Will “Everyone’s Gone to the Movies” be true again?

Back in May, I wrote a long post about the effects the COVID19 pandemic is having on the movie and movie theater industries.

The short version?

It’s a disaster. Theaters stayed closed for months and movie producers have had to either hold onto their new films (James Bond No Time to Die), go to premium video on demand (Disney’s live-action Mulan) or go straight to streaming as a way of bringing in new customers (Disney+ and the Hamilton movie).

The one big-deal movie to get a general theatrical release in the United States is Christopher Nolan’s big-budget time-travel/spy movie Tenet.

Let’s just say the release has not gone particularly well.  Made on a budget of $200 million, Tenet has made $45 million in the US and $262 million internationally. And it’s not because people aren’t interested in seeing it – they’re just not ready, at least in most of the US, to out to the movies.

I went to see Tenet at my local theater last Sunday at a 1 p.m. matinee.  I figured it would be reasonably safe given that I was expecting only sparse attendance at that time for a movie that had been in theaters for a month.  I was correct.  There were about 7 people total at the screening in a mid-sized theater at my local multiplex.

It was great fun to go see my first movie in a theater since probably February of this year.  Popcorn, a Diet Pepsi, and a darkened theater with a bigger than life movie.  Admittedly, it was not the same as going to Council Bluffs to see the latest Nolan release at the IMAX theater as I had been hoping to back in December, but it was still a lot of fun. (And to be honest – I liked Dunkirk at the IMAX a lot more than I would have liked Tenet there.)

But overall, things are not looking good for the movie industry.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Regal Cinemas, our second largest movie theater chain, are closing down all of their US theaters:

And Denis Villeneuve’s version of Dune has now been delayed until fall of 2021.

Less disappointing to me is the news that Jurassic World: Dominion has now been delayed from 2021 to 2022 to make room for the 2020 movies that will be hopefully screening in 2021.

Note: This blog post has been sitting unfinished for the last week.  This tweet from Stephen King prompted me to go ahead and post it.