10 Ways That Movies Will Change In The 2020s

The 2010s saw the rise of streaming as the dominant way to view movies at home and the concurrent crash in DVDs and Blu-Rays. Sales of movies on disc have plummeted by over 80% across the decade and in 2019 electronics giant Samsung announced that they would no longer be producing Blu-Ray players at all.

So it seems a little counterintuitive to the current trends to suggest that discs might make even a muted comeback in the 2020s, but it could well happen.

Music fans have already seen a physical media resurgence as vinyl sales rose year on year across the 2010s and there was even a massive 125% increase in sales of the clunky old cassette tape format from 2017 through 2018. And much of this has been powered by the "digital native" under-25s.

A 2017 report from eBay in the UK noted an uptake on their platform in physical media, predominantly books and vinyl but also movies on disc, amongst this "phygital" (their word) generation.

It noted that physical media are still valued for a combination of the aesthetic and collectable appeal of showing something off, a perceived higher quality of sound and visuals, and the greater sense of ownership (even stuff that is purchased digitally and stored in the cloud can be withdrawn far more easily than a physical object).

Over the next decade, then, ordinary run-of-the-mill movies may only get a streaming release without appearing on disc at all, but at the same time there will be an increase in attention paid to physical releases of rarities, collectables and beloved classics packaged in steelbooks and other artfully appealing designs as material objects of desire.