The Death of Moviegoing?

A Variety piece by Rebecca Rubin is already laying out the doom and gloom for the movie industry in 2021, at least for the first half of the year.

If you remember, Warner Bros. was demonized for announcing that all of its new movies in 2021 would debut simultaneously on HBO Max and “in theaters”. The venerable movie studio was receiving hate from theater operators, major studios and filmmakers, including Christopher Nolan and Denis Villenueve. All of them saying “What gives? Haven’t you heard? A vaccine is coming!” Well, they were wrong. Mass immunization from the vaccine will not be happening anytime soon, and Warner Brothers’s waving the flag on moviegoing for 2021 looks more realistic than ever before.

And yet, numerous films remain on the release calendar for early 2021, despite approximately 65% of U.S. theaters being closed. We’re basically back at square one with the virus, cases are at all-time highs and even the Cannes Film Festival seems to be looking to delay their late May unveiling.

Rubin has it going like this;

“To be sure, the majority of potential blockbusters have already been postponed to mid-summer or later. But there are a handful of films scheduled for the first quarter of the year: Sony’s “Cinderella” starring Camila Cabello (Feb. 5), Disney and 20th Century’s “The King’s Man” (March 12) and Jared Leto’s superhero thriller “Morbius” also from Sony (March 19), to name a few. These seem very unlikely to keep their theatrical release dates, at least without embracing some kind of hybrid digital or video-on-demand debut.”

“Disney and Marvel’s “Black Widow” (May 7), Warner Bros. and Legendary’s “Godzilla vs Kong” (May 21), Ryan Reynolds’ “Free Guy” from 20th Century Studios (May 21), Paramount’s “Infinite” starring Mark Wahlberg (May 28), Disney’s “Cruella” with Emma Stone (May 28) and Universal’s “F9” (May 28).

It’s quite simple. Either a) Paramount, Sony and other major studios delay release dates or b) sell their movies to platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. There isn’t another option at the moment for them. Another six months of non-monetized business could mean a death sentence for these studios.

Something has to give.