Let’s play a game for the rest of the summer. It’s called, ‘How Many Articles Can Megan Write That Become Dated Less Than a Week Later?’ After I wrote my piece on this summer not getting any blockbusters, the movie theater businesses were given the okay to re-open in the middle of June. Then I write a follow-up to my original article going into the details of current movie releases planned for the rest of the summer season, but only for several states to suddenly announce mandatory mask orders for public places.
While most people don’t mind making a store run in a mask, wearing one for up to two hours in a building with recycled air might be a bigger turn-off. On top of this, studios probably are not completely comfortable with the fact that theater chains will be restricted to only 50% capacity during showings.
While it appeared more people were comfortable venturing outside regularly earlier this month, the mask order now seems to have influenced some people back into quarantine mode. Because of all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if future movie release dates became modified yet again before summer’s over.
So with the on-going, ever-changing and unpredictable state of the present world, I’m going to predict on the fly which movies will be most likely to keep their current release plan and which will make yet another change in schedule.
With movies like “Black Widow” and “Mulan” from Disney, I’m guessing the mega-company is fine with holding back their new releases until autumn, as they’ve been doing pretty well with the popularity of Disney+ and merchandise in the meantime. Because Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” for Warner Bros. has held on this long to the month of July for release, I can picture them sticking to the date and either making history as the lowest opening weekend of all time, or the big weekend to bring back new movies. “Wonder Women 1984”, “No Time to Die” and “Bill & Ted: Face the Music” might be wild cards for either holding back release or sticking to their current dates.
That’s where I am with the lack of new film releases in the present world. Check back next week to see if anything sporadic occurs in the show business community. Who knows, maybe another big-budget film will quickly be sold off to a streaming platform out of desperation — like Columbia Pictures’ “Greyhound”, which was sold to Apple in May.
Megan Bianco
