By George Robbins
Recently, there was a rumor going around that Christopher Nolan’s new movie ‘Tenet’ would have some kind of time-travel component to it. This isn’t just some unfounded rumor since the trailer hints at some kind of time manipulation aspect to the movie. That is, of course, unless it is just a misdirection in order to keep the plot a true enigma to the audience who will end up going out and watching the film. This wouldn’t be all that surprising since it is the best way to get people interested in a movie. Not knowing what a big movie is about before going into it creates hype and that is the best type of advertisement.
Simultaneously, not knowing what a movie is about could be a detriment right now since people may not want to take the risk and leave the house for something they know nothing about. With theaters nationwide possibly reopening just before the film is meant to premiere, there is a lot of risk in going out to see the movie. That is, of course, unless the movie’s premiere date changes between now and then. The likelihood of that exact thing happening is relatively likely considering the fact nobody knows if theaters will truly reopen when they say they will, or if people will even want to go to the movies.
Going back to the title of this article, Robert Pattinson has said that despite what the trailers for the film may show, the movie does not have anything to do with time-travel. So with this in mind we must now be forced to speculate even harder about what the film’s plot will truly be about. Christopher Nolan has been very excited about his film’s upcoming release and he is hoping it will be the first big hit when theaters truly reopen in July. As of now, ‘Tenet’ has a release date for July 17th so we will see whether it will live up to his and other people’s expectations.
Movie theaters, like most businesses these days, are struggling financially due to the coronavirus pandemic. This news is not really new to anybody at this point, but the severity of it is something people may not really know about. Theaters, almost immediately after closing, had to start putting together a plan to present to congress to try and get some kind of bailout. They started losing money the moment they shut their doors and some continued paying employees for as long as they could, but they kept hemorrhaging money with no new revenue coming in whatsoever. With this in mind they had to begin furloughing and laying off employees just to stay in business until they can reopen their doors.
Some states have already started opening up public businesses with heavy restrictions, and among those businesses are theaters with even heavier restrictions. You’d think that even with those restrictions they would be able to find some way of getting their businesses back on track. Theater owners haven’t been all too lucky in that endeavor however because of a loss in consumer confidence due to people being scare to go out to a public place like that, and rightfully so. Many businesses are not following the rules the way they should and it is a problem that could cause an even bigger loss in consumer confidence.
Many theaters have opted to remain closed until most theaters nationwide can be reopened to the public. Some theater owners have made the statement that it is a nationwide business since no new movies will be shown until most theaters can open their doors to the public again. Others have also stated that without new films, they will also have nothing really worth showing to the public. Most theaters nationwide have plans to open up to the public again with restrictions some time this summer in July. The only problem is that most theaters are chain theaters, owned by a handful of parent companies, which are almost going bankrupt if the owners are to be believed.
With their fiscal situations being so bad, chain theaters such as AMC may have no choice but to be bought out by other companies. This is where industry giant Amazon is apparently coming in to play. AMC is the largest theater chain in the world with over 11,000 screens worldwide, so it would only make sense that they are the ones who are losing the most amount of money. With no way to reopen their doors before the summer, Amazon has started considering the idea of purchasing the company as a whole due to it being a potentially easy acquisition. These are just rumors for now, but expect to hear more about this in the near future with AMC possibly becoming a part of Amazon.
This year has been hectic, to put it lightly, and isn’t bound to get any better any time in the near future. With the Covid-19 pandemic, the entire world has been forced to go into a sort of suspended animation. Essentially, only businesses that were necessary for society to function got to stay open, as we all know. So it is nothing new when I say that due to all of this the movie industry has had quite the rough go of things. With theaters closed movies only have two options, be released digitally on demand or delay their releases.
Films that have not been finished yet have had no choice but to shut down production indefinitely until proper rules can be put in place for them to start back up again. These rules are ones that must be similar to how public places are set up now, but they must have extra rules in place since filming usually involves contact. Rules such as distancing, wearing proper protection, and cleaning all recently touched surfaces must be followed in order to restart production. These are the rules currently in place for theaters to be able to re-open in certain states.
Most states still have yet to re-open any movie theaters, and those that have allowed their re-opening aren’t seeing much success as people are worried about going out. These people are rightfully worried and it will be awhile before it becomes safe enough that they won’t be so worried and will go out to the movies. Theater chains such as AMC or Cinemark know this and have decided to reopen in the summer months like July when most states will allow them to reopen. Production companies know that by having one of the first film slots for when theaters reopen and people feel comfortable going back to them, it will help them and the theaters tremendously.
While Disney has had to delay many releases due to the pandemic, they have been keeping their eyes on releases that are close to the theater reopening dates. One such movie that they have slated for release in July, when most theaters are supposed to reopen, is the live-action remake of ‘Mulan.’ Following the story of the mythical figure who took her father’s place in the army to protect China from the Hun invaders, ‘Mulan’ is a more realistic interpretation of the original story. Disney CEO Bob Chapek strongly believes that the film will be able to keep its newest release date of July 24th. With the pandemic being a fluid situation that can change at any time, many believe that this might be cutting it too close and even if it does keep that date there is no telling if people will go out and see the film.
Christopher Nolan has been known to make some pretty well received movies and his new film may do just as well. The only thing is that he has not revealed any details that talk about any plot points for the film. Released to the public was a couple of cryptic trailers that show us a man, a shadowy organization, and a mission that is of life or death importance. So it is no wonder that any new information on the film will be info that will gladly be received by those who want to see the movie. The only thing now is exactly how interesting will the movie end up being.
Christopher Nolan still refuses to give any plot details, but behind the scenes information gives a good idea as to what kind of film it will be. It seems as though it is a quantum cold war thriller that sees agents trying their best to prevent a war. Which essentially boils down to it being a film about secret agents who can time travel trying to prevent some worldwide disaster. Most of this can be gleaned from the trailer for the movie, but it’s nice to know that this is actually what the movie is about. Otherwise Warner Bros. has done a very good job of keeping details of the movie secret.
‘Tenet’ is on the schedule of releases as the next big feature film that is set to release in theaters. As of now, the film has a release date for July 17th, but Warner Bros. may make the decision to delay the films release until theaters are able to go back to being completely in business. Nolan himself has been trying to keep this release date on the board for as long as possible. He believes that his film will be the movie that tempts people into going back out to theaters when they are able to re-open their doors. Maybe this is true, but with how the pandemic is going and how theaters handle anything that comes up could change the release of the film entirely.
Nearly eleven years ago James Cameron created a film that, until just over a year ago, sat at the top of the all-time top grossing films. Cameron showcased to the world CGI in a way that it has never been seen before. ‘Avatar’ may not have been the greatest movie ever, but it was a good movie and that was certainly shown to change the way we saw movies that were entirely made out of CGI. That kind of movie-making process is how we end up with the films like ‘Avengers: Endgame’ that come after it. We end up with technology that we never would have expected to see and get some pretty incredible follow-ups to what came first.
When ‘Avatar’ was released in 2009 it was a technological masterpiece and drew people in because of its visuals and unique story. The combination of both of these things are what made the film great, and many people then expected to find out when the next one would release. James Cameron himself has said that he made ‘Avatar’ with the idea in mind of it being a tetralogy, a four-film series. It would be years before we got any new information on the next film in the series, and now that we finally got something on it, an epidemic has stopped all movie productions.
With all movie productions at a standstill, movie release timetables have been forced to change with a good number of films being moved to either next year or the year after. ‘Avatar 2’ was one of the films in contention for being moved to 2022, but now it may still be possible to release it in 2021. While it might not be a guarantee, James Cameron has said that he still expects his movie to make its 2021 release date. Cameron has made his plans to get back to New Zealand the moment he is able to start up production again to get his project back under way. Hopefully we will get to go see it next year and not have to wait so long to watch it.
States and other countries have started making plans to re-open their businesses. Due to the pandemic, many public businesses had to shut down in order to avoid spreading the coronavirus to even more people. Among the first businesses to shut down were movie theaters for obvious reasons. With everyone being forced to stay a certain distance apart from one another, theaters were forced to shut their doors, while some theaters did so willingly before the order was put in place. These theaters are now in the middle of trying to figure out when the right time is to re-open their doors.
Theater chains such as AMC, Cinemark, and Regal shut down before the orders to do so came in. They all decided to re-open their doors to the public some time during the summer regardless of what other theaters do. Some states have started allowing theaters to re-open, but with very heavy restrictions and many theaters have chosen to wait until the chains re-open as well. When chains re-open, then it is possible people will end up visiting all theaters since they will have more confidence in those businesses as a whole.
Other countries have also started discussing plans for re-opening their businesses to the public and how they plan are starting that process. Similar to here in the States, when businesses abroad re-open their doors to the public, they will have a lot of restrictions. Things like the social distancing aspect, cleaning everything down after it’s been used, making sure people wear gloves and masks, and temperatures being monitored must be followed. Without these rules in place businesses aren’t allowed to re-open. Even when theaters do re-open, like in China, they may not have any business walking in due to the public being wary of public places.
Theaters in China ended up closing almost immediately after they opened due to the public being generally too afraid to risk going out to the movies. The United Kingdom was trying to come up with a timeline for when they would re-open businesses, theaters included. They are following a model similar to the one being used in California. Over the next few months, they will be re-opening businesses in order of which ones are least at risk for spreading the virus. Since numbers of newly infected cases have gone down, governments want to keep those numbers down. The government in the U.K. deems theaters highly at risk just like in the state of California, so they plan on waiting until at least July 4th before allowing any to re-open to the public.
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