Too bad then, because if the audience has exploded then so too have the niche audience that would appreciate a film about, say, John von Neumann (ha ha, just to pick someone I just read an article about from HN).
I think this audience is there but they are watching these films on Netflix. I observed this phenomenon from 2019 to today when I got a monthly AMC movie pass that allows me to watch any three movies a week every week. What I observed even pre pandemic is that any film that is not a major established blockbuster (Superhero films, James bond, etc.) has little to no people coming out to see them. I further tried to understand this trend by writing a data collecting tool that leverages AMC's API to better understand who is coming out. It showed me that there are tons of empty screens for many smaller films going on. Finally to help control to see if this is a AMC thing, I also signed up for Cinemark(a competitor) and observed basically the same results.
It sucks because this harms directors I actually want to see succeed like Edgar Wright. Edgar is a big proponent of watching movies on the big screen so he designs his films to be primarily viewed on cinema screens and pushes for the longest release window he can get. Unfortunately, outside the cities, I observed little uptake for his latest film. :/
