Is Gen Z really saving cinema? The truth behind a recent study

Luca Fontana

17.4.2026

Translation: Megan Cornish

A new study’s hailing Gen Z as the saviours of cinema. But a closer look reveals PR over insights – and cinema that’s quietly turning into a luxury product.

Just in time for CinemaCon in Las Vegas – the annual trade show for the cinema industry – Fandango’s published a study (link only works with a VPN) that has Hollywood breathing a sigh of relief. Fandango’s America’s largest online ticket retailer. And the headline that’s been circulating everywhere ever since? Gen Z’s the most active cinemagoing generation in the USA.

According to the survey, 87 per cent of Gen Z respondents saw at least one film at the cinema last year – more than millennials (82 per cent), Gen X (70 per cent) or baby boomers (58 per cent). They also spend more on premium formats and snacks than any other generation.

The message? Cinema’s alive and kicking. And the young are saving it. Sounds great, right? Until you look closer. Because one detail from Fandango’s own study throws the whole narrative off balance.

Reinventing the wheel

Let’s start with the average number of cinema visits per year. Gen Z and millennials are practically neck and neck with 7 and 7.2 films per year respectively – millennials are even slightly ahead. That means the often cited claim that Gen Z is the «most active» generation’s only true if you look at the percentage of people who go to the cinema at all. In terms of actual visit frequency, they’re still beaten by millennials.

The basic premise is hardly surprising. 18- to 28-year-olds have always been the most active cinemagoing audience. Not just recently. Not just since the pandemic. But for decades.

Gallup surveys from the 2000s show that young adults watched seven to nine films per year – twice as many as those aged 30 to 49 and three times as many as those over 50. According to Deadline, MPAA (now Motion Picture Association) reports from 2009 to 2019 and the associated MPA statistics confirm this pattern over an entire decade. The age group with the highest movie attendance per head? Always the youngest.

The only thing that’s changing is what we call that group: ten years ago, 20-year-olds were called millennials. Today they’re called Gen Z. The fact that this generation now goes to the cinema more often than the millennials who are now in their 30s and 40s is less of a discovery than a demographic inevitability. Why? Because people in their early twenties have more time, more social events and fewer family or professional obligations than people with children and full-time jobs.

That was the case in 1995, it was the same in 2010 and it’s no different in 2026.

In fairness, many in Hollywood genuinely feared during the pandemic that Gen Z would never end up going to the cinema regularly. Surveys even seemed to support this. YPulse found in 2020 that 68 per cent of 16- to 34-year-olds preferred to watch new films at home. The pandemic accelerated a trend that the modern streaming age had kicked off years beforehand.

But this fear was always more of an industry panic than a reliable forecast. Spider-Man: No Way Home in December 2021 proved that Gen Z does flock to the cinemas for the right occasion. And the summer of 2023, when Barbie was released, definitively buried the theory. According to Statista, Gen Z actually made up almost half of the Barbie audience.

So, Fandango’s answering a question that had long since become irrelevant in reality. The timing, however, is no coincidence.

Who asks the question determines the answer

It’s no coincidence that the study’s being released at CinemaCon, the event where cinema operators and studios reassure each other that everything will be alright. Fandango surveyed 7,000 adults, 5,091 of whom were self-declared cinemagoers – people who had been to the cinema at least once in the past year.

Fandango only releases its full methodological design «on request». And this study’s not an isolated case. Every year since 2022, Fandango’s presented a study at CinemaCon that reports unprecedented anticipation for the upcoming summer of film.

It’s well-documented that Fandango isn’t always entirely impartial. FiveThirtyEight demonstrated back in 2015 that 98 per cent of all films on Fandango had at least 3 out of 5 stars, and that the system consistently rounded up – a rating of 4.1 became a 4.5, never a 4.0. Fandango called this a «bug». But the «bug’s» bias was always the same: favouring cinemas.

The Fandango study isn’t totally worthless, though. The data on premium formats and generational differences are quite revealing. More on that shortly. But it’s still industry lobbying disguised as science. A ticket retailer discovering that people like buying tickets is about as surprising as a Digitec Galaxus study stating that online shopping’s the latest hot trend.

What the independent data really shows

Anyone wanting a more realistic picture should look at sources that aren’t interested in maximising ticket sales. And they’re reporting a significantly different situation.

The Pew Research Center – one of the most methodologically reliable survey providers in the US – determined in March 2026 that only 53 per cent of US adults saw a single film in the past year. Not seven. Not five. One. More than half the population didn’t go to the cinema even once in 2025.

The hard sales figures confirm this. According to the Pew Research Center, cinemas in the US and Canada «only» sold 769 million tickets in 2025 – less than half the figure from 2002 and a third below the pre-pandemic level of 2019. Even Variety, which published positive reports on the Fandango study, admits that attendance figures are 20 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.

The problem isn’t that young people aren’t going to the cinema anymore. They definitely are. The generation that’s really missing is the older generation. According to MPA data compiled by Deadline, the share of tickets sold to those over 60 plummeted by 40 per cent after the pandemic, and MPA figures show that their purchases per capita dropped by a massive 80 per cent.

And according to a 2023 analysis by Morning Consult, this isn’t due to streaming. Since the pandemic, older people are generally less active – they eat out, attend concerts and go to sports stadiums less often. The cinema’s just one of many victims of this new reclusive tendency.

Cinema’s not dying – it’s changing

So, is cinema really dying? Not quite. The real story – which Fandango’s study only touches upon because it doesn’t sound as exciting – is that, while cinemas may get fewer and fewer visitors, they generate more sales per capita. This is because cinema’s currently changing from a mass medium into a luxury experience. And the figures are impressive.

84 per cent of US cinemagoers will have seen what’s known as a premium format – IMAX, Dolby Cinema, or 3D – at least once in 2025. In 2023, that figure was 71 per cent. According to The Hollywood Reporter, IMAX alone will achieve record worldwide revenue of 1.28 billion dollars in 2025. That’s 40 per cent more than the previous year and 13 per cent above the previous record from 2019.

With premium formats come ticket price rises. While a US cinema ticket cost an average of $9.16 in 2019 according to the National Association of Theater Owners (now Cinema United), industry analysts at EntTelligence reported it as $13.29 in 2025. Even after accounting for inflation, this represents a real price increase of around 12 per cent – significantly more than you’d expect for a typical everyday product.

Even within Hollywood, the unease is palpable. Sony’s CEO Tom Rothman recently complained about too much advertising and overly expensive tickets in cinemas, even though his own studio is one of those driving up prices.

A ticket for a premium format such as IMAX or Dolby cost an average of $17.69 in 2025. According to Retailstat, AMC – the US’s largest cinema chain – has openly admitted that it no longer needs pre-pandemic attendance levels to generate the same revenue.

Gentrification par excellence.

According to another Variety article, industry analyst NRG is already talking about a «K-shaped recovery»: premium cinemas are gaining market share, while standard multiplexes are losing it. Cinema’s becoming more exclusive, more expensive, more experience-focused – and in doing so, excluding those for whom it was originally intended.

The sequel machine

Presumably unintentionally, the Fandango study also sheds light on another phenomenon. The ten most anticipated summer films of 2026 named by the respondents are: Toy Story 5, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, Scary Movie 6, Moana, Minions & Monsters, Mortal Kombat II, Supergirl and the Insidious sequel.

Nine out of ten are sequels, reboots or franchise spin-offs. The only non-franchise film is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which itself is based on Homer’s epic. Fresh ideas? No chance.

This is no coincidence. It’s the logical consequence of an industry that shies away from risk, because a blockbuster cinema release including marketing can easily cost over 500 million dollars. Franchise films generate reliable returns because they benefit from established fan bases, existing brand recognition and reduced marketing costs. Unlike films not based on an existing franchise, which have to win over their audience from scratch.

This same fear is driving Hollywood to pursue its next cost-cutting strategy: AI. It’s set to write screenplays, replace extras and actors and generate special effects and is expected to save not only millions, but also cut a slew of jobs.

However, whether this’ll work in the long term is far from certain. CNBC reported in early 2026 that more and more franchise sequels were disappointing at the box office. Thunderbolts. Fantastic Four. The Superman reboot.

Sequel fatigue is real. I’ve actually written about it.

The real story

The Fandango study tells the story the film industry wants to hear: Gen Z’s here, Gen Z’s spending money, everything will be okay. And it’s true that young adults value the cinema as a social meeting place, that they pay more for IMAX screenings and premium seats and that the generation that grew up with smartphones has discovered the physical cinema as an antidote to constant digital bombardment.

But that’s just one side of the story. The bigger picture reveals an industry in transition. There are smaller audiences than ever before, higher prices, an offering consisting almost entirely of franchises, and premiumisation that makes the experience better but also more expensive and exclusive, while mid-budget films migrate to streaming services.

Cinema’s not dying. But it is changing.

What do you think? Do you go to the cinema more or less often now than before the pandemic? And is the extra cost for IMAX and similar formats worth it? Let me know in the comments.

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.

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