By George Robbins
May was a massive month for companies to move things forward and try and get their business back on track. A lot of different businesses that have been shut down due to the pandemic have been given the green light to start getting back to work to some degree. While a lot of companies are working towards simply getting back up to running speed again, there are some trying to move onward. Among those companies are the ones in the entertainment industry and they have been in a sort of precarious situation since this pandemic began. They haven’t been able to work on any productions or release any of the ones that they have been working on, leaving them with little to do. This is why Video on Demand, or VOD, has become so much more important for these companies than it was before.
VOD has made a lot of headway in the industry as of late due to the fact it is the best form of revenue for some of the bigger companies at the moment. With many people stuck at home with little to do, subscription services are doing very well at the moment. Most recently there was the launch of HBO’s premier service aptly named HBO Max. The new streaming service had its official launch by WarnerMedia on May 27th and is even starting to bolster its library of content. As of now, the service is already boasting a massive amount of content and is planning on massively increasing the amount of content available for the future.
The new streaming service will be adding in a large amount of programming within the next month alone ranging from classic titles to new HBO programming and even new Max Originals. Their already extensive library consists of thousands of hours of content and approximately 2000 films. It is clear they are doing their best to draw as much attention to this service as possible to make sure that they can continue to bring in new revenue. In order to make people interested to begin with, they already listed that they would naturally be putting their entire HBO catalog on the service. This is in addition to all of the new Max dedicated content that will be put up.
Their new content that they will be making available to the public moving forward is what is meant to entice people to subscribe to the service. Within the next few weeks alone, they will be trying to add in the newest titles to their repertoire in order to further increase interest and draw people in. It will be awhile before things in the outside world will be able to run smoothly again, and this is the perfect opportunity for them to launch their service. There is no doubt that they will be able to draw people in and they will certainly have a large number of subscribers due to both currently available content and content that has been announced for the future including things like the Snyder cut of ‘Justice League.’
By George Robbins
This whole pandemic has been nothing but a pain for people and has resulted in a lot of problems springing up, especially when it comes to the economy. On the massive list of businesses that have been forced to close down to help prevent the spread of the virus are places like movie theaters, production studios, and theme parks. Of course, the ones that are most at risk for possibly causing the rate of infection to skyrocket again are the places like the theme parks. Since they are places where there is usually a lot of foot traffic, this all makes sense and it is the biggest issue being faced by these businesses who wish to reopen soon. So the question is whether they will be able to adjust themselves to the newest rules accordingly in order to reopen to the public.
Within the last month or so, many businesses have begun the process of trying to get their businesses ready to reopen. In order to do this they must follow the new health guidelines that are in place and ensure they are implemented properly. Many businesses have reopened, some with a degree of difficulty, but have still managed to be doing alright. There is still the problem that many have run into such as people not following some of the rules which puts people at risk or businesses themselves not following through on the guidelines. This is something that will not fly when it comes to more public businesses since they will see the biggest surge in foot traffic.
Among the places that are in the midst of getting themselves ready for their reopening are amusement parks. These theme parks are doing their best to get their employees back to work and up to speed in order to make sure they are ready for the return of guests to their grounds. Many places are planning on reopening their gates to the public some time within the next month. Some of the larger parks are even doing test runs within the next week with an even more limited capacity than they will have come opening day. There is a lot more going into the reopening of these parks than most other businesses.
Theme parks have a lot currently going on and have much that they have to prepare for. They must ready themselves for an influx of guests even though they will ultimately not be allowing more than a certain amount of them inside the park. On top of this, staff must ensure that people are adhering to the guidelines like keeping masks on and strictly following the social distancing order. Universal Orlando is doing this relatively quickly with a soft reopening scheduled for Friday June 5th and even allowing guests back in early if they are staying at their hotels. While they can reopen now, Universal Studios Hollywood is a bit tougher due to California’s strict guidelines regarding the openings of businesses. They might still be able to reopen in July if things start looking a little better by then.
By George Robbins
For those who think that ‘New Mutants‘ sounds familiar but maybe don’t know much about it, it is a film that has had a wild development ever since its first teaser trailer dropped. It has been a few years since the first teaser for the movie has dropped for the public and the film still has yet to be released. The film originally had a release date for the beginning of April, but with theaters shut down due to the pandemic the date had to be pushed back to August. This new release date may be the most recent, but until there is actually a release for the movie, there is no telling if it will release when they say it will. This is just one of the issues to befall this movie since its announcement, but that won’t stop the movie’s director.
‘New Mutants’ has had a considerable number of delays since its initial conception with one of the biggest being the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney. This issue finally being settled put the film’s release back on track until the coronavirus pandemic yet again put it on hold. This makes it difficult for fans of the X-Men and other mutant characters to maintain excitement and some have even forgotten it entirely. The movie focuses on a group of young adult mutants who are trying to understand their own powers while getting out of a horrifying situation. This is a story that a lot of people have been wanting to see and is still sure to draw people in.
This movie still holds a lot of interest for people because it tells a new story with new characters that have yet to be realized outside of their comic book medium. That has managed to keep a lot of X-Men fans at least somewhat interested so that there will be a crowd for when the film finally releases. Director Josh Boone has said that this film that he has put all of his time into has turned out to be what he has wanted to be and is excited that it will finally be able to hit the big screen. He is so excited by the release of the film, in fact, that he announced that he already wants to start work on sequels, but there is no telling if this will end up happening yet or not. Ultimately, this be decided after the film releases and Disney can see if it does well at the box office, but due to the way theaters will be, it doesn’t seem good.
It has already been a topic of discussion that ever since Disney acquired Fox, there will eventually be some rebooted form of the X-Men that we could see in the MCU. If ‘New Mutants’ does well, we could even see this being the entry point into the MCU that fans may be looking for, but if it doesn’t do well, then it could just be labeled a one-off. Information around this movie is complicated, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the director is trying to assure people it will be worth it and that it deserves sequels. If all does actually go well with its release, then Boone wants to make two more movies to go along with it in order to make a trilogy that he has envisioned for the story. At this point all we can do is wait and see how the film turns out.
By George Robbins
Ever since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, movie theaters have been in a lot of trouble since they were forced to shut their doors to the public. In an effort to keep the rate of infection from rising even more than it already was, they closed their doors. This, combined with the fact theater productions have been shut down has resulted in their being a lack of support for the industry to some degree. Theaters have no way of making income and even when they do actually to reopen their doors, the amount of income they bring in will be severely reduced from what they were getting before.
Many theaters in the United States will be reopening by the summer in order to try and get back some of the business that has been lost due to the pandemic. When those theaters actually do reopen, they will have to follow guidelines to keep people from getting infected including reducing overall capacity. In order to reduce overall capacity and ensure that people are actually keeping distance from one another, they won’t be able to sell as many seats as they’d like. On top of not being allowed to sell all of their tickets, they will run into the immediate problem of having almost no new movies to debut to the public. Since this is a major selling point for theaters, this presents a massive issue for those businesses.
Theaters over in China are starting to see the effects of this just soon after reopening many of their doors. As we know by this point, China is the center point of where this outbreak began and it means that they had to shut down many of their businesses before the worldwide pandemic was even announced. Not too long ago, some theaters there attempted to reopen their doors to the public, but almost immediately had to close them again because there were so few moviegoers. The risk of infection coupled with the lack of a good reason for people to even go to the movies in the first place resulted in theaters not being able to stay opened. It appears as though this issue is starting to present itself again with some theaters trying to reopen their doors.
With the pandemic situation being as fluid as it is, the possibility that theaters will be able to remain open for long periods of time seems unlikely. Until there are more good reasons for people to go out to the movies than there are bad ones, theaters will just keep losing money. By the time new movies will actually release, the amount of money that will have been lost will be too much for theater owners to handle. It is estimated that due to this financial loss, there could be a permanent closing of over 5000 different theaters throughout all of China. While unknown if something similar may happen in other countries, it is probably a good guess to say that this sort of thing will likely happen all over the world.
By George Robbins
Video on Demand, or simply VOD, has become something of a rising star these past couple of months due to the pandemic. This release platform has really started to find its footing since movie theaters have been shut down. After the pandemic was announced and theaters were shut down, movies that were in theaters had no choice but to release early to VOD so that people would have a chance to see the movie and the studios could make some of their money back. Something else that ended up happening when theaters shut down was the fact that movies that were supposed to release to theaters were forced to delay their theatrical releases. However, not every movie that was meant to release theatrically was delayed, which is why the current VOD climate is doing so well.
Movies that did not have their theatrical releases delayed were instead released straight to Video on Demand in an effort to make sure that the movies would still be able to make money. One of the biggest problems for a lot of film studios at the moment is making sure that they can release their movies at the proper time. This has sort of become an issue since no one is sure just when the right time would be to put those movies out there. Thus, some companies took the initiative to release their films to the public when they should have come out originally. For the most part, this plan has actually worked and a lot of money has been made in regard to these films.
This has ended up causing a lot of tension and distrust between studios and movie theater companies as of late. After all, these studios did essentially take away potential revenue from movie theaters by releasing these films now without any kind of theatrical release. AMC theaters even said that they would no longer show any more Universal films after their CEO said they would continue releasing films straight to VOD even after theaters reopen. This ended up making the CEO of Universal rephrase his statement by saying that they will still release movies theatrically, but simultaneously they will release them to VOD. This has created a few questions in people’s minds and has people wondering what the future of movie releases will really be.
It is believed that the current and only reason that VOD is doing so well right now is because of the pandemic and people don’t have much else to do. This may very well be true but even after theaters reopen, there will be a lot of tension around moviegoers since it will still be dangerous to go out to the movies. So the newest question on people’s minds is when is it a good point for movies to be pulled from theaters and put on VOD? After all, theaters won’t be able to function at full capacity or even normally for a while after reopening, and for the studios it would make more sense to release movies to VOD early to make as much of a profit as possible.We may just end up seeing movies release earlier from now on after theatrical releases, at least for the foreseeable future, since this may just be the best way to do business moving forward.
By George Robbins
The coronavirus pandemic has been a massive drain on just about everyone at this point and there is absolutely no telling when it will end. Due to the fact this pandemic won’t really end any time soon, many have been forced to find a way to adapt to the new world order around them. Among those businesses are the ones that are in the entertainment industry such as production studios and movie theaters. All movie theaters were forced to shut down when the pandemic was announced back in mid-March and simultaneously all movie and television productions shut down as well. Now that businesses are slowly starting to reopen we are starting to get new information in regards to how the entertainment industry will function moving forward.
For starters, businesses that are starting to reopen will have the same rules in place that businesses that have been open have. They will need to have people wear masks if they want entry to the building and they will need to keep them on. Also, the businesses must keep their establishments sanitized properly at all times especially if they have customers coming through. Places that will be reopening soon like movie theaters, which are mostly set to reopen by the beginning of July, will have extra guidelines in place. They will have to enforce the social distancing order, but also keep people from sitting near one another during movies. This is something that is similarly shared by movie and television productions that will need to be adhered to.
Guidelines are being established almost everywhere in regards to how things should be moving forward when it comes to people going back to work. So of course there are going to be new rules in place for production companies to follow. This has been something that was being discussed ever since this all began and it seems that now there is a true national set of guidelines for people to follow. The state of Georgia already created its guidelines which are very similar to the guidelines in place for other businesses and especially movie theaters. There are just a couple more things that they must include while working on films to keep in accordance with the rules.
The new official guidelines that production studios must follow to continue working on their projects is a 22-page document consisting of mostly similar rules for other businesses. Also included in those rules are guidelines to keeping people separate by creating zones, when possible, for different groups during production. Actors must not get close to one another during scenes, which means camera tricks must be used to create the illusion that they are near one another. When off camera, all actors must keep masks on and adhere to the social distancing rules. Also included is the fact that cast and crew on set must be very limited with some parts of crew simply not allowed to be there at certain times. These rules are now a part of the guidelines that all productions must now follow in order to get back to work.
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