Patty Jenkins was the canary in the coal mine, and now she wants out.
The “Wonder Woman 1984” director said last week that while releasing her blockbuster sequel in both theaters and on streaming over last year’s Christmas holiday was a necessary business move, she hopes she can “avoid it forever” going forward.
“(It was the) best choice in a bunch of bad choices at the moment,” Jenkins said at last week’s CinemaCon convention, the Wrap reports. “WW84” was the first major film to hit theaters and HBO Max concurrently, part of an industry-shaking deal to bring Warner Bros. entire theatrical slate for 2021 to theaters and the streaming platform on the same day, a strategy known as “day and date.”
“For me, I was looking at what turned out to be true, which is that we had no idea when this pandemic was going to get under control, and the film had been finished for a while so it was one of those overdue films,” Jenkins said. “It was hugely detrimental to the movie but I was thinking, ‘What else are we going to do, wait two or three more years?’”
Jenkins’ comments are reflective of an industry that is still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and now faces an uncertain fall season and beyond.
Earlier in August, Warner Bros. announced it wouldn’t go forward with day and date in 2022, and struck a new deal with cinema chain AMC to bring its films to theaters for an exclusive 45-day window. But with the delta variant still surging across the U.S. and mask mandates returning to some states, are theaters the best option? And after training audiences on the streaming model, will they ever return to theaters in the same numbers they did pre-pandemic?
It’s a multi-tiered problem that is occurring across all facets of the entertainment industry.
The concert biz is currently being hammered as touring bands are getting hit with COVID issues left and right. Kings of Leon had to reshuffle a handful of dates as a member of the band’s team contracted COVID, Kid Rock had to cancel a weekend show after “over half (his) band” was hit with COVID, Garth Brooks sacked his tour out of public safety concerns, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to an industry that is trying to figure out how to conduct business in the midst of an ongoing pandemic.
Venues, promoters and artists are enforcing vaccination mandates for fans attending shows, and some artists are going even further, with Harry Styles requiring all fans to wear masks at his upcoming concerts. The message is clear: play ball with the new rules, or stay home.
The movie business faces a different set of problems, with box office numbers still suffering as fans are either hesitant to return to theaters or are enjoying content from the comfort of their homes.
Either way, after hitting their dates for most of the summer, big movies are starting to play the shell game with their releases once again, as anticipated blockbusters such as “Venom 2” and “Eternals” are rumored to be shifting from fall to later down the line, after the underperformance of recent films such as “The Suicide Squad” has studios wondering the viability of releasing films in a depleted marketplace. September’s anticipated release of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” was shelved altogether. (For what it’s worth, the James Bond adventure “No Time to Die,” originally slated for April 2020, is still due out in October, and the “Top Gun” sequel is still expected in November.)
Jenkins, for her part, was never all the way in on the streaming/ theatrical model; at the time she called it “a solution,” but never the solution. “When we looked at all the options of what we could do with the film, there weren’t any good options,” Jenkins told The Detroit News ahead of “WW84’s” release in December. “It’s going to be an interesting Wild West, but what’s new? It’s like the Wild West with everything right now.”
For a while, it looked like we were on our way out of the Wild West, but now it’s looking just as wild as it has ever been. Hold on tight, the ride is just beginning.
"movie" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 08:00AM
https://ift.tt/3DvSUeA
Movie, concert industries still struggling to cope with COVID realities - Standard Speaker
"movie" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35pMQUg
https://ift.tt/3fb7bBl
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Movie, concert industries still struggling to cope with COVID realities - Standard Speaker"
Post a Comment