Russell Crowe’s new movie will be first to screen after coronavirus. Will audiences show?
In recent weeks, Hollywood studios and movie theater chains have held out hope that cinemas will be back in business in July, and that audiences will be eager to return. Veteran film producer Mark Gill is betting the launch of his new studio on whether or not that dream becomes reality.
Gill’s company Solstice Studios will release the new Russell Crowe psychological thriller Unhinged in cinemas on July 1, the former Miramax executive said last week. Although it’s unclear how many theaters will open by then, the film will be the first major new theatrical release since the coronavirus outbreak shuttered US multiplexes in mid-March.
“There’s a risk attached to it, obviously,” said Gill, 57. “We launched our company about 18 months ago to make movies for movie theaters. I think you need to stand up for theaters at any time, really, but especially at this time.”
The movie’s premiere will mark an early test of whether audiences are itching to return to movie theaters after a long period of limited entertainment options and copious Netflix binge-watching. Unhinged stars the Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind actor as a man whose road rage gets way out of hand.
It’s an especially risky debut for Hollywood-based Solstice, which Gill founded in October 2018 with $400 million in funding, including $150m. from London-based financier Ingenious Media. The company aims to produce three to five movies a year, mostly with production budgets from $30m. to $80m. (Unhinged came in at $33m.). It also hopes to acquire a handful of movies for US release. Solstice has 59 employees.
Setting the stage for its first movie now may seem like a Hail Mary play at a time when much of the country is still in the throes of a public health emergency. The planned debut is more than two weeks before Christopher Nolan’s new movie Tenet hits the multiplex on July 17, which will be followed by Walt Disney’s live-action Mulan remake on July 24.
But Gill said he’s not deterred. He said he was heartened by a survey his company commissioned to determine the willingness of audiences to show up at cinemas. Of the thousand moviegoers who were polled, 80% said they wanted to go back to movie theaters in July. Moviegoers are defined as people who go six times a year or more.
“I think there’s a lot to be said for pent-up demand to get out of the house,” Gill said. “I think that’s very, very real.”
July is about the earliest major theater chains are expected to reopen in the US. Plano, Texas-based Cinemark Holdings recently pinpointed July 1, a Wednesday,
as its target for getting back in business. AMC Theatres, the world’s largest cinema circuit, has also signaled that it hopes to open its doors that month.
States including Georgia and Texas have eased restrictions to allow theaters to operate at limited capacity, but not all chains have taken the governors up on their invitation to resume operations. Most cinema owners don’t want to reopen without major studio productions to put on their screens.
To hear it from Gill, though, the gamble to release in July was not a decision he took rashly. He said he landed on the release date after consulting with the National Association of Theatre Owners, the Washington, DC-based lobbying organization, as well as the nation’s largest exhibitors, AMC, Regal and Cinemark.
The domestic release of Unhinged is expected to follow or coincide with its debut in countries including Australia, China, Germany, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan, the company said.
The still-potent disease adds a unique hurdle to the movie’s box office prospects. Social distancing restrictions will probably still be in place in many areas, and analysts don’t expect moviegoing to return to pre-pandemic levels until there’s a vaccine, if ever. Theaters that open are likely to do so with limited seating, robust cleaning schedules and mask requirements.
Theaters are expected to reopen with 25% to 50% capacity, with seats blocked off in a checkerboard format in many locations.
And even without fears of the coronavirus, there was no guarantee Unhinged would be a hit. Distributors have struggled in recent years to find audiences for mid-budget movies, as the audience for such films migrates online.
On the plus side, the new movie won’t be facing competition for screens. Until Unhinged, the theaters that reopen will probably be playing older titles to get customers used to the idea of going back.
“It won’t be, ‘do you want to go to the movies?’ It’ll be, ‘do you want to go to the movie?’” Gill joked.
Gill was previously president of Avi Lerner’s Millennium Films, where he worked on movies including The Hitman’s Bodyguard and the Olympus Has Fallen series. He left in 2017 after a failed attempt to buy the company. Before that, he presided over the short-lived specialty label Warner Independent Pictures at Warner Bros.
Until his abrupt departure in 2002, Gill was the LA-based president of Miramax Films, the studio founded by Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob. Gill exited the then-Disney-owned company after clashing with Harvey Weinstein, and he was long known to be unhappy there. Weinstein was convicted of rape in New York earlier this year.
Gill’s credits as a producer, or executive producer, include Frida, Under the Tuscan Sun and Mechanic: Resurrection. (Los Angeles Times/TNS)