By George Robbins
From March of last year, we had to start dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic which has been plaguing the world even longer than the pandemic has been on for thus far. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, things have become extremely difficult for businesses to continue functioning the way that they always have before. This has led to various businesses changing their way of functioning to try and make revenue at a time where this has become much more difficult. Primarily, what many businesses have had to deal with is the fact that they needed to bring people back in if they could, and if not, how could they get their services or goods to people at home. For many businesses, this was something that could be dealt with in some capacity, but other types of businesses were not so lucky, like movie theaters.
Movie theaters started suffering from the moment the pandemic first began because they thrive entirely on getting people to come into their establishments. They aren’t the only business which functions this way, but they are among the few businesses that don’t have alternatives for them to function properly. Places like restaurants don’t really have to be open to the public in order to function thanks to the advent and rapid expansion of delivery services which the restaurant may not even have to pay for. Thus, it remains that only entertainment businesses really have to worry about not having a revenue stream of some kind and among those businesses are movie theaters as mentioned earlier. Movie theaters spent a long time without getting any kind of revenue whatsoever, and even though they are starting to get some now, it isn’t what they once used to get.
Despite the fact that many movie theaters are once again open to the public for business, the fact remains that they are not functional in the same way that they were pre-pandemic. This means that they have a long way to go before they can get back to the same level of functionality that they were at from before, and that is assuming that the pandemic ends sooner rather than later. Not everything is as terrible as people think though because, as previously mentioned, theaters are starting to at least get some kind of business again. The downside is that a large majority of said business is the severely reduced crowds which are going out to theaters which only earns theaters that little bit of money they’ve been hoping for. For the best example of how badly things are seeming to be in the movie theater industry, we can take a close look at the industry over in China.
Movie theater companies and production studios often make the vast majority of their money from the fact that there is such a large population over in China. This is why many companies often try their absolute best just to appeal to Chinese audiences, because they know that this is where a vast majority of their international ticket sales are coming from. China reopened theaters a little while back at this point just like the theaters around the world and it hasn’t really been paying off for anyone because people haven’t been going out. Now that the vaccine is beginning to be distributed, people are starting to become much more confident in going back out in public so movie theaters are starting to get some business back once again. Unfortunately, the amount of business they are trying to get back is not really enough to keep the economy for theaters alive and well, but it is better than nothing at all.
Usually, when a new year begins, there is a lot of buzz going around movie theaters and they often end up bringing in a lot of money since the holidays just passed. This year is very much different from the usual though because the pandemic is still going and therefore, even though theaters should have brought in possibly hundreds of millions this past weekend, they only brought in about $42 million this past weekend. This is the gross amount brought in by the entire Chinese box office and thus, it just goes to show that things are nowhere near great as people were hoping for. Needless to say, the entire movie industry is still hoping that we will soon see the end of this pandemic and they can all once again start making back their money to some degree. Though even then, it may still be awhile before things start to swing back to the way they once were before all of this began.
By George Robbins
This past year has been something truly interesting, especially within the realm of the film industry because of the pandemic which is unprecedented in modern times. There have been plenty of moments in the past where there have been plagues which have similarly affected the world in the same way it is now. This time is no different, except that the level of connectiveness nowadays is through the roof compared to how things used to be, therefore things are different from how they most certainly would be normally. Therefore, it isn’t too much of a surprise that the film industry which is equally connected across the world would be affected in a similar way. In fact, there are a few different ways in which the film industry has been affected thus far and chief among those changes is the fact that movie theaters have been mostly phased out right now.
After the pandemic began, we saw changes take place almost immediately which reshaped the business model for the film industry. Movie theaters were eventually able to reopen their doors to the public once again, but it took some time before they were really able to do so. Despite how long it took for movie theaters to reopen, they were able to do so, but with extreme difficulty as theaters could not seem to drum up very much business upon their official reopenings. The prime example for how little business they were able to bring in was the release of the movie ‘Tenet’ within the domestic market and the subsequent reaction the public at large had to the release. Long story short, things did not end up going too well because the movie ended up failing in the domestic market within the first few weeks and therefore, there was not much else going for theaters.
Therefore, throughout most of the year, there wasn’t anything going for movie theaters, especially since they had no new movies to show anyone because studios didn’t want to take the risk. Luckily for the theaters though, they eventually managed to get their hands on some new movies before 2020 actually ended with the biggest downside still being that people did not want to risk going out to the movies. This meant that, while there were movies by the end of the year which managed to bring in some kind of box office revenue, they weren’t exactly bringing in a lot of money and thus it didn’t take much for the top spot to be taken. Therefore, when ‘Wonder Woman 1984‘ released, it immediately took the top box office spot where it is now managing to stay. Even though it sounds incredible that the movie is managing to maintain its place at the top of the leaderboards after three weeks, it really isn’t.
When a movie is the only blockbuster film that is out and the movie is a much wanted sequel that people have been waiting for, then it is most definitely going to be a popular movie. It is due to these prime facts that the movie has managed to maintain its popularity over the weeks, especially when there are no new releases for theaters to play. Yet again, just because it is at the top doesn’t mean that it is actually capable of making a ton of money at the moment because, in-comparison with how things usually are, they are making a tremendously smaller amount of money now as opposed to the usual amount made. On its third weekend since release, the movie only made a few million dollars domestically this past weekend and thus, it shows just how bad things still are within the industry. As of now, the movie has even managed to make a grand total of $131 million since its release, making it one of the top pandemic releases thus far.
Unfortunately, this is still way off of the mark for the movie’s budget of $200 million that the studio needs to make back to break even on production budget. Warner has already had it pretty rough thus far with both this release and the ‘Tenet’ release which has caused them to lose a lot of money since the pandemic began last March. Luckily for the studio, they did something that was unheard of which greatly angered the industry as a whole such as turning their new releases into simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases. This may be ending for ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ in a couple of weeks, but Warner has apparently gained record viewership with this films release on their HBO Max premiere streaming service. Regardless of what else may happen, the movie will be a theater only exclusive for awhile in a couple of weeks which may further jack up the film’s box office value and it will maintain its top box office spot for quite awhile still afterward.
By George Robbins
The ‘Star Wars‘ franchise is one unlike almost any other out there in the world in terms of overall popularity and incredible ability to draw in new crowds. The franchise is easily one of the most well known draws for getting people invested in purchasing toys and games and has become a cash cow the likes of which very few other franchises ever reach the heights of. There have been countless pieces of media made about the ‘Star Wars’ franchise over the years and very little has changed since the moment the first ‘Star Wars‘ was introduced. What has become just as entertaining over the years since the creation of the franchise is the fact that the creator George Lucas never thought it would become as big as it was. So yes, the ‘Star Wars’ franchise was actually an accidental success and it has remained an incredible success over the years since its inception.
As the years went on and more films were made based around the original concept, the popularity of the franchise just continued to grow and the amount of money surrounding the franchise as a whole was staggering. Outside of the films were the incredible stories being told not just by those connected to the franchise, but also the people who just enjoyed the idea of the franchise so much that they wrote their own stories to help compensate in some way. People just wanted to have some part in the story of the universe that they loved by that point and things only got crazier after the Prequel movies released in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Eventually, after a longer period of time than people would have thought, Lucasfilm ended up being bought out by Disney. Considering the amount of money to be made in both marketing and toy lines, of course they would want to pick up the franchise, even if it did cost billions to do so.
Of course, it probably took Disney a long time before they finally made the decision to purchase the rights to the ‘Star Wars’ franchise because they wanted to see if the popularity remained even after so many years. Clearly the popularity of the franchise remained and they decided it was going to be a very good investment to go through with the acquisition and it has made them a lot more in revenue than it cost them to purchase the franchise. Unfortunately, any fan made stories that came into being after the acquisition were essentially thrown out and made non-canon with official side-story lore coming out over the years since. With this, they were able to establish exactly what would be canon within their own universe and make use of it during their marketing to all audiences. What really solidified the fact that they were going to take the franchise as far as they could was the fact that they immediately started making movies after acquisition.
Not only did they start making movies again, but they already had some plans in place as to where they wanted the franchise to go after they started work on it. This plan was generally that they were going to produce a bunch of shows and continue their plans to produce their movies in a way they felt benefitted both them and the franchise best. What this meant was that they were going to release mainline movies every couple of years for the Sequel trilogy and they were going to produced side-story films which would release every “off” year where a mainline film didn’t release. After the release of their second side story film, they realized that there just wasn’t as much of a market for that sort of thing as there was the mainline films, despite the vocal outcry from the minority of people who felt otherwise. Thus the plans went down the drain on their side story movie plans.
Fortunately, the creation of their Disney+ premium streaming service has created an alternative, and ultimately more profitable, avenue for them to make money out of the franchise which functions as a good place for side stories. They were able to start producing other Star Wars projects that they could show as television shows on their platform on a weekly basis once they were produced as a means of driving traffic to their site. Once these projects started to once again see success, they made their plans once again and those plans now include new movies. It is entirely unknown just what these movies will end up being about, but they are being worked on by some pretty big people under Disney’s belt at the moment to make them the best they can be. Among the directors tapped to be a part of their new projects was one Kevin Feige who is well known at this point for his work on the MCU as one of the main heads responsible for Marvel Studios productions.
While there is still very much which is unknown about the new Star Wars films, one thing we now know for sure is that they are bound to be fascinating films. The one that Feige is working on has even less known about it though as even the story hasn’t been written yet. In order to rectify that fact, Feige has tapped Michael Waldron, the executive producer for ‘Loki’ to be the writer for the film. Waldron is both the EP and the writer for the new Disney+ show focused on the MCU villain/anti-hero Loki and it would appear that Feige believes he fits the bill to be a part of the new, yet-to-be titled ‘Star Wars’ films. Given the track records of the people involved with the MCU, we should strive to expect a lot of great things from these upcoming films. This news is something that will definitely have fans all the more excited for the release of the film in the years to come and hopefully we will all be hearing more about this in the months to follow.
By George Robbins
There are many memorable movies and characters from said movies that have been prevalent over the years, but none so much as ones which feature Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen’s existence within the movie industry has been pervasive since he first started with roles that existed solely for the purpose of messing with people while giving sometimes scathing criticisms through his work. Cohen has become well known over the years for the fact that he works on mockumentary movies that often times exist solely to poke fun at politics and the state of the nation in general. Cohen’s movies are often based around the United States in some fashion and they are based on the fact that there are countless problems among both the government and the general populace at large. This all began, by the way, with ‘Ali G Indahouse‘ where he actually focuses on Great Britain.
After he played the character of Ali G, he would move onto the United States instead of Great Britain afterwards when he made the movie ‘Borat.’ The point of said film was mostly just to point out all of the issues that were being faced in the United States at the time in a way that would be simple enough for people to understand. While it was mostly satirical, there were a lot of problems which had arisen from the movie, such as the fact that people didn’t exactly like the idea of being put on screen looking like idiots. The main driving force behind the movies that Cohen does is that he essentially tricks people by pretending to be these outlandish characters, but the reactions that he gets from the public are pretty much genuine reactions. Whatever someone says or does in those movies is usually unscripted and comes straight from the mouths and bodies of the people being shown on screen. As people, these reactions are completely legitimate and unscripted and people don’t like being portrayed that way since it makes them look dumb.
Unfortunately for those who look a fool on the big screen in Cohen’s movies, there is no way to change the fact that they are who they are and this is what he and his producers hoped for while making the films. What they strived for was to show just what the world is like and how people functionally think and act on a regular basis while showing what is wrong with the nation. This is why so many people took to the movie and the characters, because they were something for us to understand, and while we laughed at them, we also got a glimpse at the world we would probably never see otherwise. The shenanigans would only end up going on for so long though because Cohen gave up the act of going out in disguises and trying to trick people after he worked on the movie ‘Brüno.’ While people were upset that they wouldn’t get to see Cohen in those roles anymore, there was a solid reason for why he stopped doing it.
‘Brüno’ was a film where Cohen went in the same style he usually did, making sure to follow the mockumentary style to give incredibly frank interviews while simultaneously engaging in extremely over-the-top public displays of homosexuality. While playing the Austrian television reporter, he finally reached a tipping point where things got way too out of hand for him because his anxiety started spiraling out of control. As it turns out, despite how he portrays his characters on screen, he is a very neurotic man who can’t handle things like what he portrays on screen for very long. According to Seth Rogan, a friend of Cohen’s, “He’s a neurotic Jewish guy when you get down to it, and the fact that he has chosen a line of work where he genuinely puts himself in danger doesn’t add up.” This just goes to show how much he dedicates himself to his craft and tries to make something that will make some kind of difference.
After his work on ‘Brüno,’ Cohen admitted that for the months to follow, he couldn’t even live his life normally because every time he heard a noise, he would think there were police sirens. His everyday life became more hectic because he couldn’t stop thinking of the danger he put himself into with those movies and thus he hung up his metaphorical hat and decided that he would stick to making films on sets instead of trying to make something more unscripted from the real world. Once the 2016 presidential election rolled around, he decided that this may no longer have been something he wanted to do. He continued work on a variety of projects in studios by doing interviews in-character as one of his original creations, but there was one time where he refused to do so. In November 2019, he appeared at the Anti-Defamation League’s Never Is Now summit as himself where the actor gave a keynote address in which he pinned the blame for the rise in hate crimes and prejudice on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms. He argued that their refusal to police political ads and take down inaccurate commentaries in the name of free speech turbocharges conspiracy theories and imperils democratic ideals.
Cohen advocated heavily to help stop the spread of disinformation on social media because he felt that such disinformation was the reason why the democratic process was beginning to fail. With so much misinformation available online being presented as fact, there are people everywhere who want nothing more than to create conspiracies that fit their own narrative and start to downplay the democratic process which helped build nations. This is what he wanted to convey, but after this past year, this venture has only become much more difficult for him to achieve because the amount of misinformation to make its way into the world basically exploded because of the pandemic. With everything that was going on during the time of the pandemic and with the rising tensions due to the upcoming elections, Cohen felt it was time to finally bring out his old characters once again. This time, it ended up being Borat who was known for his initial mockumentary about the character.
Cohen felt that it was his duty at that point to bring the character back in an effort to remind people what it means to be a part of a democracy. He went on to play the character once again to show what kind of people are out there in the world at the moment and what they think about what is happening in their nation. In ‘Borat 2,’ he plays the character in his return to America as he felt that the nation was in a lot of trouble with much of the democratic process going out the window and the pandemic wasn’t helping it at all. Thus we ended up getting a film no one really knew was going to exist until it finally released near the end of the year. With that, we got the return of Cohen to the big screen the way he originally did so, even just temporarily with a mockumentary made to make people think about what is wrong with the nation. There are a lot of people that agree that this was probably a good move to make on his part and they are glad that he made this return to the big screen given all that has happened.
By George Robbins
This New Year is one that many people are trying to meet with much enthusiasm after the whole of last year since last year was an outright failure in the minds of many. In an effort to make up for the horrible year that was last year, many a company and organization are now doing their best to make their way into the new year. One such organization which is making their changes and making sure they are known to the world is the Television Academy which decides which shows on TV will be given awards in the upcoming year. Among the new committee members to be added to the executive board this upcoming year are actress/executive producer Issa Rae and executive producer Gloria Calderón Kellett. They are but two of the newest additions to this year’s six new committee members as decided by head of the board, Frank Scherma.
The new members also include ABC’s Rob Mills, Anonymous Content’s Dawn Olmstead, Amazon Studios’ Vernon Sanders and Apple TV Plus’ Zack Van Amburg. Scherma has said, “Their leadership provides invaluable insight that will allow the Academy to play an integral role in shaping the evolution of the medium.” After this past year, and even within years prior, there has been a lot of public outcry to try and get people to be involved within the industry in reforming it as an institution. According to what Scherma is saying, he believes this group of people would be very effective at being able to make the necessary changes in the industry that people are trying to make a reality. This group is now the group of people responsible for the reformation and direction that the academy will take over the 2021 term and how Television as an institution will turn out.
For those who may be wondering more about the headlined board members: Gloria Calderón Kellett is an executive producer, co-creator, co-showrunner, director and actress on ‘One Day at a Time.’ She was also a writer/producer on ‘Devious Maids,’ ‘Rules of Engagement‘ and ‘How I Met Your Mother.’ Issa Rae is recognizable for the fact that she is responsible for creation of, as well as starring in, HBO’s ‘Insecure,’ for which she has received multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Rae’s film credits manage to include ‘The Hate U Give,’ ‘The Lovebirds‘ and ‘Coastal Elites‘ as well, giving her time on the big screen as well. The remaining members of the board are all accomplished as well with many of them serving as the heads for officers for major divisions within their original companies.
Dawn Olmstead was recently named CEO and partner of Anonymous Content and prior to that, she served as president of Universal Content Productions. This meant that she was responsible for overseeing all creative and business operations of scripted and non-scripted content for the studio during her tenure there. Robert Mills is Senior vice president for alternative series, specials and late-night programming at ABC Entertainment and it is his duty to essentially oversee current productions and specials for ABC. Vernon Sanders is the Co-Head of Television at Amazon Studios where he oversees scripted and unscripted original programming produced for Prime Video and IMDb TV alongside Albert Cheng. Zack Van Amburg is the Chief content officer and head of worldwide video for Apple TV Plus which means he oversees all aspects of strategy for video programming globally including the launch of the platform. Even before then, he was the president of Sony Pictures Television.
Needless to say, the choices for the Executive Board which were made for this year were unlike the previous years in the fact that they are more geared towards the reformation people are hoping for within the industry. More specifically, people are looking forward to seeing how this new board will be able to handle the ceremonies and awards that the Television Academy are responsible for over the next year. They are responsible for decisions that can help shape how people both within and out of the industry will see the industry as time goes on becoming more inclusive and fair which is what people have been asking for over the years. Instead of shows releasing with the obvious clichés and exclusivity that they have been over the years, they are hopeful that this will start to wrinkle out over the next year with this Board in place. While things won’t immediately start to change, they will start being a bit different and things will eventually get better as time goes on.
By George Robbins
There are plenty of people who have unfortunately lost their lives over this past year for a variety of reasons and things aren’t starting off all that well going into the next year. It has been announced that actress Tanya Roberts has recently passed with the cause for it being considered completely unknown to the general public. Roberts’ partner Lance O’Brien did not give a statement as to what really caused her death, but he did make it clear that it was not Covid that caused the death of the actress. The actress passed away officially on Monday but before the official statement could be made, her publicist released information prematurely before her death was announced. This led to obituaries being made prematurely about the actress’ death before the official proclamation was made.
Roberts was born on October 15th, 1955 in The Bronx, New York as Victoria Leigh Blum and eventually she would go on to start acting in her 20’s. By the time she reached her mid-20’s, she made her big break as an actress where she was cast in the fifth and final season of the show ‘Charlie’s Angels.’ She ended up on the main cast of the series after main cast member Shelley Hack left the cast after just one season and the show was going into its final series run. The ratings for the show ended up plummeting even after Roberts took her role on the show and there was no way to stop the coming ending for the show. While that might have been an inevitable failure, it was a huge deal for her that she landed this role because it led to a strong career for her as time would go on.
Perhaps the biggest role she managed to land after her introduction to the Hollywood scene was the role of a “Bond Girl” in the 007 movie ‘A View to a Kill.’ Alongside Roger Moore’s 007, Roberts’ character encountered a microchip-monopolist madman played by Christopher Walken whom she had to work with Moores’ Bond to stop his plan. This was Moore’s last outing as the character of Bond, so it is interesting that Roberts got to see how this all played out with Moore’s last role as the character. This was far from the only thing she contributed to however, as Roberts had also appeared in ‘The Beastmaster,’ which was a fantasy film from 1982. Beyond that, she even starred as the titular character in a movie called ‘Sheena‘ in 1984 which ended up flopping in the end. This would become the start of a decline for her as time went on, but this was not the end for her.
It would be well over a decade later, but she found her place among the industry with the show ‘That ’70s Show‘ where she once again found herself back in the limelight. She played the role of one glamorous, youngish Midwestern mom of a teenage girl who was also a little dimwitted which gave way to a lot of entertaining moments from the show. Needless to say, for the younger generations today, her role on the show was easily the one that most people recognized the best because of her good looks and her dimwitted personality. How was it that she even became an actress? The answer to that question was that she started as a model before becoming an actress and she only managed to do so by running away from home at the age of 15.
Roberts had various other roles through the years which allowed her to become a big inspiration to the people in the industry or those who wanted to follow her footsteps. She followed her dreams, and while starting small in some advertisements, she eventually worked her way up to a point where she managed to get on the big screen as well as the silver screen. She is an actress that will be sorely missed and it will be difficult for people to see those old films without thinking about the fact that she is no longer with us. She is survived by her partner Lance O’Brien and her sister, Barbara Chase who was actually the fourth wife of Timothy Leary. Yet another long running celebrity has passed, and without any warning, but hopefully this is not a sign of a bad year to come.
Get Some Strange!
