‘Greyhound’ Is Set to Release on Apple TV+
By George Robbins
The world climate continues to be pretty terrible for the entertainment industry and more specifically the movie industry. This pandemic makes it difficult for many companies to get work done properly and makes it physically impossible for some companies to make any money whatsoever. The movie theater industry knows this best of all because they are completely shut down with no way of making revenue. Theaters have been shut down for two months now with about a month and a half before they reopen their doors to the public. That is if they will really be able to because new health and safety laws must be followed post reopening to prevent rate of infection from spiking again. This creates a problem for the theaters and their employees who have been laid off or furloughed.
In order to get their businesses back up and running again they must adhere to the new rules as well as inspire public confidence. For instance, if people don’t think it is safe to go out to the movies, they will not want to go. So while the theater doors may open again by the summer, there is no telling when most people will want to go through those doors. This is one of the reasons why most production companies have pushed their movie releases back so far despite knowing generally when theaters will reopen. Some companies do not want to have to wait that long or take that kind of risk.
While some movies will have to wait for theatrical release, there are other films that are taking the direct to digital approach. The most successful movies to go straight to VOD have been ‘Trolls World Tour’ and ‘Scoob!.’ This is mostly due to the fact that families are just trying to keep busy during these times. However, the opportunity is there for other straight to VOD movies to do well also, but I think it would take a specific movie to do so. That movie might just end up being ‘Greyhound’ starring Tom Hanks which was due for release theatrically in June. The movie stars Tom Hanks playing a captain who is trying to transport troops across the ocean during WWII with no air support to keep them safe.
‘Greyhound’ was an anticipated film before the coronavirus pandemic kicked into full swing and everything shut down. Now that all of this is going on, the studio has had to make a decision about how they want to move forward with the movie. Would they end up deciding to push back the release date on the film like most other studios or would they end up releasing the movie on VOD like some other studios have done with their films. They have apparently decided on the latter by choosing to release it on VOD to Apple TV+, Apple’s streaming service. Whether this will help the film or not is something that we can only wait and see if it will work out.