Hollywood has plenty of movies. Why are theater screens sitting empty?

On August 3, AMC announced the highest-revenue weekend in its 106-year history. More than 10.2 million people had gone to AMC and its Odeon subsidiary’s theaters, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey leading the box office. It was a sign that, financially at least, movie theaters are looking much healthier than they did a few years ago. Still, the recovery is not as straightforward as the box office numbers suggest. This summer brought in $4.76 billion at the North American box office, narrowly surpassing the record set in 2013. But people are still going to the movies much less than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic; theaters sold an estimated 470.9 million tickets through the first 30 weeks of this year, down from 747.3 million over the comparable period in 2019. The money has come back faster than the crowds: Tickets cost more now, especially for IMAX and other premium screenings. Twenty-eight days after its record weekend, AMC announced that it needed more movies. The company is starting Leawood Films, a distributor focused on small and midsized features. “Leawood Films is being created with a straightforward objective, given that substantial excess capacity exis…