Dont Tell NetflixDont Tell Netflix

By George Robbins

Movie theaters really are having the worst time right now due to the lack of new movie releases ever since restrictions have been lifted enough for theaters to reopen. Many places have started allowing theaters to reopen their doors with restrictions that limit the overall number of people that can occupy a theater at once. This stacked on top of the lack of new film releases kind of ruins any kind of incentive for people to go to the movies other than leaving the house. Even that isn’t that much of an incentive because there are other activities available to people now than going out to see old movies that they can pay just as much to rent at home. With this in mind, it is no wonder that most theaters only want to really reopen around the time there will be new releases.

Among the movie theater chains there is no guarantee nowadays as to when they can open up their locations since it seems trouble keeps brewing on the horizon. AMC was meant to reopen their theaters in the middle of July, but they have since announced that they will be pushing back the reopening date by at least two weeks. Given the fact that new films such as ‘Tenet’ and ‘Mulan’ have been pushed back due to the surge in new virus cases, they have had no reason to open up at this point in time. The moment that at least one new film becomes available for theaters to show, there will be enough incentive for theaters to properly open up. This is why it appears as though theater reopenings are chasing after film release dates.

Reportedly, studios are starting to worry over whether it is even a good idea to release movies over the course of these next two months. There are films such as ‘No Time to Die‘ that were meant to release back in April that have had their release dates pushed very far back to the last couple of months during the year. This seems to have been the better bet as the number of cases is now increasing once again which makes it kind of difficult for companies to stay open. If there is a high risk that movie theaters are just going to end up shutting down as soon as they open, then there is no point in releasing films because it wastes time and money and could ruin the overall release of a film. This is becoming more and more apparent to movie studios that know that these coming months are going to be full of tough decisions.

The danger has become so clear that even movies scheduled for September or later like ‘The Conjuring 3‘ are going to have a rough go of things. There is no telling if even those films will keep their release dates because the entire industry is in a sort of panicked state where no one really knows what is going on right now. This has caused companies like Warner and Disney to re-think their delay plans and they may just end up delaying their film releases again to September. At this point, the industry is working to figure things out on a day-to-day basis because that is the basis that people are watching the spread of the virus on. It is still very dangerous out in public and it seems like they are acknowledging that to some degree by re-thinking their release dates.