The elimination of release prints is only a brief milestone on the way to the end of the public movie theater.
My local 24-plex is now about 50:50 digital and analog. While their digital projection is somewhat better than their analog projection, with both technologies they far too often neglect to check focus and frequently project with worn-out light sources.
A blu ray disc viewed on a decent flat panel yields a far better image than you can see down at the majority of the megaplex theaters. For that and many other reasons, I believe we will see the elimination of theaters in the next few decades, which is a trend that is already visible in theater attendance numbers. We will view new films a la Netflix on good quality monitors in our living rooms, or maybe just on displays pulled out of our pockets.
Of course, the true revolution will be that motion pictures will no longer be an industry designed to sell overpriced popcorn. I never said that.
But what a sinuous and wonderfully tactile stuff film is! I vividly remember the first time I loaded a 35mm camera all by myself, and the ratcheting thrill of running short dailies straight from a lab core held in my hand into the bin while viewing it on the Moviola, a feat few can appreciate in these times. And driving to MGM Lab at 2:30 am with a can full of exposed film and a lab report, then back to pick it up at 6:00 am. Film even had/has a special smell. It was all so physical. You could hold your images right there in your hand, and look at them with nothing more than your eyes. That's the stuff to miss.
An interesting documentary on that URL from kaelaria. What they didn't note there was the whole film/digital fut started way back when the first crude monochrome video taps appeared on the set. Those things were a major threat to the power of the cameraman, who was no longer the sole arbiter of what the camera would see and how it would move. Those video taps allowed the director and the producer and the actors and whoever else was standing around to critique the camerawork not just in dailies but right there on the set, right after the take. Cinematographers hated those things from the get go, especially as they got better and could show color. Digital is perhaps the latest even in the role-threatening evolution. Not just camera framing but every aspect of lighting, focus, and everything about the image is now visible to all in real time while the shot is unfolding. It's all about power on the set, who has it, who must share it, blah blah blah. The good news is that the enthusiastic youngsters picking up the reins suffer much less from all this and are turning movie making on its head. Old Hollywood is gone forever, and I'm so grateful it lasted until my retirement.