www.bbc.com/culture/story/20200403-why-cinemas-will-bounce-back-from-the-coronavirus-crisis
“Theatres are closing around the world… No one knows when projectors will be fired up again… Chinese theatres shuttered when the virus hit. In mid-March, an attempt to tentatively start opening cinemas again after the easing of the lockdown saw distributors refuse to release new films and audiences stay at home.”
“Compounding the misery for cinema owners is the fact that film studios have responded by putting films only very recently released in cinemas online.”
“The consequence of all this is that studios may wonder why they’re sharing revenue with exhibitors if they can get a bigger cut by going straight to homes. Indeed, while cinemas are on their knees, streaming platforms are profiting.”
“A century ago, there was even the worry, as there is now, that cinemas would be permanently shut down by a virus. From 1918 to 1920, the so-called ‘Spanish Flu’ took the lives of 50 million people worldwide”
“[But] The British government saw cinema as an essential tool for public well-being. “Cinema was the major leisure activity – it kept people occupied, and it helped keep them calm. It also kept them out of the pubs!” says [film historian Lawrence] Napper. The British government saw cinema as an essential tool for public well-being.”
“[all this] should give us cheer to note that while the film industry in America was certainly impacted, it did not suffer overall but rather changed shape – and in fact flourished even further.”
“Film writer Richard Brody recently noted ….Many smaller companies went out of business, and the resulting shakeout led to a consolidation that made the big ones bigger, creating the studios that became the masters of production, distribution, and exhibition together; the flu, combined with the end of the war, gave rise to the mega-Hollywood that’s being duplicated again today.”
“World War Two was also, against the odds, a time in which cinema prospered. Many countries, including Britain, saw the cinema as a propaganda tool: a place to give information and boost morale”
“Pre-pandemic, there were already signs that the culture of cinemagoing was starting to crack under this {streaming culture] pressure”
“However in the new Coronavirus-afflicted world, the battle with streaming platforms seems like relatively small fry.”
“The effect of the virus has already been to make things that seemed unimaginable a month ago a reality. Hollywood studios have joined Netflix in breaking the theatrical window. ”
“And given that blockbusters rely on huge marketing campaigns, it’s unlikely that studios will want to take an immediate risk with their bigger titles when cinemas do eventually re-open – before they are sure if audiences are ready to embrace cinema again.”
“But for all the sense of impending doom, history suggests that cinema will adapt and bounce back. Crowds flocked to the cinema after the 1918 pandemic, and videos only made people more interested in cinema, not less. After several weeks or, more likely, months cooped up indoors, watching films on our television sets and computer, the experience of seeing a film in cinemas the way they were meant to be seen will be all the more magical”
