By George Robbins
Movie theaters are now trying to get their footing back after having been closed since the middle of March. With absolutely no way of bringing in revenue without selling out seats to people, theaters have had to furlough and lay off employees until they could start making money again. With this in mind, theaters are just a bit happy now that they are able to open up their doors again and they can start making money once again. Whether they are able to actually make a decent chunk of change or not is still unfortunately determined by a few extraneous factors that they have to contend with. The biggest factors being the restrictions that are now in place.
One of the biggest restrictions that theaters are currently facing is the one which limits the number of people that are allowed to be in the theaters at once. This limited capacity ruling is one that has theaters doing their best to sell out every single ticket they conceivably can in order to make money. Thus we have theaters doing their best with what they have and making a lot less money than they normally would. This isn’t going to deter them though, so next they have to focus on being able to open everywhere they possibly can to offset the money lost from the limited capacity rules. Unfortunately, theater companies have not been given the greenlight in every possible region.
Theater chains have not only had to deal with restrictions on capacity but also restrictions on the number of theaters they have been able to reopen. Domestically, the limitations on where they could reopen their doors have been especially difficult to contend with. After a surge in new virus cases, state governments in a number of states have not allowed some public places to reopen yet. This has caused some distress for theaters, especially since new movies are actually starting to come out again. That is how the State of New Jersey ended up having a lawsuit put against it in order to allow theaters to reopen. This ended up not working out the way theater owners were hoping and the state declared that theaters would remain shut until further notice.
The movie ‘Tenet‘ just had its international release this past weekend which exceeded the expectations that people had for the film. Its box office returns ended up being higher than people originally anticipated and it is expected to do even better when it hits domestic markets this weekend. Theater companies therefore want to be able to open up everywhere they possibly can in order to cash in on the film’s release. Thus Regal Cinemas has chosen to reopen in California, New Jersey, and Maryland in order to get more revenue for the release of ‘Tenet’ in the United States. So now, the only thing they can do is wait to see whether they end up bringing in the amount of people they were hoping for.
By George Robbins
Sony is a very well known company with many different facets to its structure as a company in general. For instance, they are not just in the technology business, but also, they are in the movie making business. This is how they have managed to become so prolific within the past decade or so. While half of their movies or so are mostly hit-or-miss, a good number of their films actually have monetary success tied to them. They have done their best over the years to try and expand their library and this has become more noticeable over the past couple of years as time has gone on. They have put a lot more effort into what gets made and it seems like it may end up working out for them moving forward.
The unfortunate thing about Sony is the fact that they usually take something that has had mild to extreme success and they try too hard to make a franchise out of it. This only affects the story quality of their movies though, as a majority of sequels that they make end up being box office successes. One of the parts of their video media division that has had the most success, however, over the past few years has been the animation department. The movies that have been churned out by the animation teams have all looked great on screen and the animations are almost completely seamless. None of their movies proved this more than one of their most recent films, ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.’
‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ is a film that has been placed on a pedestal for how well done the film is overall, and rightfully so. An extreme amount of effort went into the stylistic choices made for the film which makes it feel unique from every other comic book film. From the individual art styles for all of the different characters to the sound design and music choices for the film, it all looks and sounds like it belongs. It isn’t just any animated movie, it is a “comic book” movie. This means that it was made in a way where every single frame was made in a way that if you paused the film, it would look like a page from a comic book. It has been rightfully labeled a masterpiece and we now know that a sequel is on the way.
The end of the first film left it open for having a sequel, although it isn’t really all that necessary as it didn’t feel like a cliffhanger either. No one is going to complain though because if they do as well with the second one as they did with the first, then it will be great. One of the most important parts of the film, though, is the story which had a lot of effort put into it and it told a very well-crafted story. It should ease people a little bit to know that Octavio E. Rodriguez, story artist for Incredibles 2 and Coco, is now going to be a part of the ‘Spider-Verse 2’ team. This makes it even more exciting to know where this upcoming sequel will be going as the art style and story are what made the film what it is. This just makes it sound like it could end up being better than the first movie, but that is a tough wall to climb, so we will just have to see.
By George Robbins
The movie industry is currently working on their next move now that they know they will be able to show their films to the public in the near and not-too-distant future. In fact, not too long after the pandemic began, studios continued working in some way on upcoming projects that they plan on having come out within the next couple of years. Although studios had to shut down their productions for a few months in order for new rules to made for the set, they worked in the background. This means that while not working on productions, they were working on deals, plans, and scripts for movies that haven’t even been started necessarily. Therefore, there is plenty of news nowadays about films that will be starting up production some time soon.
Many of these projects have been mentioned to the public thus far and they are slowly getting under way with working on them to some degree. For instance, Kevin Smith started working on his script for ‘Mallrats 2’ again after the pandemic began and he is now discussing what he will be doing next for the production. Another example is the fact that ‘Scream 5’ is being worked on and they are even going to be trying to get the film out by some time next year. These aren’t the only examples as another one is the fact that work has actually started on another ‘Tron’ movie after almost 10 years. These are just some of the projects being worked on with even more of them on the way.
One of the biggest movie universes we have had the pleasure of witnessing on screen for over a decade now is the MCU. The Marvel Cinematic Universe spans countless movies and has such a diverse cast of characters that it has easily become one of the biggest, if not the biggest, shared universe in all visual media. This has made it so that any announcements in regards to a new MCU film are seen with open excitement by the general public at large. Even during this pandemic, Marvel Studios is trying their best to keep up by working on their upcoming movies the best they can. Of those upcoming projects, one that we were not really expecting to hear about was ‘Ant-Man 3.’
The MCU films have had just as rough a go of things as any other films because their productions were also completely shut down. Not only that but they also have a movie ready for theaters that they can’t release yet. Therefore no one expected to hear anything about ‘Ant-Man 3’ which wasn’t even on the roster for upcoming MCU films. Director Peyton Reed admitted recently that although the pandemic may be on-going, he is still doing his best to work on the film. He wants the movie to be ready for when they plan on starting production in June of 2021. He even admitted that they plan to have the movie ready for a 2022 release which is even more surprising due to the aforementioned fact that it hasn’t been seen on any kind of upcoming movie rosters. It is a surprise for sure, but a welcome one nonetheless.
By George Robbins
So this past week has been a pretty interesting one because movie theaters were able to have proper premieres for the first time in months. Although I say “proper” premieres, they aren’t what we were originally used to because there are now new rules in place to keep more people from contracting the virus. Thus, even though theaters can have people come back to them, they still have a huge limit on the number of seats that can be sold for a viewing. On top of this, the total occupancy for buildings in general has been severely limited to make sure people are adhering to the social distancing rules. Despite this, the world saw a pretty good weekend for movies to come back to movie theaters.
One of the biggest releases this past weekend was the international movie premiere for the new Christopher Nolan film, ‘Tenet.’ This movie has actually done so well that it blew expectations out of the water for how much was brought in for the overall box office. That is not even to mention that the film still has its theatrical release domestically coming up this week as well and it is expected to do as well, if not better, than the international release when it releases. Unfortunately, like some parts of the world, not every part of the country is able to open up theaters again as it is up to the individual states whether they can open or not. Therefore, we will have a wait and see just how well it sells and if they will be able to recoup production costs by the end of this weekend.
A film that did actually release domestically this past weekend was the movie ‘The New Mutants.’ The focus of the film being the titular mutants, which many people are unaware of, trying to understand how to properly wield their powers. This film has been one that was years in the making and was originally set to release in April, but due to the pandemic, just released over this previous weekend. It helped out the domestic box office, but the film has been receiving less than stellar reviews which is rough given how long it took for the film to release. It could have been a number of things that went wrong which caused this and now we have the original script to look at to see just what was changed over the years.
Although ‘The New Mutants’ is a standalone film taking place in the X-Men universe, early iterations of the script featured characters like Professor X (James McAvoy) and Storm (Alexandra Shipp). Director Josh Boone and Knate Lee’s original script for the film was very different from the end result as it took place three years after ‘X-Men: Apocalypse.’ It saw Storm losing her powers and eventually coming across a Native American reservation where she meets one of ‘The New Mutants’ main characters, Dani Moonstar. The movie still would have taken place in a creepy facility but it would be a place where kids who couldn’t control their powers were sent with Storm being the overseer. This sounds like it could have been an interesting film if the original movie was not changed.
By George Robbins
Movie theaters have recently started the excruciating process of trying to bring customers back in so that they can once again sell out seats. Since the middle of March, this has been something they have been trying their best to do as they needed some way of making revenue. Theaters kind of need to be open if they are going to make any money because that is just how a business works. As such, they have recently been able to start opening their doors to the public and they have something that they can actually show people. Even if theaters are not opened up everywhere, companies can still start making money by allowing those that are open to sell tickets.
One of the ways, and really the only way, in which they are managing to bring people back to their theaters is by putting out those movies that are available to them. One of the movies that has been released already was the much-awaited movie titled ‘The New Mutants.’ This movie focuses on a group of mutants in the X-Men universe trying to come to terms with their mutant abilities. This past weekend was the much awaited opening weekend for the film and it premiered wherever theaters were opened up. Unfortunately, the well-long awaited film has been getting bad reviews left and right that are calling it a “middle of the road’ hero film, but it did help bring back the box office in the United States a little bit.
The other big film release to have happened recently which has been making headlines is the newest Christopher Nolan film, ‘Tenet.’ This movie is one that has had mystery surrounding it since the moment it was first announced. It was shown to be an espionage film with some kind of element of time travel spliced throughout. This was what drew the most attraction to it and when it released in the international market this past weekend it broke expectations. The movie sold so incredibly well in its opening weekend compared to what people thought it would be like that it is now expected to do extremely well when it hits domestic markets this week.
Although ‘Tenet’ will open in the domestic market this upcoming weekend, it won’t be able to premiere everywhere as not all places have allowed theaters to open. Not only is this an issue for theaters, but also the fact that both ‘New Mutants’ and ‘Tenet’ have already been pirated and put online. Though the quality of the pirated versions is bad, it still hasn’t changed the fact that it is now out and available to the public for free. Theaters are already suffering due to not being open for so long and now they must contend with the fact that people may not want to go and will stay home to watch the movies. Why go to the movies and put yourself and others at risk if you could just stay home and watch the film?
By George Robbins
Now that there is currently a pandemic gripping the world and making things difficult, there are many things that must be done differently. Many events which were supposed to be held this year have essentially been cancelled and moved to either next year or the year after. On the other hand, events that don’t want to have to wait that long have been doing their best to make alternative arrangements. These arrangements mostly involve making things available online and this is how conventions have been doing all of their business as of late. The most recent example of a success convention that was held entirely online was the recent DC FanDome convention.
Unlike the other conventions that were supposed to be held this year, DC FanDome was designed from the beginning as being an entirely online convention. Other conventions that have been held thus far have been adapted to be able to go up online, but they were not really prepared for it and it changed everything. Not everything worked out the way that people wanted and a lot of panels for those conventions ended up dropping out and did not take any part in what was happening. Where DC FanDome differed is that it was an event run by DC which gave us insight into all of their future projects and it did exactly what it set out to do. It made DC fans excited about the upcoming projects they are working on.
So if things worked out for DC with DC FanDome, then isn’t it likely that things could work out with other companies holding conventions as well. This might just end up becoming the new thing where instead of having conventions that combine just about everything into one convention, there will be individual conventions. It makes it easier for companies just to hold a shorter convention showing off their products and upcoming projects than to be a part of a larger convention for almost a week. This puts a spotlight on their projects and makes it much more possible to get the information out there that they want in the public eye. This is why companies like Hasbro are starting to come up with conventions of their own.
The Hasbro conglomerate is a company that mostly specializes in things like toys, board games, and other media assets. These media assets are created based upon the toy lines and board games that the company produces and often times they are panned by critics. The thing is though, that they still make a lot of money off of those assets and so they continue to make them. Now that it is clear that conventions can have a successful online presence, Hasbro is trying to get involved in that market. They have just announced their own convention, PulseCon, which will be taking place on September 25-26, 2020. It will be an event where they simply show off all of their upcoming toys and content. If successful, this might be a new era for conventions as many other companies will probably start following suit.
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