Forecasts are predicting that the revenue from streaming services Netflix and Amazon will top the U.K. box office by 2020.
PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting firm is forecasting that Netflix and Amazon will be the biggest money makers on the U.K. movie scene in the next four years.
The firm predicts that the U.K.’s revenue from streaming services that offer film and TV content will grow by 30 percent by 2020 reaching $1.81 billion, a figure which will be beyond the $1.8 billion of local cinemas.
“Demand for internet video shows no signs of slowing down,” said Phil Stokes, U.K. head of entertainment and media at PwC, when speaking to The Guardian. “The figures do not signal the death of film. Look at the box office performance of films such as Star Wars: Rogue One or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to see the significant amount of enthusiasm for blockbuster movies out there.”
While acknowledging that there are indeed some very successful movies out there at cinemas, PwC is expecting to see a terminal decline in the home entertainment market, with DVD and Blu-ray sales dropping from $1.55 billion in 2016 to $679 million by 2021.
“The failure in this market is the high street retailers, supermarkets and specialist stores [that sell DVDs and Blu-ray],” said Stokes. “As well as the shift to digital a lot of physical buying is from services like Amazon. And online streaming is bypassing high street retailers.”
The world of film is definitely in a very interesting place right now, so it will certainly be interesting to see if these forecast hold true and what the future will bring over the next number of years.
Originally published June 15, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
