Los Angeles | Movie theatres are finally bouncing back from the pandemic, with solid turnout over the weekend for the latest James Bond spectacle, No Time to Die, giving Hollywood its third box office success in the span of a month. For coronavirus-battered multiplex chains, it’s reason for a celebratory martini.

But the box office is still extremely fragile, analysts say, and one of the doomsday scenarios about the pandemic’s lasting effect on theatre-going has been coming true: The only movies attracting sizeable attention in cinemas are big-budget franchise films.