By George Robbins
As of now, it is difficult for anyone to know what will happen over the course of the next few months with almost every form of industry. There are still a lot of restrictions in place for a number of different businesses, but we should be expecting more restrictions to be put back into place. With a surge in new coronavirus cases, many places all over the nation have had no choice but to shut down. On top of many businesses having to shut down again so soon after opening back up again, many production companies have pushed back theatrical releases. This has also created ripples throughout the movie theater industry and made it difficult for them to continue business.
Movies have had it rough these past few months and it doesn’t seem like it will be getting better any time soon. Most films that were meant to release from March through the summer have been delayed to either the end of summer or some time late this year. Even films that were meant to release late this year like ‘Godzilla vs Kong’ have been delayed until some time next year. This has become a common theme as time goes on and it seems like it will continue to happen as the next couple of months go on. There may just be no stop to the delays and theaters are suffering because of it.
Movie theaters have mostly been shut down since mid-March with many theaters belonging to chains staying shut the longest. One of the biggest issues is that theaters are national and unless they all open up, they really won’t get any new movies or business in general. Theaters that have been open have had to show older movies in an effort to try and draw in as many people as they can. This is also difficult as they have to restrict the overall number of occupants to maintain the social distancing policy. They have had almost no choice when it comes to delaying their reopenings like AMC, which had to push their reopening by two weeks, so that they can chase new movie releases.
There is no guarantee that movies will keep their release dates in the coming months due to the spike in cases. As stated, even movies with late release dates this year will probably be pushed into next year. Among those movies that could end up pushed to 2021 is ‘The Conjuring 3’ which will follow the same Ed and Lorraine Warren from the previous two movies. This time they will be involved in a murder case with the same motif as the subtitle of the film, “the Devil made me do it.” As of now it is meant to have a September release, but like many of their films right now, Warner is nervous about this release date and could end up significantly delaying it until some time in 2021.
By George Robbins
Disney is now a juggernaut in the entertainment industry because over the past 20 years or so they have developed films that have captivated audiences and created a whole new market for them. Before that, however, they were having a difficult time bringing in audiences the way that they used to with the older animated films. At the time, the parks were the best source of income for the company, but they wanted to get in on the movie business even more. In order to cement a place in the box-office, they would need a live-action hit that would give them a leg to stand on for future entries. While still years off from acquiring Lucasfilms, Marvel, and even Pixar, they had to come up with something that would end up being a hit. This is how we ended up with the hit that start a successful franchise, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’
The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise was Disney’s biggest money-maker franchise before they took over Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilms. It gave them a good leg to stand on when they made their push into live-action movies and paved the way for many others to come. The first three films in the franchise propelled Disney forward and gave people characters that they were highly entertained by. They needed the win at the time because most everything else they were doing was considered a failure and people didn’t find most of their content interesting, save for the year before the release of ‘Pirates’ with the movie ‘Lilo & Stitch.’ With the new forward momentum, they made their acquisitions and helped build or maintain massive franchises which created many marketing opportunities for them.
Even some parts of their parks were changed in small ways to reflect moments from the movies and even this was a well loved idea among everyday guests. The movie was a success based upon the strong story it presented and the phenomenal acting that gave us a good idea as to what the characters were really like. Johnny Depp’s depiction of Captain Jack Sparrow will remain as one of the most memorable characters to ever be in a live-action film. Thus, the next two movies were spawned from the original which told a story that followed a specific group of characters and the adventure they found themselves on. However, the fourth and fifth films took a step in the opposite direction and were not really all that well received due to what appears to be a change in the characters and what made the first films interesting.
The story of Captain Jack Sparrow was one that many believed should have ended after the third film like William Turner’s and Elizabeth Swann’s. Instead, the adventure continued and people started getting tired of the same old characters, so instead of stopping the films altogether, Disney is going to reboot the series in the sixth film. There are even two versions of the film that could end up playing out where one is a soft reboot that could possibly contain some of the same characters from the original movies and the other is a hard reboot. If they go with the hard reboot, then the movie would feature a cast of entirely new characters going on new adventures that haven’t been seen in the other films. In the end, they will more than likely go with the second one in order to completely move away from the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow as his tale has essentially ended.
By George Robbins
As of late there has been a lot of different movie news that has been poignant for many of the films currently in production. Not all of the news that we have been hearing about has been news that was well received because it revealed flaws in the movie industry that are becoming more and more apparent. Recently, there have been a lot of discussions about studio interference in the filming of a movie production and how it results in an end product that nobody wants. This has been brought up again in the wake of the announcement that the Zach Snyder Director’s Cut for the Justice League movie will be releasing on HBO Max some time next year. It was a hope of fans that this would end up happening given the proper amount of time and petitioning from the fan base.
Snyder never had the chance to make the movie the way he wanted due to the fact he had to leave the director’s chair to spend time with family following a personal tragedy. As a result, Joss Whedon took over the chair and the production as a whole which resulted in a number of reshoots that changed the movie in its entirety. The reshoots are not entirely Whedon’s fault as it has been reported that WarnerMedia executives reportedly decided that certain aspects of the movie should be changed. They wanted this as they thought that it was more in line with what the audience would respond to better. The end result was a movie that became difficult to follow and wasn’t at all what fans thought the movie would end up being.
The ‘Justice League’ movie was not the only film that was interfered with by WarnerMedia when it came to movies in the DCEU apparently. David Ayer, the director of ‘Suicide Squad’ has already said multiple times recently that the version of the movie that he ended up making was not the one he intended to make. The version of the movie that was released theatrically was, in the end, one that was reshot and redone by Warner executives that were trying to make the movie more appealing to audiences. Of all of the things Ayer wanted left alone in his version of the movie, the only thing he was able to keep in the movie was Diablo’s backstory. Ayer has since said that just like the Snyder Cut he wants to be able to put his own version of his film out there and that he has a version of it almost finished.
These types of changes are nothing new in the industry, but they can take a movie that could have been well-received and turns it into one that people dislike. They tried turning the first ‘Suicide Squad’ movie into a different version of the very successful ‘Deadpool’ movie and it failed because it just didn’t fit into the story that was being told. The tone of the film was one that didn’t feel right and confused audiences which was the exact opposite of what the executives wanted. The director of the new movie ‘The Suicide Squad,’ James Gunn, and the director of ‘Birds of Prey,’ Cathy Yan, agreed that what happened to Ayer should not have happened at all. This is why Gunn recently announced that it would be his version of the film that will end up in theaters, so lets hope that he is telling the truth and that it ends up being the movie many expected the first one to be.
By George Robbins
This upcoming month is a huge one for a number of different industries, but maybe none more-so than the entertainment industry. The movie industry is kind of at a crossroads right now because many movies have had to have their theatrical release dates pushed back even further. Beyond just that, movie theaters have had to delay their reopenings to try and chase after the movie release dates because they need the new content to actually open up. Without any new movies until the end of July, many theaters will not be opening their doors until the middle or end of July in order to save themselves a lot of hassle. Like every other business, they have restrictions limiting the number of people they can sell tickets to and on top of that, they only have older movies to show that people can just watch some other way.
The movie theater industry is in hot water right now simply due to the fact that everything else is going down the drain due to a new surge in virus cases. This new surge is one that is sweeping across the nation causing many officials to start shutting some businesses down again. This doesn’t bode well for studios that want to maximize profits by releasing theatrically because no one would be able to go out to the movies. Plus, if businesses are being shut down, it wouldn’t make sense to put movies out in theaters if they will be shut down almost immediately afterward. There is also the fear in people’s minds about what kind of damage can be done if we aren’t smarter about the way we handle things going forward. This sentiment is shared by a lot of people throughout the entertainment industry as well as government officials who have the duty to try and keep people safe.
Disney is a massive part of the entertainment industry and those same fears are starting to present themselves as time goes on and they plan the reopening of their parks. Due to the spike in cases, Governor Newsom called for more restrictions to be put in place in California which changed the plan for Disney to reopen Disneyland to a new undetermined date. Although the date for the reopening of Disneyland has not been officially decided, the date that Disney World is meant to start reopening has not changed. the Disney World parks will begin the reopening procedure on July 11th and over the course of a few days all of the Disney World parks are meant to open to the public. It seems that this has all become a cause for concern and outrage from employees that will soon have to go back to work in the parks.
With California among the states that have had the largest surge in cases recently, it is no surprise that employees at Disneyland are concerned about what will happen. There will be a Park Pass system that is meant to be put in place to limit the number of guests entering the park, but there is no guarantee that this could work as intended or that it would even be set up for Disneyland. Also, even though guests are supposed to wear masks, there is no way of policing them well enough in the park to keep them from walking around without them. This combined with the fact that Disney has no plans to test any of their employees has created a lot of anger among the workforce that must go back to work dealing with people that could endanger many people’s lives. It is no wonder so many employees are bringing these issues up before an official reopening date is decided.
By George Robbins
There have been countless sources of entertainment being provided and used since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the most prolific since it began have been streaming services. There are now a vast number of services out there with all different kinds of content available to the public. A good number of services have exclusive content that can only be found on the one service, so it is now equivalent to purchasing individual channels with a monthly rate and the ability to cancel at any time. This has made streaming services extremely popular over the past few years and the addition of new content to each service can be a game changer. Recently, HBO Max released as a service and through its short tenure, it has become a streaming service that a lot of people like due to the sheer amount of content available.
Another prominent service that has been seeing a lot of action as of late has been the premiere Disney streaming service Disney+. Ever since its launch as of late last year it has been a service that gets a lot of traffic due to the primary content being everything that Disney has in their movie and show catalog. This has given the platform a lot of weight, but it also helps that Disney now owns so many intellectual properties that they can keep adding new content at any time. Thus, it is assured that they will be constantly trying to bring new content to the platform in the future to keep people subscribed to the service. Over the years, Disney has acquired numerous companies and it gives them plenty of options to pick from for when they pick films and series for Disney+.
One of the biggest acquisitions to have ever been made in the history of entertainment had happened not too long ago with the Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox. This gave them even more content to tool around with other than just their own and gives them more opportunity now to make people happy. The number of IPs that 21st Century Fox owned was enough to give them an entirely new library of films on their own and this is the point in time that they will be adding those films to their roster. Disney has recently added things like the ‘Frozen 2’ making-of documentary and will be adding more such as the film edited adaptation of the Broadway musical ‘Hamilton.’ Soon enough, they will be adding more of the properties that they acquired through 21st Century Fox.
Among the newly acquired properties they will be making available are the ‘Fantastic Four’ movies and the ‘X-Men’ movies which have been properties Fox had held onto for many years. Once the Marvel Studios movies started being made, people have wanted nothing more than for those characters to be seen in the MCU that has been established. In the meantime people will get to enjoy the films that were made independently, experiencing the entirely separate universes they exist in. The hope, moving forward, is that now that Disney has the property they will be able to start making movies based on those characters that exist in the sprawling superhero universe they already have. These films being on the service will only enforce that this is what people want moving forward, and hopefully we will see something about the characters in the not-to-distant future.
By George Robbins
Plays are a part of a medium that has captivated numerous and diverse audiences for hundreds of years and given them live entertainment. Over the past one hundred years or so, they have become a refined art form the likes of which many different people can enjoy. It is possible to turn many different stories into plays which then get turned into musicals which can draw in even more crowds than the plays could. Most times, art forms are just turned straight into musicals and it creates something entertaining for old and new audiences alike to behold. Many musicals are created based on novels or movies, while some are just wholly original and can be based on something no one expects, like a musical based on one of the founding fathers.
Musicals, even ones that are lesser known, have a lot of different people working on them to make them the spectacles they are. Unlike other mediums, the actors have to practice over and over to get everything right from the dancing to the lines they need to know. Not only do they have to perform live to paying crowds, but they also have to do it multiple times a day, multiple days a week and it can be tiresome work. They interact in a way that differs wildly from other forms of entertainment such as music artists and movies. The actors must perform similarly to the way music performers do while simultaneously telling a story that keeps the audience intrigued. This is why movies can be made into musicals so easily sometimes, because they have a storyline that can be followed, thus the performance side is the one that needs to be worked on.
The best way of knowing which musicals are near the pinnacle of being the best is to look at the ones that find their way to Broadway in New York City. Usually, those same plays stay on Broadway for years to follow, constantly changing in terms of cast, but never changing the act that people get to watch. This dedication to the art form is why musicals end up being so beloved to begin with. Plays don’t usually end up going straight to Broadway as there are many that start in smaller venues all over the nation and if they do well enough, then they end up on Broadway. Well now nothing is happening on Broadway, which is usually full of life, due to the coronavirus pandemic and this isn’t bound to change any time soon.
Most recently, there has been a surge in new virus cases across the nation due to businesses being reopened and people not doing what they are supposed to do. This has resulted in things like movie release delays and delays for the reopening of movie theaters among many other delays. These things aren’t as interactive as musicals are and this has resulted in the announcement that all Broadway productions shall be shut down until at least January of 2021. Many other in-person events such as conventions and award ceremonies have been shut down for the remainder of the year as well. There is no telling when things will be able to go on as originally intended, but we will more than likely see more things like this happen as the year continues. Hopefully, it will not continue into next year and things will somehow be able to get slightly back on track.
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