Jackson Tait/Staff reporter
March 12, 2020 was the day COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic and all the movie’s people were waiting for were postponed and left theatergoing people devastated. Since then, it has been just over a year and movies have slowly started coming out again but not like before and it will likely never be the same.
A week later theater chains including Regal, AMC, and Cinemark all shut down operations like dominoes. Since they have shut down 69% of small to midsized movie theaters have gone bankrupt.
In the last year streaming services have had huge growth with new users so they can see movies at home especially with the relatively new Disney+ where they have released many classics and a few new anticipated movies and shows like the live action remake of “Mulan” about a woman who disguises herself as a man to join the Chinese military. and the series “Wandavision” about a witch and android couple who find themselves stuck in a small town with strange things happening.
Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek said “He’s not sure if there’s going back” about the new Hollywood business model.
And since millions of people are getting vaccines the list for movies that are set to release this summer is looking promising.
Other movies that are reportedly scheduled for release on HBO max that fans are very excited for is the highly anticipated Zach Snyder cut of “Justice League”, and the sequel to “Suicide Squad”, and the adaptation of the book “Dune”.
“A Quiet Place Part 2” is also set to release in May after multiple delays.
“Black Widow” starring Scarlet Johansson is to be released on May 7th and is supposed to be the next block buster to release only in theaters. And many other movies delayed in 2020 set to be released hopefully soon. Including “F9”, “In the Heights”, and “Top Gun: Maverick” which is a very highly anticipated film starring Tom Cruise.
Even with these new movies coming out sometime this year whether its on the big screens or our TV’s there is no doubt that everything is changing and it’s not just releasing movies even the filming of movies has changed because of social distancing. considering that it’s way harder to travel to new locations because of the lockdowns a new 360 film screen was made to recreate a different environment without having to leave a film set most recently used in the series “The Mandalorian”.
By this point its obvious that COVID has forced a lot of things to change for the better or for the worse. it’s still unclear if theaters will be opening up again but if they do nothing will be the same because of how easy it is to stream movies at home and the fact that people are most likely too impatient to wait for movies to come out now. It would be incredibly sad to see theaters as a whole go away forever and it would most likely be the case if it weren’t for directors Christopher Nolan. we can only hope that people like him can keep up the same attitude and insist that they’re movies can only be truly appreciated on the big screen.
Sources:
One year ago, COVID changed the movie industry as we knew it
Coronavirus: How COVID-19 will change the future of film and TV
Disney says the Covid-19 has permanently changed movies releases
COVID-19 has changed how we see movies-and there’s no going back