Digital projection systems are paid for by the theater owners, not the distributor. Then it becomes a chicken-and-egg problem.
Theaters won't install the expensive systems if there's no content to show on them, and the actual demand from filmgoers is still an unknown (i.e. does the improved quality and increase in available screens bring in more box office revenue?)
Filmmakers won't go through the trouble of digitizing and sending out the films digitally if there are no theaters to show it.
Yeah but sending digital data is so fucking cheap that they'd digitize it for maybe the first 100 screens in the country, right?
It may be a wise investment for distributors to just buy the damn digital projectors for the theaters. It's expensive but they'll amortize the distribution costs over time.
