The show must go on ... somehow
Will film buffs return to cinemas for big blockbuster releases?
For the first time in the modern era, the month of July will go by without a single blockbuster opening in movie theatres. With kids out of school, this is usually the point in the movie release cycle when studios unspool some of their biggest titles.
Last week, after Tenet shifted its release from July to Aug. 12, Disney followed suit, postponing its live-action remake of Mulan to Aug. 21.
The Mouse House is hoping that the film will open in time to welcome families back to theatregoing after an unsettling summer shutdown that has seen many long-standing traditions upended by the COVID-19 pandemic.
After three months, theatres across Canada — which were abruptly forced to shut in March as the virus swept the globe — are cautiously reopening.
This weekend, Cineplex cinemas in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland join Alberta in reopening doors.
Ontario, Manitoba and P.E.I. will be hoping to return to business later this month. While the auditoriums wait for new product to be shown in theatres, Cineplex will screen a selection of recent films, including Birds of Prey, The Invisible Man, Bloodshot and Sonic the Hedgehog.
But while the last few months have proved challenging for Hollywood releases, which have seen a number of tentpole titles shifted to later in the year or 2021, it has proved equally frustrating for filmmakers and actors operating with lower budgets.
Director Sergio Navarretta, whose drama The Cuban was set to open in theatres in April, saw months of planning go out the window in a few short weeks. Led by Ana Golja from Degrassi: Next Class and Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr., the coming-of-age drama follows a young Afghan immigrant’s unexpected friendship with an elderly Cuban musician.
“Like many, I experienced all the stages of grief, but I quickly got to work to figure out how to pivot, and find innovative ways to get the movie safely to the public,” Navarretta says.
Instead of a traditional promotional screening, which would have featured an onstage Q&A with Gossett Jr. at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, Navarretta debuted the movie as part of the Canadian Film Fest, which found a home on Super Channel in May.
“We are now working on some exciting plans to release the film,” he says.
Similarly, Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg saw two of his smaller movies — the Second World War drama Resistance and the sci-fi thriller Vivarium — both go to VOD after their March theatrical releases were scrapped.
But in an April interview with the Sun, he wasn’t sure how — or when — a cinematic revival would take shape.
“I could see it going one of two ways,” he said in a phone interview from Indiana.
“I can see once this goes away, people having such a desperate need for communal experiences will flock to theatres. But I can also see the reverse happening. People being so scared to commune because of fears of infection.”
While late August is an unproven time of year for Hollywood to release one of its bigger budgeted titles, a smaller number of films and a limited amount of seating could be a way for studios to ride out the pandemic until things — hopefully — return to normal later this year.
Having to rearrange the release calendar further could create a domino effect that would spill into 2022, but Navarretta thinks the bigger blockbusters will always have a home on the big screen.
Still, he predicts the shutdown will lead more filmmakers to explore VOD and streaming options.
“You have access potentially to a much larger market and in some ways it is less costly to promote a title on VOD, versus trying to mount a massive marketing campaign to release a film in theatres,” he says.
Others, like Eisenberg, think consumption of movies solely online won’t be sustainable when the pandemic subsides.
“You can sense that there’s this palatable need for people to connect in person,” Eisenberg says.
Ethan Hawke, who participated in TIFF’s virtual Stay-at-Home Cinema series in April, echoed those sentiments in a separate interview with the Sun.
“I remember sitting in a sold-out house for Get Out in Toronto. That was one of my favourite recent movie-going experiences just because it created such social instability. That movie was so not politically correct and I remember when we walked out of the theatre, I felt like everyone in that audience had become friends that night.
“We were all looking at one another thinking, ‘Was it OK to laugh at that?’ We were all scared together and survived together.
“So I love the power of the community experience a movie theatre gives people ... the future of movies seems pretty secure.”