Things are looking pretty shaky again in the movie biz…
How shaky?
“I still don’t think the movie theaters are going to open up at the end of this month as planned the way the virus is going now,” says KCC movie maven Jack Poessiger. “If they have to open without California theaters and maybe New York, Florida and Texas, it doesn’t make sense financially.”
Somewhat obviously, Kansas City has a big stake via KC-based AMC Theatres.
The movie theater biz was already on uncertain ground with Netflix. Amazon Prime and pay-per-view services nipping at AMC’s heels before the dreaded coronavirus sidelined theaters in March.
However even with AMC and other exhibitors poised to reopen July 30th, some of the larger movie releases have been dialed back again and may not be available…indefinitely.
“I don’t think Disney is going to release Mulan which all the movie theaters have been banking on,” Poessiger adds. “The new Christopher Nolan movie Tenet just said it would delay its planned August release and may decide to open in Europe first or later in the fall. And everybody was looking forward to it as the start up movie, so it will be interesting to see if AMC delays its July 30th opening. I have a gut feeling that it may affect Mulan which is slated to open August 21.
“There are other movies, but those two were the big ones. I think they’ll move them again, but as to when they do open, depends on the virus. Originally Mulan was set to open March 27th.”
Why not just release them on pay-per-view like Universal has done?
“Well, a lot of other studios have gone that particular route too,” Poessiger says. “The new Tom Hanks movie Greyhound which cost around $40 million to make, sold to pay-per-view for like $70 million.”
Speaking off Universal Studios and the movie Greyhound…
When Universal first moved some of its new movies to pay-per-view, AMC and other exhibitors announced that they would no longer show Universal movies in AMC theaters.
Since then however, Sony released Greyhound – and other studios have opted not to wait for theaters to reopen and released movies to the small screens.
“Hey, AMC can’t boycott everyone,” Poessiger says.”And I keep hearing they’re smoking the peace pipe with Universal, but nothing has come out yet.”
So uh, stay tuned…
