FILM FINDS A WAY
Hollywood studios are making movies available — one way or another
Movies don’t disappear into a void, much though we might sometimes want them to; here’s looking at you, Men in Black International. So what is happening to all the movies NOT coming to a theatre near you this week? Where are they?
Even before the coronavirus scare closed movie theatres, several big studio films were pulling up stakes. James Bond will return in November with No Time to Die, originally slated for an April 10 release. F9 has decided to wait a year. And A Quiet Place 2 has no release date set, after quietly quitting its March 20 opening plans.
In Canada, several new movies have decided to go straight to digital. They include Canadian Strain, a comedy about a cannabis dealer struggling to survive in the newly legal environment; Johnny Ma’s To Live to Sing, about a rundown Chinese opera company, now coming to itunes on March 24; and Vivarium, a sci-fi thriller with Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots, available March 27.
Other titles — Anne at 13,000 ft, The Conductor, The Burnt Orange Heresy, The Rest of Us, and Never Rarely Sometimes Always — have delayed their release (or had it delayed for them by the closures) without choosing a specific new date. Some will no doubt migrate to streaming services, as well.
It’s a weird confluence. On the one hand, cinema closures and the social distancing that started even before that has robbed people of the means to consume big-screen entertainment. But the shutdown of — well, everything, more or less — means we’re hankering for something to watch at home.
Streaming services are happily stepping up, even if it can be hard to tell the difference between kindness and avarice. Certainly the decision by Disney to announce the release of Frozen 2 to its streaming service three months early “for families during these challenging times” seemed little more than a crude marketing ploy. But perhaps it’s a bigger deal than it seems; after all, this is a company that often talks of locking content in a vault.
Universal also chose to move some of its currently-in-theatre titles — The Hunt, The Invisible Man and Emma. — to video-on-demand services as of March 20. They’re expected to cost $20 for a 48-hour rental. The studio has also said it will release Trolls World Tour online at the same price on April 10, the same day it was scheduled to open in cinemas. Sony Pictures followed suit, announcing that its new release Bloodshot will be available for online rental on March 24, also at $20.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Elevation Pictures is cutting prices to rent or buy some of its more popular titles on itunes, including Hustlers, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Missing Link, The Big Sick, Hacksaw Ridge and The Imitation Game — though those last two are on Netflix, as well. Most have been reduced to $5 from $15; Hustlers is now $10.
And British-themed streamer Acorn TV said it would increase its free-trial period from seven days to 30.
Addressing data flow from the supply end of the pipe, cable giant Rogers announced Wednesday that it would waive data overage fees for home internet usage until May 31.
It also freed up access to its Kid Friendly, Hollywood Suite, Lifestyle and other cable channel packages until April 30.
Like the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, film finds a way.