California Movie Theaters Will Get to Reopen This Week
By George Robbins
Movie theaters have had some of the worst luck with the Covid-19 pandemic due to being shut down with absolutely no way of earning income. Theaters were among the first businesses to shut down when the pandemic hit back in the middle of March and are now on the verge of financial ruin. With the beginning of the pandemic came the closing of every business where people would gather for entertainment purposes. This is how we ended up with a long laundry list of films that now have new release dates and companies like AMC who are about to declare bankruptcy after only a few months of being shut down. Hope has come back to those companies in some way shape or form by way of new health guidelines allowing for the reopening of some businesses.
All over the United States, there are businesses which are still shut down due to individual state laws that dictate which ones can reopen and when. Many states are allowing businesses to reopen in phases where the ones most at risk for spreading disease are allowed to open last. This was believed to mean that theaters would not be allowed to reopen in states like California until much later due to being in a much later phase. It seems that due to the new guidelines being in place, Governor Newsom will allow theaters to open on June 12th, but only if they adhere to those guidelines perfectly. Saving businesses from failing is what they are currently focusing on, but it is more important that they keep the virus from making a comeback.
Even with the reopening of theaters, they are going to be having an uphill battle due to the fact they have nothing to show to the public. With all movies that were supposed to come out getting pushed back or released straight to digital, theaters have their work cut out for them. There isn’t anything new to draw the public in and without that, they can’t show anything but old content. This presents the biggest problem for all theaters which is the fact that they will simply not get enough customers walking through the doors to keep them afloat. As of now there are only a few new movies that are going to release over the next month and a half. Included on that current list is ‘Tenet,’ ‘Mulan,’ and ‘Unhinged.’
Among the movies that are coming out, it is unknown if ‘Tenet’ will even end up keeping its July release date at all. To make it all the more difficult for theaters, they must adhere to guidelines including limited theater capacity of 25 percent or no more than 100 attendees, face masks are to be worn by patrons when entering and exiting, and changing seating to maintain physical distance between audience members of different households. With all of these challenges in place, on top of not having any new content to show, they are relying on a dedicated crowd to help bring in revenue. Without it, there is a good chance many theaters could end up shutting down permanently.