Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

A subforum to discuss film culture and criticism.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Adam X
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:04 am

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#151 Post by Adam X » Tue Mar 31, 2020 7:10 am

Diabolik DVD wrote:We have just found out that our UK distributor has closed due to the Covid-19 situation, which unfortunately means we will not have stock on any new or upcoming UK titles until they begin shipping again which includes the new Indicator releases and the upcoming Phase IV blu-ray among others. We aren't sure how long this will be in effect but it is for the safety and well-being of their employees, which is not to be taken lightly.
Thanks ! Stay safe and healthy
XX00
EDIT - This only applies to titles coming to us from our UK distributor (not 88 though who ships to us directly).


User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#153 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:56 pm

This newsletter just hit my in box from Criterion/Janus. When you receive the NL there is a donate button at the bottom if you so wish ti donate...
Dear Criterion Community,

There are more than 150 independent local art-house cinemas all across the country that are on the brink. Closed to slow the spread of COVID-19, cut off from ticket revenue and relying on gift certificate sales and online rentals, these nonprofits and small businesses have already had to cut their budgets to the bone. Without immediate assistance, many are just going to run out of money before substantial government aid kicks in. We can't let the few theaters that still play foreign, classic, art-house, and independent films die off as a result of this crisis.

On Monday evening, Janus Films and the Criterion Collection contributed $25,000 each to establish the Art-House America Campaign, a fund to offer immediate assistance paying essential bills and key non-executive staff salaries. Most theaters will benefit from grants of $2,500 or more.

We’re off to a good start, with more than 500 small donors having already contributed an additional $35,000—but there are hundreds of theaters in need, so the campaign can use all the help you can offer. Even a small gift could enable a theater to extend employment for a projectionist or a programmer, or pay critical bills. Please give what you can, and please leave a comment to inspire others to understand how essential these theaters are to our culture. No one knows better than the Criterion community why movies matter.

Please help independent cinemas survive!

Peter Becker, Jonathan Turell
& the Criterion and Janus teams

User avatar
Murdoch
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:59 pm
Location: Upstate NY

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#154 Post by Murdoch » Wed Apr 01, 2020 11:47 pm

I don't subscribe to the newsletter so thanks for posting this here. I donated a small sum. Hopefully they exceed their goal and can give some kind of relief to help arthouses wade through the storm.

User avatar
Adam X
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:04 am

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#155 Post by Adam X » Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:12 am

Sam Neill's started posting short films, well more like sketches...
Das Leek with Steven Weber.
Tomorrow promises Das Bad with Hugo Weaving.

Nasir007
Joined: Sat May 25, 2019 11:58 am

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#156 Post by Nasir007 » Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:54 am

https://www.thewrap.com/amcs-credit-rat ... -unlikely/

My hot take - Theatrical will never truly recover from coronavirus. This is a devastating blow that has irretrievably tipped the scales in favor of streaming. Theatrical will survive but as a niche or specialty offering. Streaming will become the de facto movie watching mechanism if it isn't already. The winds were blowing in this direction so shouldn't be a surprise but this pandemic has hastened the demise of theatrical as the desired way to watch movies.

User avatar
Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#157 Post by Brian C » Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:17 pm

Possible! But also easy to imagine the opposite, that after an extended period of isolation and lockdown, people come to appreciate communal experiences like the cinema more than they did before.

User avatar
Big Ben
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
Location: Great Falls, Montana

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#158 Post by Big Ben » Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:26 pm

There was a poll a day or two from a film news site several days ago were people seemed fairly interested in returning to theaters once they felt things were safe again. There's no reason in my mind to think people will not return after a brief lull period once COVID leaves us. The world will be changed, sure, but I think it's too early to predict that studios will forgo billions in profits from the theatrical experience just yet.

User avatar
Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#159 Post by Brian C » Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:41 pm

A lot probably depends on how long this lasts and how bad it gets. Some estimates of the eventual death toll in the US are over a million, and if something like that comes to pass, I think people will be kind of traumatized and likely be slow to return to public spaces in general and large gatherings in particular. That could have profound long term effects in all kinds of industries.

But if we’re more or less successful in flattening the curve, death tolls are (relatively) low, the nation extends from this more bored than traumatized, then I think that’s a different story. So I think it just depends.

That said, the movie industry depends so much on international revenues these days, and obviously the impact of this virus is going to be dramatically more severe in some places than others. So who knows how that will affect the industry down the road, both for theatrical and streaming.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#160 Post by knives » Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:45 pm

My understanding is that the millions of domestic deaths scenario was in a worst case in which we did not increase production on ventilators and did not do social distancing. That number is increasingly improbable (though still possible).

User avatar
movielocke
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#161 Post by movielocke » Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:40 pm

Cineastes often think that going to a movie is about seeing a specific film because the _specific_ film is what motivates them to go to the theatre. But this niche rationalization does not extrapolate to the broader populations reasons for seeing adilm.

For most people going out to see a movie is primarily driven by desire to socialize not by the film itself: it’s about dating, family events, friend groups, getting out of the house etc.

The other components of seasonality or the artificial scarcity etc (created by theatrical windows), are significant and are certainly affected and may be permanently affected by the corona virus, but they are downstream of the social aspects driving group behavior.

I think sports and movies and theme parks and other social things will bounce back

Libraries and other public services will probably be permanently destroyed by this though, since most of their funding comes from sales tax revenue, idiotic balanced budget constitutional mandates are going to force states to eradicate most of the public sector within the next year to account for this year’s massive contraction.

Republicans will rejoice at the millions of public workers being unemployed and the hundreds of millions of the populace no longer served by any functional local or state government.

User avatar
aox
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:02 pm
Location: nYc

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#162 Post by aox » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:01 pm

movielocke wrote:
Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:40 pm
Libraries and other public services will probably be permanently destroyed by this though, since most of their funding comes from sales tax revenue, idiotic balanced budget constitutional mandates are going to force states to eradicate most of the public sector within the next year to account for this year’s massive contraction.

Republicans will rejoice at the millions of public workers being unemployed and the hundreds of millions of the populace no longer served by any functional local or state government.
You're probably right, but that is utterly depressing. I was hoping more optimistically for an FDR pt. 2 era and the semi-nationalization of various industries for the common good. The thought being that this is the first real jolt to the global populace since the 1930s/40s where people are reminded that we are all in this together and Reagan-esque materialism and individualism (should) has its limits.

User avatar
movielocke
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am

Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#163 Post by movielocke » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:22 pm

aox wrote:
movielocke wrote:
Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:40 pm
Libraries and other public services will probably be permanently destroyed by this though, since most of their funding comes from sales tax revenue, idiotic balanced budget constitutional mandates are going to force states to eradicate most of the public sector within the next year to account for this year’s massive contraction.

Republicans will rejoice at the millions of public workers being unemployed and the hundreds of millions of the populace no longer served by any functional local or state government.
You're probably right, but that is utterly depressing. I was hoping more optimistically for an FDR pt. 2 era and the semi-nationalization of various industries for the common good. The thought being that this is the first real jolt to the global populace since the 1930s/40s where people are reminded that we are all in this together and Reagan-esque materialism and individualism (should) has its limits.
Not with the senate as currently constituted, trump as president and severe polarization in place, we are more likely to have the proven failures of gilded age era type of responses to economic collapse to this crisis than utilizing Proven successful responses like the FDR era response. Ideology—not facts—will triumph in the end.
Last edited by movielocke on Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#164 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:50 pm

This all just feels like the final act of an Adam Curtis documentary.

Nasir007
Joined: Sat May 25, 2019 11:58 am

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#165 Post by Nasir007 » Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:34 pm

Will this discussion be moved to a politics thread?

User avatar
headacheboy
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:57 pm

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#166 Post by headacheboy » Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:26 pm

Just discovered this from Robyn Hitchcock's Patreon page:

Finally, please send some love and warm wishes to Matthew Seligman, who is currently in hospital in London suffering from the Coronavirus. Matthew’s bass lines from Underwater Moonlight and some of my solo work have been joyfully learned and played by subsequent bassists over the decades. Get well soon, dear Matthew - much love from us all.

As you may or may not know Seligman was in The Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock's first tremendous band. He's been in far more bands than just that. Check out his wikipedia page for more insight.


User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#168 Post by domino harvey » Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:22 pm

Wow, the bad buzz on Branagh’s film must have been right. Can’t believe they’re dumping the film and giving up on any franchise possibilities— this is the first tentpole release to go straight to digital in all this, isn’t it?

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#169 Post by Ribs » Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:24 pm

Don’t think Tentpole is quite the right word to describe a movie that’s been punted down the release calendar several times and was being dumped in August anyway

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#170 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:40 pm

Marianne Faithfull hospitalised with coronavirus, she's reportedly ‘stable and responding to treatment.’

User avatar
captveg
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:28 pm

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#171 Post by captveg » Tue Apr 07, 2020 3:32 am

Ribs wrote:
Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:24 pm
Don’t think Tentpole is quite the right word to describe a movie that’s been punted down the release calendar several times and was being dumped in August anyway
It wasn't a tentpole (especially by Disney standards), but it's scheduled release was May 29, not August. (It's initial release date was August 9. 2019).

felipe
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 11:06 pm

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#172 Post by felipe » Tue Apr 07, 2020 3:57 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:22 pm
Wow, the bad buzz on Branagh’s film must have been right. Can’t believe they’re dumping the film and giving up on any franchise possibilities— this is the first tentpole release to go straight to digital in all this, isn’t it?
What about Trolls 2?

User avatar
captveg
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:28 pm

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#173 Post by captveg » Thu Apr 16, 2020 6:51 pm

A couple articles I found interesting.

First, how movie theaters may phase in their reopening, with Tenet in mid-July the current target to be the first wide new release after several weeks of classic film reissues.

Second, how productions may be significantly different when they restart, ideally sometime between July and September.

User avatar
Never Cursed
Such is life on board the Redoutable
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:22 am

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#174 Post by Never Cursed » Fri Apr 17, 2020 1:59 pm


User avatar
Reverend Drewcifer
Joined: Sat Mar 09, 2013 5:16 pm
Location: Cincinnati

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#175 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:04 pm

Never Cursed wrote:
Fri Apr 17, 2020 1:59 pm
June 12
I'm washing my hair.

Post Reply