Fans are destroying theaters — and maybe also saving them
Yes, moviegoing is a thing again. And this time, it's dependent on video gamers.
Personal Publishing
Vernon Hills, Ill. — On the opening night of “A Minecraft Movie,” Alex Andrasz, 17, and his six gamer friends sat at the mezzanine of AMC Hawthorn 12’s larger auditoriums. As the group settled into their seats, about twenty babbling teenagers entered behind them.
Throughout the film, spikes of audience excitement turn into deep chatters, like when Steve, played by Jack Black, sang the film’s only song “Steve’s Lava Chicken.” But when his character announced, “CHICKEN JOCKEY!” the audience became a destructive machine.
“It was kind of like a concert,” Andrasz said. Upon the two-word trigger, thousands of kernels invaded his periphery. The crowd below him exploded into cheers, jumps and laughter. “They already had a plan,” Andrasz said about the kids behind him. “They were planning who does what, at what scene, saying ‘We're gonna throw popcorn at this time.’”
In Utah, Cinemark Provo 16 had a fan bring his live chicken to hoist into the air, popularly drawing hundreds of likes and reposts on TikTok. Other theaters, like the Regal Cinema in Chicago’s Logan Square, had trails of popcorn lead into restrooms, as well as visitors attempting to use the fire extinguisher during the aforementioned scene, according to theater employees. Whether it was kicking through “twenty buckets (of popcorn) on the floor,” or waiting out traffic to leave the parking lot, Andrasz’s theater was just one of hundreds swept up in Minecraft’s madness.
Yet, similarly, summer 2024 brought pink, sold-out theaters featuring life-size doll box cutouts, exclusive concession merchandise and thousands of “Barbie”-related social media content (some sponsored), grossing $636.24 million at domestic box offices. “Wicked” grossed $473 million, welcoming lifelong fans ready to belt their go-to hits or to see their favorite musical finally hit film.
Blockbuster hits like “Oppenheimer," "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and the “Minecraft Movie” welcome fans that don't just fill a theater’s seating — they change the moviegoing experience. Because theaters aren’t dying — they’re reviving! And not by theater kids, nor Marvel fans. “A Minecraft Movie” has new hosts: gamers.
“So much goes viral today, that the ‘meme-ification’ of audience behavior is becoming a clear way for audiences to behave,” wrote Paul Booth, fandom expert and professor of media and pop culture at DePaul University in an email interview.
But fandoms have been around for far longer than social media.
Fan bases are more than just groups dressing up in costumes, or amassing collections of tradable Pokémon cards. Fandoms are powerful forces that crave interaction. “They provide a strong sense of community at a moment when people are losing community in other areas of their lives,” said Booth.
These escapes also hold little exclusivity. Minecraft’s demographic displayed a strong pattern of gathering diverse groups of people to not only the game, but to the theaters. Booth said, “The kids that played it as a video game back in 2011 are grown up now, and the kids that played it more recently are still kids. But fandoms are always cross-generational like that.”
Although not really having a favorite video game film, Booth really likes HBO Max’s adaptation of “The Last of Us” (2023), based on a PlayStation and PC game, and the television show “Fallout” (2024), based on a 1997 video game.
Andrasz, a Minecraft player since 2014, similarly finds video games in film an enjoyable way to pass time and hang out with friends. He said he looks forward to the next leg of the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie franchise and mentions the way video game players kept in touch throughout the pandemic, starting with Fortnite.
Fortnite, an online gaming world available on over seven platforms, hosts virtual concerts, or Fortnite Live Events within the Fortnite world. By bringing virtual music experiences to homes around the world, targeted to large fan bases like Charli xcx and Travis Scott, gamers turn into mighty powerhouses intercepting a new interactive bucket: Music. For Andrasz, it made sense the Minecraft fandom behaved the way they did when translating the game into a cinematic hit featuring movie icons like Black, Momoa and comedic star Jennifer Coolidge.
Andrasz says a Chicken Jockey sighting in the actual game “is under 1%.” In the game’s Java edition, the actual answer is about 0.25%, according to Minecraft Wiki, a mock-Wikipedia site exclusively for Minecraft-related information. Granting a unique surprise to first-time watchers, the gamer said the scene was heavily hinted at in the film’s trailers — with their first trailer to debut September 4, 2024 — giving super-fans plentiful time to organize their enthusiasm.
When asked about the future of games in cinema, he says “A Minecraft Movie” was a unique theater experience. “I don’t think a Fortnite movie would work,” he said. “I don't think [movie theater chaos is] gonna really happen to this level again.”
Beside the hyper-excitement, “A Minecraft Movie” has already racked up a growing $874.64 million in global box offices, according to Statista’s May 2025 report on worldwide highest grossing video game movies. The film could soon rank as the highest grossing video game movie, having already surpassed “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” (2024) and peaking towards “Super Mario Bros” (2023), according to Statista May 2025 report.
With more moviegoers, theaters are now offering more than just the showing. There’s now exclusive merchandise and interactive experiences like 4DX and sing-alongs and private events.
Some theater franchises, like Regal, have dedicated teams working to extend a film’s relationship to viewers (other theaters hold different combinations of promotions). In the recently released “Lilo & Stitch” (2025), a Stitch collectible popcorn bucket, wearable character ears and Hawaiian-themed Dippin’ Dots promote in-person watches. Adults could also try themed drink options, which were also available in theaters with on-site bars.
Bringing fans back into recliners could reimagine an industry many thought would fall extinct to streaming platforms. With a recent rise in ticket sale surges, the National Association of Theatre Owners revealed in April that eight of North America's biggest movie theater chains — including AMC, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas — are preparing to invest more than $2.2 billion into theaters within the next three years.
This “ambitious initiative” aims at “revitalizing the industry amid challenges posed by streaming services and the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to analyst Alex Petridis in a recent report from IBISWorld. With hopes to elevate entertainment experiences, more than 21,000 theater screens will upgrade, accounting for 70% of the North American box offices. Petridis said the industry expects to break “15.8 billion through the end of 2025.”
Traditionally, theaters are often found in malls, shopping centers, bowling alleys and arcades, which are all places meant to bring people together, like the Logan Square theater and AMC Block 37. Increases in outdoor theaters, which also take a twist on your typical theater experience, are making greater appearances, like at Chicago’s Rooftop Cinema Club in Fulton Market.
And yet, despite the excitement, not everyone feels the same nostalgia for heightened pre-pandemic interaction. Fandoms, or waves of recent theater activity, bring an unpredictability where moviegoers may direct themselves back to living room sofas. Avid movie-goer and Chicago theater hopper Aidan McGinty said, “I’m nervous for the in-theater activities so I’m waiting for [“A Minecraft Movie”] to come on streaming.”
Apart from the wave of gamers coming into theaters, the backbones of the industry, or the “real” gamers are not the same as they were five years ago. The next generation of animators who publish the software are already preparing for a new wave of digital storytelling.
The game development field at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut finds freedoms in its curriculum to discover creative animation possibilities. Inspired by the animated 2024 film “Flow” — Latvia’s first-ever Oscar win at the 97th Academy Awards — animators found new paths for the industry when realizing the film’s creators can use Blender, an entry-level, open-source 3D creating software.
It’s the same software Professor Jordan Tewell, game design and development program coordinator at Sacred Heart, teaches his students.
Tewell works alongside the industry’s next generation, equipping students for the competitive field of expanding trends. In his program, a project includes recreating television characters and their interactions in Blender. Students also get to build their own game, and “get a lot of freedom” on what they produce.
At the end of the year, the university holds a “big beta test event day,” where students showcase their work to gain feedback and network with campus faculty. Students are also “expected to publish (the project),” on Itch.io or “someplace that everyone can play it.”
The program allows access to multiple labs, including the Motion Capture at NeXReality Labs, where students perform game research and examine virtual reality projects. Labs also bring out the hands-on aspect for students to “work with tools that professionals would use,” says Tewell.
“One way that I encourage (students) is to look at adjacent industries that aren't game specific but are using a lot of similar kinds of tools and technology. There's a lot of interest in education technology. Architecture uses these kinds of technologies to pre-visualize buildings. Even engineering uses these kinds of technologies for simulating mechanical designs,” Tewell says.
Design adaptation will spill over into other sectors, including the film industry’s rise in computer generated imagery (CGI), surreal effects and AI-generated content. “When I was young, [video game movies] were never really well received,” says Tewell. But today’s technologies have gotten better, and room for greater possibilities are available.
Regardless of the facets of ticket growth or the possible use of AI design, gamers are definitely paving a path in film, while today’s theaters reclaim a role as social centers. Hosting up-and-coming movie events, prompting interactive experiences and producing some of the random-est social media content are what twenty-first century movie-going is all about. Because today, movie theaters are evolving beyond their traditional role, driven not just by the desire to watch a film but to create memorable, shared moments that extend beyond the screen.
As actress Nicole Kidman says in her AMC pre-show announcement: “We come to this place... for magic.”
And maybe now, to catch the next laugh, collectible popcorn bucket or viral TikTok video.
