Published Friday, January 1, 2021 9:31AM EST
TORONTO -- If anything is certain about the future of movie theatres in 2021, it's that nobody can be certain about anything.
After a year that saw Canada's film exhibition industry roiled by the COVID-19 pandemic, industry observers say the country's cinemas are sitting at a critical juncture with no clear path forward.
Most theatres across the country were dark over the usually bustling holiday movie season, as they were for the majority of the year in many major markets. The few screens that continued operating did so at a fraction of their usual capacity.
Some say sustained closures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 could spell doom for the movie theatre business, which has been battered in recent years as ticket sales declined and streaming giants like Netflix chased the same audience.