By George Robbins
Much of the world is currently in a state of discord and unrest due to both the pandemic and numerous other issues that continue to plague countries all over. During these troubled times, businesses are still trying to thrive or at the very least, keep their heads above water. Among those is the movie industry which has been struggling ever since the pandemic started back in March of this year. The biggest issue they have been having as of late is the distribution and showing of new films due to theaters having been shut down. As time goes on, this is becoming a bigger and bigger issue because they lose money the longer they don’t show anything. That being said, many studios have still opted for delaying their films until they can have their proper theatrical releases.
When the U.S. began getting a large spike in new cases starting last month, states became even more weary of actually opening up public venues. With many public places reopening, the number of cases jumped tremendously and things had to either start being shut down again, or they would have to wait longer before they could reopen their doors. Not being able to open their doors back up again, many theaters are thus unavailable and this makes it pointless to really try and release new films. While many theaters are still going to be keeping their doors shut to the public for some time, AMC has decided that by about mid-August, they would open up as many theaters as they can domestically. Even though they are opening, the current social climate is too dangerous for studios to release any new films.
Among the studios that have been pushing back their releases as much as possible is Warner Bros. who have been trying to pick good release dates for their films ever since all of this started. One of those films that they have been trying their best to release has been one many people have had on their minds as of late due to its mysterious nature, ‘Tenet.’ The upcoming Christopher Nolan film is one that, like some of his other previous works, is mostly shrouded in mystery. Nolan is known for making interesting films that seem to bend the current reality that we all reside in and turns our heads upside down. We have no idea what the film is about and this secrecy is what has people hyped to see the movie, but unfortunately the release date has kept getting pushed back.
Eventually, after pushing back the theatrical release date for ‘Tenet’ multiple times, Warner Bros. decided to delay its release in the U.S. indefinitely until they know they can release it with no trouble. That being said, they will be instead releasing it internationally in 70 other countries and a few select cities in the states. They even managed to get approved for a release in China which was unexpected given the length of the movie. Movies that are shown in Chinese theaters can only be shown if they are under 120 minutes long, but ‘Tenet’ hits at 150 minutes so they weren’t sure if they could get into the market. They managed to do what they wanted and the film will get to show, but the U.S. will not see a full release for the film until they get better control of the virus situation.
By George Robbins
Despite the fact that we are still in the middle of a pandemic, companies are trying to figure out any ways they can to keep business going. During this time, the entertainment industry has been doing its best to try and keep up with what has been going on in the world. They have had no choice, until recently, but to delay working on anything simply because they couldn’t do anything at all without breaking rules. Now that guidelines have been, at the very least, put into place, the entertainment industry is doing its best to adapt to said guidelines in order to get back to work. This seems to have worked out relatively well for studio productions, but not so much for finished products.
Studios haven’t really been able to get their movies out into the public eye because theaters have mostly been shut down. If most of the theaters are closed and another wave of the virus is spreading, then they have absolutely no reason to put their films out. Putting films out now in such a volatile climate is spelling disaster for the box office returns that the movies would see. Instead, many studios have opted to take the longer route and wait for things to settle down before releasing the films when all theaters open up. Warner Bros. is even going so far as to indefinitely put a hold on their newest movie ‘Tenet’ in the U.S. and they will be releasing it internationally first. This just shows what companies are willing to do if they are insistent on getting their movies out in theaters.
Another option that some studios have opted for is the release of their films to digital VOD and they will forego any kind of theatrical release for those films. One of the biggest proponents of this is Universal who admitted when the pandemic began that they have been wanting to try this approach for years, but the pandemic gave them the perfect chance. They decided that releasing films straight to digital would end up working out better for them in the end and they made that known to everyone. Universal also said that they planned on concurrently releasing new movies on VOD and in theaters which theater company AMC took issue with.
Almost immediately after the announcement was made by Universal, AMC issued a response to that announcement by saying that they would no longer show any Universal films. Universal then issued a response correcting what they had said as it sounded more as though they completely preferred VOD releases over theatrical releases. A couple of months had gone by and there was no word from either company about the aforementioned statements, but recently an announcement was made. AMC will allow Universal to release their films digitally after a film has been in theaters for at least 17 days. This would drastically lower the amount of time that it would take for films to come out after they hit theaters, and now AMC is offering that option up to all other major studios.
By George Robbins
As we well know by now, the ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ movie has had its release date changed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and its second wave that hit the United States. Since a majority of films from Hollywood only play internationally after being shown domestically in the United States, many movies have had their dates moved. ‘Tenet‘ is an example of a film that simply won’t be available in the U.S. for awhile and may end up releasing internationally first until the U.S. gets its “stuff” together. Other films just ended up being pushed into some time next year so that studios can determine how well theaters will be doing by then. Studios will not put out their films until they know for sure that all, or most, theaters will be opened and capable of handling new releases.
One of the films that was unfortunately pushed back due to the coronavirus spike was ‘Godzilla vs. Kong.’ Monster movie fans, and more specifically MonsterVerse fans, have been looking forward to the titanic match-up of the century since the film was first announced. Almost immediately after the release of the 2014 iteration of ‘Godzilla,’ there was information that there would be more movies that would be a part of a MonsterVerse. This basically just means that all of these films take place in the same universe and that they might plan on keeping this going for awhile. The culmination of the films done thus far is meant to be ‘Godzilla vs. Kong,’ but that may still be a ways off at this point.
The film had its release date moved from November to May of 2021 in order to make sure that the film has a proper theatrical release. In doing so, they have extended the window in which new information about the movie could end up leaking to the outside world. Most recently, a possible leak ended up happening when the toys that correspond with the new movie were announced. Both the toys themselves and the boxes they come in supposedly leak new unheard-of information about what other monsters we could end up seeing in the movie. Many figured that it wouldn’t just be a fight between just the two monsters as there is really no reason for them to fight unless absolutely necessary. So what other foes could Godzilla, and maybe even Kong, end of facing in the film?
As of now the toy line has supposedly spoiled the fact that Mechagodzilla may be appearing in the film. Another monster is an original one that goes by the name of Nozuki and it is a mysterious serpent-like creature with orange and yellow bat-like wings. Similar to Nozuki is the monster by the name of Warbat which is kind of like a re-texture of Nozuki. The only one left after those other three titans is one by the name of Camazotz which is a large bat-like titan. It is unknown if all of these, and possibly more, will end up being in the movie after all but we can hope because that will make the film very interesting to watch.
By George Robbins
Christopher Nolan is a director who is known for the incredible cinematography seen in a lot of his different films. The thing about Nolan is that, while he thinks up movies that are considered wholly original, he can also make films based on things that are already established and they will turn out great. The ‘Dark Knight‘ trilogy was a set of films that no one expected to be as incredible as it was and they now set a standard for a good set of Batman films. When the first of the three films released, no one knew what it was really about other than it being an origin story for the caped crusader. What we ended up with wasn’t just an origin story, but also a whole film on its own that had woven the two stories together into the climax of the film.
‘Batman Begins‘ was the start of what we now know as ‘The Dark Knight’ trilogy that all takes place in the same universe. The title name of said trilogy is also the title of the second film in the trilogy and it just fits together extremely well with the character. In the first film we got to see the villainous Scarecrow who is an old villain in the Batman universe who we had never seen on screen before. Sharing his spotlight as a villain in movie was another character we haven’t seen on the big screen before which is Ra’s al Ghul who trained the Dark Knight in the first place. In the movie, these characters are given sufficient backstory that makes you understand them all a bit more. In the next two films we see the same things happen to other villains such as Two-Face (Harvey Dent), Bain, and Talia al Ghul, the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul.
The aforementioned characters were all given a spotlight in their respective films and they were given sufficient backstory to make people understand their motivations. One villain that was introduced in the second film, ‘The Dark Knight,’ who has actually appeared in a film before was The Joker. He easily stole the show in the film and set up the events of everything that would happen, including the “creation” of the character Two-Face. What sets him apart from other characters in the film is the fact that his backstory that he tells people constantly changes and he appears to have no clear motivation for some endgame result. This is very much in-line with the comic book character as he has never had a reliable backstory for people to fall back on, making him even more mysterious in the eyes of the reader, or viewer in this case.
All throughout ‘The Dark Knight,’ The Joker is just trying to create as much chaos as possible in the city in order to entertain himself. As already stated, The Joker gives multiple characters differing stories about how he ended up being the way that he is, but none of those stories are credible. His backstory is meant to be ambiguous in order to make him more menacing and dangerous, and if he did have a proper backstory, then the portrayal of him in the film just wouldn’t be as strong as it is. Warner Bros., in the form of slight studio interference, wanted to include a backstory for him as revealed by ‘Dark Knight’ co-writer David S. Goyer during Comic-Con @ Home. Warner eventually gave up when the writers pushed out the idea that maybe he doesn’t need to have an origin story. Thus we ended up with what is now considered one of, if not, the best portrayal(s) of the character to grace the big screen.
By George Robbins
The Star Wars franchise has a lot of media and merchandise in its pockets due to the many years that it has developed good faith with consumers. Since the inception of the original ‘Star Wars‘ trilogy there have been generations of fans that have fallen in love with certain aspects of the universe. The Star Wars universe is one that has so much lore involved with it that there is something for almost everyone when it comes to drawing people in to try and get them invested in some way. While the main stories of the franchise are what draw in the most people, there are plenty of people that want nothing more but to read or see things from side stories. Thus, the expanded universe for Star Wars became a thing officially to get more people interested in the franchise.
Other than the main line movies that often draw the most attention, there is also the side stories and the biggest attraction for fans outside of the main movies, the TV shows. The television shows for the Star Wars franchise are highly regarded by the community and they also give some insight into things that many may not have picked up on in the main movies. One such show was ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars‘ which wasn’t really elaborated on in the movies, but it is a very important period of time between the second and third movies of the Prequel Trilogy. It is also regarded as one of the best pieces of content to come out of the franchise as a whole. This showed that some of the best content for the series could actually be from the side stories and not so much the main story.
One of the biggest side projects that succeeded as of late in the Star Wars universe is ‘The Mandalorian‘ which takes place after the end of the original trilogy. It is yet another side story, but it is one that has attracted a lot of attention and is doing fairly well, but not every side story is bound to do as well. Disney planned on releasing side story films in between each of the sequel trilogy movies that told unique stories around popular moments or people in the franchise. The second film they ever made for this purpose, ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story,’ told the history of one of the series’ most famous characters, Han Solo. Other than to sell tickets, the movie was made as a prequel to when Han joined up with Luke and Leia in the original trilogy. It also served as a way for people to learn more about how he ended up the way he is.
Unfortunately, the movie was mostly seen as a failure because it wasn’t really well received at the time of release and it didn’t do so well at the box office. This resulted in Disney scrapping their original plans to make more of these side story films from that point on, which eventually led to the creation of ‘The Mandalorian.’ Since ‘Solo’s’ initial release it has become much more popular with many hoping that they will get to see a continuation of the story from the cliffhanger they put in at the end of the film. Director Ron Howard just recently confirmed that there is absolutely no sequel in the works for the film, so it doesn’t really seem like these hopes will come to fruition. That being said, it seems that there may be more side stories on the horizon, but we will have to wait and see.
By George Robbins
As of late, movie releases are becoming something of an issue due to the newest surge in coronavirus cases and it is affecting the industry as a whole. Movie theaters have been reluctant to open their doors to the general public because they have nothing new to show people so they know they won’t get nearly as many customers as they hope for. This gives a pretty good incentive for them to keep their doors closed to the public because they will not really make any money if they open up. If they do open up, they have an entirely new series of rules in place in order to prevent further spread of the disease. One such rule being that there is a limited capacity rule in place which results in less seats being sold out.
Theaters have had no choice but to remain closed because of the lack of new movies and movies haven’t released because theaters have had their doors shut. This cycle isn’t helpful to anybody, but it is one that has been forced to happen due to the virus and the rate that it spreads. This somewhat broke the cycle because it straight up meant that they would have nothing to show. This would appear to be an issue moving forward, but it seems AMC doesn’t really care and they are going to reopen some time in mid-August. This is an issue because of the aforementioned reason that they will have nothing to show.
The other method of movie release is the immediate release of movies via a digital platform. Any movie that was supposed to have released already has pretty much had its release date moved to a later date, but there are some that have been released in the same above mentioned platform of a digital release. This has brought a lot to light as studios are only really willing to release films straight to digital that they weren’t really expecting much out of if they released in theaters. That being said, some movies might just benefit better from releasing on digital than waiting for a theatrical release. One of those movies that people have been hoping would just release straight to Disney+ already is ‘New Mutants.’
‘New Mutants’ is the last film that was being worked on by 20th Century Fox before the studio was acquired by Disney. The issue with that was the obvious fact that the two universes they were trying to establish separately clashed head-on and we were left having to wait for the film due to reshoots. After they finally had a finished product of the film, the pandemic hit and they had to push the release from April to August and even this does not seem likely at this point. So then why won’t they just release the movie to digital, because it is unlikely they will get the returns that they want from it. The answer to this is that there is a contractual obligation involved with the creation of the movie. Director Josh Boone revealed recently that they MUST show the movie in theaters before they are allowed to launch it on a streaming service. It may be a while before we get to see the film.
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