UK cinemas lobbying government for June reopening
The UK cinema industry is understood to be lobbying the government to approve a proposed reopening scheme that would see venues welcome customers by the end of June.
Phil Clapp, the chief executive of the UK Cinema Association said: “We’ve made representations to government on the safeguards which UK cinemas would look to have in place for audiences and staff alike upon re-opening, and have asked that consideration be given – with these in mind – to allow cinemas to open by the end of June.”
Clapp’s plan is in line with the optimism of Vue Cinemas’ chief executive Tim Richards, who yesterday told the BBC he was hopeful that his chain would be up and running before the 17 July release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, one of the remaining tentpole blockbusters whose release has not been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“What we are trying to do is work with the government to demonstrate that we are not like sporting fixtures or music concerts,” said Richards.
“We can actually control how many people go into our cinema at any given time. We have the ability to schedule our films separately and we have the ability to control entrances and exits for customers.”
Clapp remains cagey on the nature of proposed safety measures , but it is anticipated that seating capacity caps will be compulsory, as well as staggered screening times, contactless ticketing transactions and enhanced hygiene measures, such as more frequent venue-cleaning and widespread sanitisation stations.
Yesterday, Kristian Connelly, the CEO of Australian chain Cinema Nova, confirmed they too were banking on Tenet galvanising business once cinemas reopening, calling the film “a totem guiding the industry towards its reboot.”
A high-concept sci-fi thriller starring Robert Pattinson and John David Washington, Tenet follows a secret agent who travels through time in an attempt to prevent the third world war. The film, which has a budget of over $200m, was expressly designed for the big screen and shot in Imax, 35mm and 70mm.
Nolan has long been a champion of the theatrical experience and sources suggest the film-maker himself may be behind the risky move to make Tenet a canary down the mine in the new cinema landscape.
The CEO of Imax, Richard Gelfond, told Variety, “Chris really would like to be coming out with a film that opens in theatres. I don’t know anyone in America who is pushing harder to get the theatres reopened and to get his movie released than Chris Nolan.”
If the studio succeeds in turning a profit from the strategy, it will need public confidence to be high enough for them to venture out, and competitors to remain sufficiently nervous that Tenet is the sole major title playing in most cinemas – which will be operating at far short of full capacity – for many weeks.
At the present time, only Disney have another major title on the books for July: the long-delayed live-action remake of Mulan, scheduled for release a week after Tenet.
Last week, plans were unveiled for cinemas in the Czech Republic and Norway to reopen later in May. Cinemas in China remain closed after a smallscale reopening in mid-March was abruptly halted by the government on 27 March, amid fears of a second wave of infections.
All UK cinemas closed in the week before the official lockdown on 23 March. Since then, distributors, exhibitors and studios have been rapidly recalibrating release strategies as the duration of lockdown – and subsequent public concerns over going out – extended.
Most major releases were moved back to later this year or to 2021, but those which chose to retain their original date and instead launch digitally have been capitalisingon a captive audience hungry for new entertainment.
Universal’s family musical Trolls: World Tour took over $100m (£80m) in its first three weeks of release on platforms such as Amazon Prime, easily breaking records for digital release and prompting Universal’s parent company to suggest that it would seek to collapse the release window once cinemas reopen.
“As soon as theatres reopen, we expect to release movies on both formats,” said Jeff Shell, the chief executive of NBCUniversal. His comments were badly received by the world’s two biggest cinema operators – Cineworld and AMC, which owns the Odeon chain in the UK as well as the US’s largest chain of multiplexes – who issued a global ban on forthcoming Universal films, which include the Fast and Furious and Jurassic World franchises.
Commentators expressed scepticism about whether the chains would stick to their word, but the reaction revealed the extreme anxiety in the sector about the destruction of a business model already under serious threat from streamers such as Netflix.
Universal is also the UK distributor of new James Bond film No Time to Die, which was the first big release pushed back, from April to November. It is thought to be unlikely a simultaneous online release for such a title would be pursued, as the profit margins for such a release – as well as its substantial sponsorship campaigns – would require the maximum possible theatrical footfall.
Some sources suggest that Universal may consider a fresh postponement of the release to next year, further suggesting the studio remains committed to cinema releasing.
That film’s current release date in the US falls over the Thanksgiving weekend, a traditionally lucrative spot in the calendar, which other studios will be eyeing should No Time to Die move. Earlier this week, Paramount Pictures announced a Christmas release for Top Gun: Maverick, which sees a belated return for Tom Cruise’s flying ace.
The studio also announced an early September spot for A Quiet Place 2, which was pulled from the schedules just before its mid-March debut. This echoes the eagerness of exhibitors for an early end to cinema closures, while also allowing for the option of a digitally led campaign.
The film, which stars Emily Blunt as the head of a family self-isolating to try and protect themselves against a global threat, would likely follow in the footsteps of Bird Box, Netflix’s similarly themed hit starring Sandra Bullock, which was seen by 45m accounts in its first seven days of release in late 2018.
A Quiet Place 2 – which relies on long periods of near silence punctuated by abrupt and loud moments of shock – is also a film ideally suited to the drivein, which has seen a dramatic upturn in popularity since the start of the pandemic.
While studios have been relatively swift to announce plans for tentpole titles, release strategies for smallerscale dramas – thrown off course by both the closure of cinemas and uncertainty over the future of the film festivals where many of them would have begun their journey – mostly remain murky.
The Cannes and Venice film festivals have still to officially declare whether this year’s editions will be cancelled; that news will likely determine the fates of films vying for next year’s awards.
Yet the announcement last week by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences that the 2021 Oscars would, for one year only, extend its eligibility criteria to films that had not debuted in cinemas is likely to serve as a considerable reassurance to companies sitting on prestige cinema.
It may also be an incentive: if some studios still choose to hold titles back in the hope of maximum theatrical profit, smaller outfits could reap the benefits both in terms of digital revenue and awards acclaim.