Corona Daily 304: No Time to Release

I haven’t seen a James Bond film in five years, an intolerably long time. Since March, cinemas in Bombay have been shut.  “No time to die”, Bond no. 25 had postponed its worldwide premier from April to November. I was hoping the multiplexes would open by then, allowing me to attend the first show.

This week, the James Bond release was postponed to April 2021. That announcement acted like a nuclear bomb for the cinemas. Cineworld, world’s second biggest chain, closed all its 663 theaters. 40,000 employees in the USA and 5000 employees in the UK are in danger of losing their jobs. Odeon, the UK chain, declared many of its theatres will be open only on weekends.

James Bond rescues gorgeous women, British dignity, civil society, but this time his job was to rescue the worldwide cinemas. He failed.

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Since the beginning of the pandemic, most cinemas remained shut. Movie lovers grudgingly shifted to binge watching on Netflix or a similar platform. In places where cinemas opened, there was a 25-50% cap on occupancy for social distancing. Theatre owners were expected to invest in santisters, masks, improved ventilation, providing popcorns in pre-packed boxes, temperature checks. Viewers, despite everything, don’t feel confident yet.

Then Hollywood began cancelling releases. Cinema theatres live on blockbusters. Either the production or the release of Mulan, Black Widow, F9 (fast and furious), Wonder woman 1984 (Gal Gadot), Mission impossible: 7/8, Batman were postponed.

Warner brothers risked releasing “Tenet” in the summer. That was a guinea pig for Hollywood and for the exhibitors. In pre-covid times, the Christopher Nolan film would have grossed $50 million on the opening weekend, just like his previous films. It debuted over the labour day weekend, and still made less than $10 million. This scared the James Bond producers.

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The last Bond film, Spectre, grossed $879 million, 77% of which was made outside north America. It is a truly global series running for nearly sixty years. No Time to die has a reported budget of $250 million. In normal times, it would have earned $1.5 billion dollars, despite the falling standards of Bond movies.

But Hollywood’s mecca and medina, Los Angeles and New York are still shut. Bollywood’s Bombay is shut. Places which buy the costliest tickets are the worst affected by coronavirus. For once, James Bond decided not to risk it.

“We are like a grocery shop that doesn’t have vegetables, fruit, meat,” said Mooky Greidinger, the Cineworld CEO. “We can’t operate for a long time without a product.”

India, in its green zones, will open cinemas from 15 October with a 50% cap, and a long list of restrictions. It will face the same problems. Because Bombay is shut, the blockbusters will not be released. And without blockbusters, viewers don’t think the risk-reward equation works. (Some theatres in Europe and USA are showing classics. That niche is not helping them break even.)

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A question has been raised - will the pandemic kill cinemas? I don’t think so. Cinema is a different medium than the small screen. A visit to a cinema theatre is an event. You can’t possibly ask a new date to watch a movie together on your laptop. Movies like James Bond or 3-D movies are made for the giant screens. One can replay them at home or on a flight, it’s not the same. If the cinema theatres are shut for ever, so will James Bond.

China has recovered, new blockbusters are released. Chinese cinemas are full, their revenue gone back to pre-covid levels. That gives me hope the same thing will happen worldwide. I don’t fancy travelling to China to watch a Chinese James Bond.

Ravi