With coronavirus cases rising in the country, major movie theater chains are closing their doors. Albeit, temporarily. In part, this is to help curb the spread, but the major reason being, film studios are pushing back their films and postponing it to further dates. If there are movies to show in the theatres, they might as well be closed.
Cineworld announced it'll be closing it's 663 theatres in both the USA and in the UK as well. Universal has announced the postponing of their new James Bond film "No Time To Die" to next year. The decision by Cineworld to close these theatres is going to see about 45,000 employees in the USA and in the UK affected.
Another studio which is also postponing a film is Warner Bros. They too are postponing their new, remade film "Dune" to October 1, 2021. This is almost a year away from it's intended release in December 2020.
John Fithian expressed his concerns saying "If the studios continue postponing all their releases, the movie theaters aren’t going to be there for those postponed releases." He further went on to say in the interview, "They have to consider whether they want the long-term viability of the theater platform to be available to them. And I think they do since about 80 percent of the movies that were scheduled during our closed period have been postponed for future theatrical release and not taken to the home."
Other big films set to release this year like, “Wonder Woman 1984,” from Warner Bros. has already delayed its release from October to Christmas Day. “Soul,” the latest from Disney’s Pixar animation studio, is scheduled for a Nov. 20 release. These movies however may also be postponed to next seeing as they will almost certainly do poorly in the box office as many people will be staying home and avoiding cinemas in a bid to not catch the coronavirus.
Lobbying efforts to save the movie theater business have been fierce. They called on lawmakers to help the industry with an additional loan and grant programs that could help sustain the theaters until the pandemic subsides. If this aid does not come, they estimate about 69% of the small and midsize movie theatres in the country would file for bankruptcy. “If one of two things doesn’t happen, either Congress gives us substantial support quickly or New York gets open and the movies come back and the patrons come back, most of our companies are going to go under,” Mr. Fithian said.
4 comments:
Insightful article Nana! It is quite interesting to observe the changes happening in the cinema industry due to the pandemic. It is very unfortunate to see those workers here in the U.S. and in the U.K. being let go of but at the same time, I think it was pretty inevitable given that attendance is very low and in many states and countries, it is completely prohibited for safety reasons of course. Many U.S. cinemas have tried implementing drive-in movie theaters and in some other states, they have reopened with limited capacity and social distancing and mask-wearing. While these are proactive steps that have been taken by the industry to let the public know that their goal is to show movies, with safety required over and above all, I don't think this will make people more willing to return. The industry will probably continue to suffer for a bit until the health crisis is handled.
I think that it has been a long know fact that cinemas and movie theaters were on their way out. People are beginning to prefer to watch movies in different ways, usually in the comfort of their own homes. There will definitely be a need for these employees to find work elsewhere, but I think this specifically hurts the unskilled workers employed by the theaters. They will be the ones that have a hard time finding work after they are inevitably laid off. I don't necessarily think it is the government's job to help these workers, but it would be great if there was a program like there is in Sweden that is able to match workers with jobs that need help.
its actually interesting because the US has seen a loss in the theater industry but the drive in industry has seen a resurgence thanks to Covid and from what it seems will steal away some customers from the movie theater. Covid may be a death sentences for movie theater but for drive in theaters it is second chance
Ultimately, I believe that demand is going to drop even more for movie theaters. People have access to movies now in the comfort of their own home on Netflix, Amazon, and more. Movie theater demand was dropping even before COVID, but this pandemic might just be the breaking point as they may not be able to make enough profit to keep the doors open. The employees definitely need to be rethinking their future work plans.
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