The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on the film industry, mirroring its impacts across all art and sectors. Across the world and to varying degrees, cinemas and movie theaters have been closed, festivals have been cancelled or postponed, and film releases have been moved to future dates or delayed indefinitely. As cinemas and movie theaters closed, the global box office dropped by billions of dollars, streaming became more popular, and the stock of film exhbitors dropped dramatically. Many blockbusters originally scheduled to be released between March and November were postponed or canceled around the world, with film productions also being put on a halt.
The Chinese film industry had lost US$2 billion by March 2020, having closed all its cinemas during the Lunar New Year period that sustains the industry across Asia. North America saw its lowest box office weekend since 1998 between March 13–15.
BOX OFFICE:
In early March 2020, it was predicted that the global box office could lose US$5 billion as a result of the pandemic.
Countries that are pandemic hot-spots have closed or restricted cinemas and movie theaters, negatively affecting film revenue. Attendance has also been lower in other regions. Following the pandemic in mainland China, 70,000 cinemas were closed in January 2020. In the first two months of 2020, China’s box office was down to US$3.9 million, compared to US$2.148 billion in the first two months of 2019. Later, as a result of the pandemic in Italy, on March 8, 2020, the Italian government ordered all cinemas to be closed, for up to a month. Before the closure, box office tracking estimated a 94% drop for the weekend of March 6–8 compared to the same period the previous year. Because of the growing pandemic in France, cinemas are operating at half capacity, leaving strategic seats unavailable to reduce proximity in the screens, a move followed days later by the Irish and Northern Irish cinema chain Omniplex Cinemas. On March 12, Qatar also closed all cinemas, as did the US on March 17, Malaysia and Thailand on March 18, the UK on March 20, Australia, and New Zealand on March 22, and Singapore on March 27. After a state of emergency was declared in Tokyo and six other prefectures in Japan on April 7, over 220 cinemas were closed.
Percentage box office losses (outside of mainland China) for January to March 3, 2020, are 70–75% in Italy, 60% in South Korea, 35% in Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Singapore, and 30% in Taiwan. The Los Angeles box office, a key movie market, and local economic backbone were projected to fall by 20% in April 2020 compared to its 2019 figures, based on the state of emergency declared in the county at the start of March 2020. Despite the state of emergency, as single screens within movie theaters do not hold more than 1,000 people, they were granted an exemption from the ban on mass public gatherings in California. A National Association of Theatre Owners representative for California and Nevada announced that theaters would stay open; historically, movie theaters have remained open during other similar emergencies. However, a survey of Americans over the opening March weekend showed support for closing movie theaters. On March 15, Deadline reported that over 100 movie theaters in the US had closed, some due to local rulings and others because of an inability to keep them open with no demand, on March 17, with national restrictions to social gatherings, cinemas across the United States closed. However, drive-in theaters, where customers stay in their own cars, were not closed, and quickly grew in popularity again.
The opening March weekend saw a dramatically lower box office than the same weekend in 2019. The 2019 opening March weekend saw the release of Captain Marvel, which alone earned over US$153 million domestically that weekend, compared to the 2020 weekend’s biggest film, Onward, with around US$39 million. The next weekend saw the lowest total US box office intake since the October 30–November 1, 1998 weekend, with lower percentage drops than the weekend after 9/11, at US$55.3 million. Onward itself saw the biggest weekend-to-weekend drop of any Pixar film, making $10.5 million, though was still the weekend’s biggest film and the only one to make over $10 million. On March 19, Walt Disney Studios and Universal Pictures announced that they would no longer report box office figures. Comscore therefore announced the next day that it would indefinitely suspend its reporting of box office estimates and charts.
On March 26, after local transmission of the virus had dropped to 0% in China, movie theaters there began to re-open, with reports that 250–500 theaters were opening, but the next day authorities again closed all movie theaters in the country.
Films
Theatrical releases:
On January 22, the Chinese blockbuster Lost in Russia canceled its theatrical release and was sent to streaming platforms. It was made available to watch for free, a move said to encourage people to watch it and stay home. The next day, all theaters in China were closed. On January 31, Enter the Fat Dragon also premiered online. Lost in Russia was streamed by 180 million accounts in the first three days after its release; China’s highest-grossing film (and the highest-grossing non-English film ever) was 2017’s Wolf Warrior 2, which had sold a total of 159 million tickets worldwide. At the beginning of February, American films set to premiere in China over February, and March was officially canceled. Chinese media companies began making more films free online through January. Asian markets also saw Chinese and Hong Kong film distributors cancel exports over the Lunar New Year holiday, including for the films Vanguard, Detective Chinatown 3, The Rescue, and Legend of Deification; Taiwanese film Do You Love Me As I Love You had its Asian release moved to April. Cinemas in Asian countries without public restrictions have been increasing hygiene measures, with the spokesperson for one chain saying that they added more hand sanitizer dispensers, performed temperature checks on staff and moviegoers, cleaned facilities more frequently, and displayed public health warnings on the movie screens. The Lunar New Year holiday is a large market for film releases across Asia but was stunted in 2020 as the outbreak began rapidly spreading over this period.
At the start of March, the James Bond film No Time to Die, which was scheduled to premiere in March 2020 and to wide release in April 2020, was postponed to November. No Time to Die was the first film to change its planned release outside of China because of the coronavirus outbreak and has opened discussions of dramatic implications on the film economy: many other productions had avoided scheduling releases at the same time as the 25th Bond film, and its new November date is in the busy holiday release period, leading to low box office intake in March/April and uncertain intake in November. However, the postponement could reportedly generate more publicity for the film and is also taking the familiar November release slot of the last two Bond films. It has also been suggested that other high-profile films will follow and postpone releases, creating a similar effect. Several other films soon followed in postponing their releases worldwide: the heavily-promoted Polish slasher film W Leslie dziś nie zaśnie nikt (Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight) was postponed from March 13 to some point in the future when the situation had settled, and the political documentary Slay the Dragon had its theatrical release moved from March 13 to April 3.
Peter Rabbit 2 was initially scheduled to be released in the UK and the US in late March and early April respectively, but due to uncertainty over the outbreak, the film was postponed to early August. Sony Pictures, the film’s production company, said that the changes internationally were because of coronavirus fears, with the US release moved in sync over worries of pirate copies and because the rival children’s film DreamWorks/Universal’s Trolls World Tour had moved its release date earlier, to the same weekend Peter Rabbit 2 was initially planned to release on. Trolls World Tour’s forward rescheduling takes it to what would have been No Time to Die’s weekend (both are distributed by Universal) and leaves it as the biggest film in April.
Other major films have postponed releases in certain countries. The Disney/Pixar film Onward, released on the opening March weekend, was not opened in the areas most affected by the coronavirus outbreak; while cinemas were closed in China, it also chose not to open in South Korea, Italy or Japan. Other March 2020 releases A Quiet Place Part II and Mulan postponed their releases in affected areas, too. This prompted worry that, should March film openings underperform, blockbusters set for release in May (specifically Disney/Marvel’s Black Widow and Universal’s F9) would move their dates later in the calendar. Mulan not opening in China, where it aimed to make most of its money, was particularly concerning, especially with the possibility that pirate copies will appear and prevent Chinese people from going to see it in cinemas when it is released. Comparatively, A Quiet Place Part II had not anticipated a large Chinese draw, as the box office for the first A Quiet Place in the country was only 10% of its total.
On March 12, 2020, it was announced that the global release of A Quiet Place Part II would be delayed, based on widespread advice and policies against large gatherings. On the same day, the release of Indian film Sooryavanshi, which was initially scheduled to release on March 24, was postponed indefinitely, and the release of F9 was pushed to April 2, 2021. Mulan‘s March 12 London premiere went ahead without a red carpet, and on March 13 it was announced that the film’s wide release will be postponed; Disney also postponed the releases of Antlers and The New Mutants, but not Black Widow. This is speculated to be because the other films are standalone while moving Black Widow – the first film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Four – would affect the development and distribution of the future Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Marvel Disney+ works, with Disney holding off on an early postponement announcement until March 17, when they postponed Black Widow and their other May releases, The Personal History of David Copperfield and The Woman in the Window. Though it had earlier been speculated that Black Widow would be able to take Marvel’s November release date planned for The Eternals, it was not initially given a new date.
Warner Bros. followed Disney by announcing the postponement of the rest of their upcoming catalog on March 24; Wonder Woman 1984 was pushed to August 14, 2020, with Scoob!, In the Heights, and Malignant being delayed indefinitely. Prior to this, on March 19, Universal and Illumination announced that Minions: The Rise of Gru had been pulled from its intended release date of July 3, 2020, not only due to the pandemic but also due to the temporary closing of its French Illumination Mac Guff animation studio in response to the pandemic, which would leave the film’s animation to be unfinished on its original date. On April 1, 2020, the film was rescheduled for July 2, 2021, a year after its original date.
Early home media releases
The 2019 film Frozen II was originally planned to be released on Disney+ on June 26, 2020, before it was moved up to March 15. Disney CEO Bob Chapek explained that this was because of the film’s “powerful themes of perseverance and the importance of family, messages that are incredibly relevant”. On March 16, 2020, Universal announced that The Invisible Man, The Hunt, Emma – all films in theaters at the time – would be available on-demand as early as March 20 at a suggested price of US$19.99 each. After suffering poor box office since its release at the start of March, Onward was made available to purchase digitally on March 21 and was added to Disney+ on April 3. Paramount announced on March 20, Sonic the Hedgehog is also planning to have an early release to video on demand, on March 31. On March 16, Warner Bros. announced that Birds of Prey would be released early to video on demand on March 24. On April 3, Disney announced that Artemis Fowl, a film adaptation of the 2001 book of the same name, would move straight to Disney+ on June 12, skipping a theatrical release entirely. Trolls World Tour was released directly to video-on-demand rental upon its release on April 10, with limited theatrical screenings in the U.S. via drive-in cinemas. NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell told The Wall Street Journal on April 28 that the film had reached $100 million in revenue, and stated that the company had not ruled out performing releases “in both formats” as cinemas reopen.
Chinese regulators, as well as the U.S. National Association of Theatre Owners, have highly discouraged film distributors from engaging in this practice, in defense of the cinema industry. On April 28, in response to Shell’s comments, U.S. chain AMC Theatres announced that it would cease the screening of Universal Pictures films effective immediately, and threatened similar actions against any other exhibitor who “unilaterally abandons current windowing practices absent good faith negotiations between us”.
Blackcoffer Insights 18: Harsh Arya, Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College Ghaziabad
