. The cinema, it turns out, is a remarkably versatile piece of infrastructure when you stop thinking of it as a place that only shows movies.
In a rare moment of bipartisan agreement that does not involve naming a post office, Congress has taken notice of the exhibition industry’s challenges. In July 2026, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney introduced the SCREEN Act — the Supporting Cinema Renewal, Enhancement, and Enriching Neighborhoods Act — which would establish a 30 percent federal tax credit for qualified movie theater revitalization projects. Eligible improvements include new seating, projection and sound systems, HVAC upgrades, and accessibility improvements, with lifetime caps of $250,000 for theaters with three screens or fewer, $375,000 for four to nine screens, and $500,000 for ten or more screens, available through December 31, 2030.
The legislation recognizes something that our industry has known for decades: movie theaters are community anchors. They drive evening and weekend foot traffic that supports adjacent restaurants, shops, and small businesses. When a theater goes dark, the economic ripple effects extend far beyond the building itself. The SCREEN Act is not a bailout; it is an incentive for private investment in modernization — exactly the kind of capital expenditure that separates the survivors from the casualties.
I have been asked this question at every SMPTE meeting, every ICTA board discussion, and every ISDCF session for the past three years. My answer keeps evolving, but the core thesis has not changed since I wrote "The Vehicle, Not the Destination" earlier this year: the movie is the vehicle, not the destination. The cinema of the future is an experience business that happens to show films, not a film business that happens to have a building.
Here is what I believe that looks like in practice.
The surviving cinema of 2030 will be smaller in screen count but larger in purpose. A 16-screen suburban box will become a 10-screen entertainment destination with bowling, a craft bar, an arcade, a flexible event space, and possibly a few attractions that have not been invented yet. The six auditoriums that were converted will generate more revenue per square foot than they ever did showing the fourth week of a mid-budget comedy to 12 people on a Wednesday afternoon.
The technology in those remaining auditoriums will be uncompromising. Emissive LED screens — whether Samsung Onyx, Cine LEDMAX, or whatever the next generation brings — will replace projection in premium rooms, delivering native HDR at brightness levels that make today’s best laser projectors look like flashlights. Immersive audio will be standard, not premium. Haptic seating will be available in at least one auditorium per location. The baseline presentation quality of a surviving cinema in 2030 will exceed the best premium format available today.
Programming will be continuous and diverse. A single day’s schedule might include a morning kids’ screening, an afternoon FIFA match, an early-evening repertory classic, and a prime-time blockbuster — followed by a late-night concert film or a live comedy broadcast. The cinema will not go dark between tentpoles. It will not depend on any single studio’s release calendar. It will be a platform, not a pipeline.
The lobby will be a destination in its own right. Not a throughput corridor designed to funnel bodies past a concession stand, but a social space — a place to arrive early, linger after, meet friends, have a drink, and feel that leaving the house was worth it. The velvet curtain may come back. The glass candy case may come back. The sense of occasion will absolutely come back, because that is the one thing streaming can never replicate: the feeling that tonight is special.
The cinema of the future will not be defined by what it shows on the screen. It will be defined by what it makes you feel when you walk through the door.
And the staff — the humans — will matter more than ever. You cannot automate hospitality. You cannot franchise pride. The difference between a good experience and a great one is almost always the quality of the human interaction. In an era of self-checkout kiosks and automated ticketing, a warm greeting from a knowledgeable staff member is not a cost center. It is a competitive weapon.
So what is a cinema today? It is a 4DX seat that sprays you with water during a storm sequence. It is a 270-degree ScreenX panorama that wraps a landscape around your peripheral vision. It is a D-BOX haptic chair that lets you feel the rumble of a spaceship launch through your spine. It is a Samsung Onyx LED wall delivering 300 nits of native HDR in perfect black. It is a bowling lane next to Auditorium 7. It is a FIFA World Cup match on a 60-foot screen. It is a Michelin-starred meal served to your heated recliner in Dubai. It is a live opera broadcast from the Met. It is a birthday party with laser tag and a screening of the latest Pixar film.
It is, in other words, whatever it needs to be.
The exhibitors who understand this — who see the cinema not as a fixed thing but as a flexible platform for communal experiences — are already thriving. B&B Theatres is building bocce courts. Cinépolis is screening soccer matches. Sony is buying theaters. Disney is certifying them. Gen Z moviegoing is up 25 percent year-over-year, with the cohort averaging 6.1 theater visits annually. The cultural appetite for shared, immersive, phone-free experiences is not dying. It is evolving.
The cinema that refuses to evolve with it — the 16-screen suburban box with stained screens, blown tweeters, and a concession stand that hasn’t been updated since the Clinton administration — that is a stranded asset. It is not a cinema. It is a building waiting to become a DMV.
The magic of the movies is not gone. It is just bigger, louder, wetter, and occasionally served with a side of duckpin bowling. And honestly? I would not have it any other way.