In Person Movie Theaters are a dying industry and have been for the last 45 years.

The industry makes more from licensing and streaming that it does from exhibition (theatres) as they call it. they are still stuck in a 1960's mindset where theatres would pay more than 100% of the ticketed gate just to get the "exclusive" right to show a "blockbuster" in a local area.

Theatres did that and made the majority of their profits off of the concessions,example a 50lb bag of commercial theatre popping corn costs less than $20. The cost of the popping corn in a big bucket of popcorn is about 3-4 cents, add to that the artificial butter,salt, power to pop the corn, labor and the cost of the bucket is still the largest expense. BUT, out of what might seem like a huge profit, you still have to pay for the taxes, insurance and all the rest of the overhead so that huge profit is diminished to a very small amount.

More specifically to your original question, why not in NJ?

#1 taxes, BOTH property and sales taxes and 'sin" fees on tickets. Most states have never repealed the "sin" fees which were first added to the price of tickets in the 30's 40's, 50"s & 60"s. You know, Moving pictures were the work of the devil and encouraged the downfall of everything good& just. (lol)

Not positive about all of NJ's counties, been away from the business for the last 30 years, but since there are still blue laws, I will bet the "sin" fees were never done away with (once a govt gets a fee or tax started it never goes away, especially hidden ones).

#2 Insurance

#3 Local licensing - some cities & counties require movie theatres have an "Adult Entertainment Establishment" license that has to be renewed on a regular basis....again tha t varies with the exact local.

All those are why you can get a new streaming movie at home for less than the price of one ticket at a movie theatre...

#4 The Climate and bugs - not conductive to a year round business.