(NewsNation) — After a two-year lull, America’s movie theaters are coming back to life.

Blockbuster hits including “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” delivered Hollywood’s most profitable weekend since the pandemic.

The summer box office has generated $2.27 billion from May through June 10, and those returns are 217% above the same period in 2021. In fact, they’re just 12% behind the identical time frame in 2019.

It’s a big victory for the film industry that many thought was making a major shift towards streaming.

In 2018, a study by Statistica found 28% of people strongly prefer to watch a movie for the first time in theaters, while 15% strongly preferred streaming. By 2020, those numbers nearly flipped, and now there’s a big-screen resurgence.

Theaters such as AMC are bringing back their $5 deals — trying to draw even more moviegoers back.