Will COVID-19 end theatrical movies

[Gaastra]

AMC is now open in some places. Found a video. (there is a injustice arcade machine?)

[WebLurker]

(there is a injustice arcade machine?)

Yeah, play that sometimes. Still mad that I can't get a Cassandra Cain character card.

[Holt]

Oofa doofa.

Two days of previews for Warner Bros.’ much-anticipated “Tenet” showed a sign of promise over the weekend. But a rising tide of coronavirus infections is now crushing the life out of the South Korean box office.

Korea was the first place in the world to screen “Tenet” commercially. The Christopher Nolan-directed “Tenet” earned $368,000 on Saturday and a further $347,000 on Sunday from previews on some 590 screens. On both days it ranked second behind “Deliver Us From Evil,” a local hitman thriller in its third week of release, but with more than two times as many screens.

Over the three days from Friday to Sunday, “Deliver” earned $1.41 million for a cumulative score of $30.6 million. Korean comedy, “OK! Madam” earned $812,000 for a two-week cumulative of $8.58 million, with “Tenet” third on $715,000.

Box Office: Russell Crowe’s ‘Unhinged’ Off to Decent Start as U.S. Theaters Slowly Reopen
But the box office careers of all titles now look to be affected as measures to control the latest virus resurgence take effect. The cumulative nationwide total was down 73% to just $3.54 million, compared with some $13 million for each of the past two weekends.

After Aug. 14 saw the first new case in the (huge) capital city, Seoul and national health authorities have increased social distancing and other control measures, These limited the maximum meeting size in Seoul to 50 people.

The impact on the cinema industry was felt immediately. Korean-made, action comedy “The Golden Holiday” halted its planned Wednesday release. “Deliver Us From Evil” cancelled a marketing event on Monday (Aug. 17), and pre-launch marketing for upcoming “Space Sweepers” was switched from real world to virtual events.

The Korean Film Council also halted issuing another round of discount vouchers, that had been intended to encourage cinema visits.

New directives issued on Sunday put Seoul on the equivalent of a new level of alert. Cinemas will be closed from Monday (Aug. 24), and mask wearing anywhere other than at home becomes mandatory. Seoul typically represents 35-40% of Korea’s national box office.

The latest wave of the COVID-19 virus appears to have been transmitted or accelerated through churches. Korea is predominantly Christian. But several of its many church denominations are secretive and have been unwilling to share names of their congregation members, thus hampering contact tracing.

The past week has seen over 1,000 new cases in Seoul, compared with only 1,800 between January and August. On Monday (Aug. 24) the city reported a further 97 cases, raising its total to 2,986. “Some of the latest infections include bus drivers, workers at a government complex in central Seoul and groups of people who were infected after attending a mass rally in mid-August,” reported the Korea Times newspaper.

https://variety.com/2020/film/asia/t...rus-1234746181

[Gaastra]

More box office update.


Deadline reporting tenet takes $717k in three days.

https://deadline.com/2020/08/tenet-k...es-1203021320/

Eight hundred made $117m in china.

Harry potter 1 made another $4.1M.


https://deadline.com/2020/08/the-eig...ce-1203019764/

From Warner Bros, Scoob! added $1.2M in 18 markets to lift the cume to $15.4M, and the Inception 10-year anniversary release took another $850K in 36 offshore markets. The cume is now $3.5M on the reissue.

[Mider2009]

No idea why every state And business isn’t enforcing masks and social distancing, here in my state we were then the governor suddenly stopped when cases were down, then cases spiked massively. They’ve ruined so many businesses.

I’m sure you can do theatre's at a certain capacity and wearing masks, also very industry should be getting money from the gov.

[Kirby101]

No idea why every state And business isn’t enforcing masks and social distancing, here in my state we were then the governor suddenly stopped when cases were down, then cases spiked massively. They’ve ruined so many businesses.

I’m sure you can do theatre's at a certain capacity and wearing masks, also very industry should be getting money from the gov.

That would be because of Donald Trump and the GOP.

[Gaastra]

https://deadline.com/2020/08/tenet-a...an-1203024015/

: Here’s the first good sign we’ve gotten on advance tickets sales for Warner Bros.’ Tenet, particularly here in the U.S.

Movio cinema analytics corp tells Deadline that pre-sales for Christopher Nolan’s latest is outpacing his previous movies Interstellar and Dunkirk at the same point in their advance sales cycle for the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia.

In the UK and Australia, Movio measured two days before the pic’s opening this coming weekend, and for the U.S. a week prior to its early access Aug. 31 preview.

Stateside, Movio noticed that there’s been significantly more single ticket purchases for Tenet (55%) compared to Dunkirk (20%) and Interstellar (47%).

While the statistical notion has always been that advance tickets sales aren’t always a clear predictor of box office openings, in a pre-pandemic marketplace, that theory was continually dismissed as we’ve saw massive advance ticket sales for Disney and Marvel movies worth their weight in gold. Huge presales for the last two Avengers’ movies and Star Wars: The Force Awakens yielded record domestic box office openings.

[Jim Kelly]

"Here’s the first good sign we’ve gotten"--depends who they mean by "we" and what they mean by "good sign." Depending how you look at it, a high box office could be a bad sign, because it means more people are going to theatres and exposing themselves to possible death. I don't think we can say what is good or bad anymore. Everything has both negatives and positives now.

And "we've saw"--why can't they hire speakers of the English language to write for them? Or at least an editor.

[Kirby101]

I agree. Gaastra seems to be pulling for the sooner everyone goes back to the theaters, the better. I think we have to continue to be very careful until we have an effective vaccine.
Acting like the COVID threat is over is not the same as it actually being safe. Just ask Herman Cain.

[Frobisher]

Saw Tenet last night and the whole multiplex was super empty compared to normal, of course. Was really nice to be able to see a film on a big screen again though.

[Gaastra]

I agree. Gaastra seems to be pulling for the sooner everyone goes back to the theaters, the better. I think we have to continue to be very careful until we have an effective vaccine.

Nope. I'm just posting news when they show up.

[Kirby101]

Nope. I'm just posting news when they show up.

Okay, my bad.

[luprki]

More box office update.


Deadline reporting tenet takes $717k in three days.

https://deadline.com/2020/08/tenet-k...es-1203021320/

Eight hundred made $117m in china.

Harry potter 1 made another $4.1M.


https://deadline.com/2020/08/the-eig...ce-1203019764/

Can’t see how a big budget movie makes a profit with these numbers.

[Gaastra]

So do i post here or in box office thread? Both are pretty much the same but no one posts in the box office thread anymore.

Guess i'll post this here this time but should i post the box office in this thread or that one? Let me know.


New mutants update--

Thurs sales are in. (note only 60% of the movies are open)

$750k on thurs night screenings.

https://deadline.com/2020/08/new-mut...us-1203025795/



Still no word on bill and ted 3, that david coperfield movie or the faith movie yet.



Also AMC wants its theatres back.

https://deadline.com/2020/08/amc-ent...er-1203026045/


Box office mojo is keeping track of the box office again. Guess they got tired of deadline doing their job. They have lasts weeks box office up and unhinged was in first. The strange thing. How is spongebob 3 in second place? Didn't that not get released in america? Are the drive ins playing it here?

Also note goonies is still in the top 5! It is now up to $825,000 at the box office. Empire strikes back in number 6.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weeken...?ref_=bo_hm_rw

[basbash99]

Can’t see how a big budget movie makes a profit with these numbers.

tbh i think big budget movies along the lines of Avengers or JL are done, at least for the next year or two, and in the meantime theaters will likely go out of business in large enough numbers to ensure that those big budget movies are never coming back. IMO the future of movies lies in streaming services/on-demand, meaning movies will still get made but without the giant budgets. While its sad to think of, compared to all the other suffering COVID has caused it doesn't amount to much.

And let's face it, its probably as good a time as any to call it a wrap on those. Endgame largely served as a good finale for the mcu. The Star Wars trilogy was a mess and probably best to focus on series like Mandalorean going forward. DCEU at least got to wash out some of the snyderverse stink with WW, Aquaman, Shazam. I'm not sure anybody really cares that much if we get more Transformers, Fast and Furious, Bond films, etc. But of course i don't speak for everybody.

Personally, if the streaming services and premium cable channels can give us shows with action scenes and effects to the level of GoT or Westworld or even Umbrella Academy, I'm good. Of course producing series like those in the COVID era has its own challenges.