The cost to go to the movies has become a bit prohibitive. People now go only if it is ‘a movie they really want to see in theaters’. Also because streaming has movies on demand within 60 days or so, people will wait unless they are die hard into the film.
The content in the cinemas is lackluster. Movie studios became so infatuated with profits that they chose big budget tentpole franchises (which do tend to be more profitable) over artistic films, comedies, ‘let’s take a chance on this’ movies. That’s why you see a lot of sequels, franchise movies, and remakes. If a concept made money, the studios will squeeze every last dollar out of what they think is a sure thing. To me it’s a relief that Star Wars, Marvel, and some of these other franchises aren’t doing as well in the theaters because it will force studios to get creative and original again.
And finally, I also think that when it comes to most of the artistic style films or comedies, the studios became afraid of getting canceled on social media. Think of some of the best comedies from late 90s or early 2000s. Wedding crashers? Something about Mary? Old School? Some of these movies just couldn’t be made today because it would ‘offend’ a small minority. The small minority would hop on twitter and post a few tweets that maybe 5 other people would like. The news media turns this into a story that ‘people are complaining about the offensiveness of this movie….’ And then that creates a PR issue for the movie studio that they don’t want to deal with.