Can 007 be saviour of NI cinema industry?
Movie House boss banking on Bond
JAMES Bond might have saved the world dozens of times in his movie career, but now he could be facing his biggest challenge of all — single handedly saving our cinemas.
But in the best Bond tradition, time is fast running out.
According to Michael Mcadam, who runs the Movie House chain of cinemas across Northern Ireland, unless the doors are open by April, it could be too late for even 007 to save the day.
The scheduled release of the latest Bond flick, No Time To Die, has been delayed twice due to the pandemic. When it opens on April 2, cinema owners have high hopes that it will be the blockbuster that drives fans back to the big screen.
“I’ve already told the Executive we have to be doing some business by April to have a chance for cinemas to survive in their current form,” Mr Mcadam said.
“But we are up against i t. There are so many factors working against us right now and, crucially, we’re relying on the big studios in America to make their movies available.
“But there’s a problem there. In America they look at their own country and see everything closed and hold back. If they don’t release their movies to us, we have nothing to show. If we managed to get the go-ahead to re-open in six weeks time once this current lockdown is over, I don’t see how we can. We have no films.”
Hollywood isn’t the only target of Mr Mcadam’s anger, with Stormont also in his sights.
“America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold,” said Michael. “But we’ve been done no favours locally either.
“If I look at The Jet Centre in Coleraine during the last lockdown, before Christmas every outlet was open in some shape or form — except my cinema.
“It was frustrating to see, and that’s despite us presenting information to the Executive that the cinema is perhaps the safest, family friendly leisure activity out there.
“I have invited politicians to come along and see what we offer, how the cinema is safe, but still we’ve always been the first to be told to close. We were first to close before Halloween at a time when we had hoped to start bringing in some money. Again we were the first to close coming up to Christmas.”
Cinemas haven’t been helped by some of the biggest studios directing their latest movies straight to streaming services.
“We’ve seen Disney taking Mulan direct to Disney Plus,” said Mr Mcadam. “That would have been a big family film coming up to Christmas. And the more films like that we miss out on, the easier it becomes for families to continue with a new way of watching the latest movies in the future.
“But I haven’t given up. There’s still a lot of me that believes we need cinemas. We’re all social creatures, we like to get out and going to the cinema has a future.
“We just need the authorities to see that, support us and give us a chance to still be around when we can finally open again for good. But I’m a realist.
“I know we had to close initially. But what we need now is a task force to look seriously at how we can keep businesses in hospitality and entertainment open in the safest way possible.
“That’s got to be a priority. It should have been before now. We can’t go on stumbling from lockdown to lockdown. We need to start doing something to build confidence in the industry again.
“We all know we’re going to have to live our lives differently, we need to start working on how we’re going to do that and keep our entertainment industry afloat.
“I have no doubt people still want to go to the cinema once we have films to show, but we need a big one to get us started again. In this six-week lockdown we have an opportunity to make things right. If we don’t offer people the chance to relax together by going to the cinema or a restaurant, they’re going to find a way to do it behind the backs of the Executive.”
‘We can’t go on stumbling from lockdown to lockdown. We need to start doing something to build confidence in the industry again’