From a new report via financial analyst Doug Creutz (THR),
“With the spread of COVID-19 having accelerated in the U.S., we expect a prolonged impact,” the analyst wrote. “We had previously assumed that the spread of COVID-19 would be relatively halted, with social distancing requirements significantly lessened by late 2020. We have now extended that timeline out to at least mid-2021; the situation remains very fluid, and we do not rule out the possibility that the impact could last even longer.”
“We now expect domestic theaters to be largely closed until mid-2021, in part because we don’t think studios will be interested in releasing their largest movies into a capacity-constrained footprint,” Cruetz wrote.
Uhhh, if theaters stay closed until mid-2021, then you can kiss movie chains such as AMC goodbye. The industry as a whole is already in massive debt. At some point, studios are going to seriously need to consider a way to make money without relying on box office earnings. We are headed towards every awards contender being screened this fall.
Earlier in the week, we had California Governor Gavin Newsom announcing the re-closures of all Restaurants, Bar, Churches, Movie Theaters etc. This, in addition to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s strict lockdown policies, has basically rendered moviegoing an obsolete outing for the foreseeable future. Without New York City and Los Angeles, you don’t really have a movie industry and until these governors decided otherwise then Creutz’s predictions will most likely, inevitably, become a reality.