The virus that changed the way we watch films

The coronavirus crisis has profoundly disrupted all facets of filmmaking — including how studios release them. What does it all mean for the future?

IN THE SPACE of 24 hours, the movie landscape became unrecognisable. Last month, one day after Boris Johnson advised people to avoid public spaces, every major cinema chain in the UK announced their venues would close indefinitely. Cinemagoing, at least for a little while, would have to take place outside of an actual cinema.

For the studios, the response to this crisis has been simple: delay their films’ releases until all of this blows over. But some have taken the near-unprecedented step of making high-profile movies available to download, weeks or even days after their theatrical releases. Onward, Birds Of Prey, The Hunt, The Invisible Man and Bloodshot moved their digital release dates forward. Meanwhile, Easter holiday family fare Trolls World Tour just abandoned its theatrical release, moving, remarkably, to digital-only.

Industry expert and box-office analyst Charles Gant thinks the ‘theatrical window’ — the time between a film being released in cinemas and arriving on home entertainment — might just change permanently beyond all recognition.

“The window has been tweaked over the years,” Gant says. “When I was a kid, a major film migrating to TV was always years after the cinema release.” With the advent of VHS, DVD and now streaming, that window has been steadily shrinking to its current 16-week gap in the UK.

But the coronavirus crisis has changed the rulebook. “With The Hunt, The Invisible Man and now Birds Of Prey, the studios are breaking the original agreement they had with cinemas when they booked the films into their venues,” Gant explains. “It’s a big deal — but what complaint can cinema operators reasonably articulate when they have closed their doors and have no customers?”

The big question is whether things will get back to normal once the cinemas open again. “I can see us going back to a window, but I can’t see it being quite as air-tight as in the past,” Gant predicts.

It’s clear that these are extraordinary, exceptional times, so naturally different rules apply — but there is no one-sizefits-all rule for all films. “It is perhaps significant that Universal bumped both No Time To Die and Fast & Furious 9 before taking this path with Trolls World Tour. Trolls is like a toe in the water,” Gant concludes.

Ultimately, though, it seems highly likely that the big-screen experience will remain a crucial part of life — to the film studios who are willing to put up with costly delays to their movies’ releases; to filmmakers determined to preserve the most powerful possible way to showcase their work; and to film fans, who will always be thrilled by the prospect of sitting down in a packed house on opening night.