Robert Downey Jnr thrilled movie fans when his return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was announced last weekend, when it was revealed that he will play the popular Doctor Doom character in a forthcoming Avengers film.

There were gasps and cheers when the Oscar-winning actor was dramatically unmasked as the new face of the comic-book villain at the San Diego Comic-Con. The unveiling underlined both Downey Jnr’s huge popularity among fans of the MCU from his long-running stint playing Iron Man and the need for franchise owner Disney to bring out the big guns, following the generally lukewarm response that has greeted more recent Marvel films and television series.

But it is not only MCU buffs who will be rubbing their hands at the prospect of new life being breathed into the Marvel cinematic world, which will see Doomsday become one of two new Avengers films to move into production, in addition to the new Captain America movie currently in the pipeline.

The prospect of new MCU films will be gleefully embraced by a cinema industry which has largely been starved of major releases this summer (save for Deadpool & Wolverine, already a box-office hit following its release last weekend) and is once again showing signs of financial stress.

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The news that Cineworld was once again facing financial challenges and planning to close six of its cinemas in the UK, including its outlet at Parkhead in Glasgow, was depressingly familiar to those who value the industry, as well as to the people whose jobs will be affected.

It came soon after it emerged in June that the long-running Oban Phoenix Cinema would be shutting down, with all staff losing their jobs, and as independents across the country, including Belmont Cinema in Aberdeen and Edinburgh Filmhouse, battle for funding to continue screening.

The Cineworld closures, which will also see its outlets in Bedford, Hinckley, Loughborough, Yate, and Swindon Circus shut permanently, are proposed just a year after the company went through a restructuring exercise to slash its debt and remain afloat after running into problems which arose from the pandemic. That saw its assets move to a new company and a new management team brought in.

Around the same time last summer, Empire Cinemas also fell into administration amid the fall-out from the pandemic, with the process ultimately leading to nine of the chain’s 14 outlets closing, and five – including the cinema hall in Clydebank – being taken over by Omniplex Cinemas.

But despite these challenges last summer, there was a flicker of hope that brighter times lay ahead. The release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and the Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie on the same day in July last year provided a massive boost to cinema halls after the bleak days of the pandemic, with the two films even being marketed in an unlikely double bill (Barbenheimer) as some cinema-goers took the opportunity to view them back to back.

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With Barbie quickly hitting the billion-dollar mark in gross takings just 17 days after opening, and Oppenheimer not too far behind on the revenue stakes, it raised hopes once more of better times for the multiplexes, and not least because of other big releases last summer, including Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Now, however, the industry appears to be back in more difficult terrain. The protracted strike by actors and screenwriters in the US, who were in dispute with studios over pay and safeguards around artificial intelligence, in the latter part of 2023 has had a massive knock-on effect on the stream of releases for this year. In comparison to last year, the slate of the kind of blockbusters which have people flocking to the multiplexes in their droves has been conspicuously sparse this year, with only the likes of Dune: Part Two and the aforementioned Deadpool & Wolverine likely to get close to the impact of Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Cinemas will be hoping that forthcoming releases such as Gladiator 2, Trap, Alien: Romulus, and Megalopolis will ensure a strong finish to the year, but it is by no means guaranteed, especially given the ongoing pressure on many people’s finances.

Inflation may now have returned to the 2% targeted by the Bank of England, but there remains concern that the battle against rising prices is not over. The rampant inflation we saw across 2022 and 2023 means the price of everything is massively higher now than it was two years ago.

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With the wages of many people having struggled to keep pace with inflation, and with interest rates having been pegged at 5.25% since August last year (at least until today, when the Bank of England reveals the latest vote on the Bank rate by its Monetary Policy Committee), the reality is that many people have a lot less disposable income to play with. And with a visit to the cinema far from a cheap pastime, it may well be that some people decide to do something else with their discretionary cash, or at the very least attend their local theatre a bit less often.

The major cinema chains do offer a range of promotions, but perhaps there is more they could do on this front and be more competitive on price to bring people in. This is easier said than done, of course, given the operating costs they face will have risen sharply in recent years too. Cineworld said last week that it was trying to negotiate rent reductions "to market level" at some UK locations, underlining the challenge it faces in maintaining a presence on the high street.

Aside from costs, cinemas today have a huge task on their hands to fight the threat posed by the streaming giants. That challenge was underscored last month when “king of streamers” Netflix revealed it had added a further 8.2 million of net subscriptions in the second quarter, ahead of the forecast five million, with revenue also ahead of consensus.

Faced with competition like this, the arrival of Doctor Doom surely cannot come quickly enough.