The movie business is collapsing. When will he recover?

• The movie business is still recovering, and will be for at least another year, if not longer.
• Theaters are facing a shocking shortage of blockbuster films for the rest of the year.
• Regal is considering filing for bankruptcy, raising questions about the number of screens it has in the US.

During the pandemic, the recovery of the movie business was expected to be more of a marathon than a sprint. But it’s taking longer than any studio or theater executive probably hoped.

Studios aren’t releasing as many movies as they were before the pandemic. Regal, one of the largest theater chains in America, is considering filing for bankruptcy. Warner Bros., one of the five major Hollywood studios, is shaking up its release calendar as its new parent company seeks to cut costs.

After a promising summer box office led by “Top Gun: Maverick,” movie theaters are facing a shortage of movies for the rest of the year. The next confirmed fire may not be until November, when “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is released.

John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theater Owners, told Insider that the organization doesn’t expect movie supply to return to pre-pandemic levels for 12 to 18 months, which would put us at the end of 2023 at the earliest.

“Filmgoers are coming as the films become available,” Fithian is optimistic.

For certain movies, that was true. “Maverick” has grossed nearly $700 million in the US. Other franchise tentpoles such as “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Jurassic World: Dominion” performed well. The indie hit “everything everywhere all at once” surprised him.

But mid-budget, non-franchise dramas and action movies, from “Ambulance” to “Bullet Train” to “The Northman,” are still largely absent.

Fithian cites two reasons for the long-term bullishness about movie supply: a) the acquisition of new company Warner Bros. has expressed its commitment to movie theaters, a dramatic shift from the streaming-focused WarnerMedia, and b) the National Association of Theater Owners’ stronger presence of original companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple. There is still hope that they are considering releases.

But for now, Warner Bros. knows a lot. The studio pushed “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (again) from December to March 2023, as well as “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. Discovery wants to spread the marketing and distribution costs associated with the release of the films. That means Warner Bros. only has two more movies coming out this year: “Don’t Worry Darling” in September and “Black Adam” in October.

As streaming companies move more prominently into the theater business, Fithian doesn’t predict that will happen for another 12 to 18 months, even though theater owners have long been pushing the issue.

“It’s going to take a while, but our general feeling is that we’re going to get more movies in theaters from companies that don’t normally do that,” Fithian said.

Meanwhile, analysts at Wall Street firm Moffett Nathanson forecast the U.S. box office to end this year at $7.9 billion, with “moderate growth to $8.5 billion in 2023, still down -26 percent from 2019.”

The bottom line: While the first half of the year enjoyed reasons for optimism, the film industry is still in hard reset mode, and will continue into 2023 and possibly into 2024.

Cinema chain Regal, owned by Cineworld, the world’s second-largest theater operator, said this week it is exploring filing for bankruptcy as a strategic option in the face of a limited film slate.

This may be a Regal-specific problem. But it highlights bigger questions about the theater and film industries, including whether there are too many movie theater screens for current audience appetite.

There are approximately 40,700 movie screens in the US. That number hasn’t changed much since 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.

“America is definitely over-regulated,” writes Matt Belloni in the Puck newsletter I listen to on Sunday. “These theaters now have to justify themselves, and many can’t. A bankruptcy would allow Cineworld, for example, to miss out on some serious leases.”

Analysts at Moffett Nathanson similarly said: “The US film industry is in dire need of restructuring and we expect to see fewer US screens as the business returns to normal.”