Last Year 2020, New Year 2021
The pandemic year will be remembered as one of the most devastating in cinema history. Despite the movie theaters remaining shut most of the time, audiences were able to enjoy some premieres in selected countries where Covid was still playing catch up. And with many countries where the virus decided to re-appear, the viral back and forth game has carried a severe toll on movie going experiences worldwide. Now, as the new year begins, the industry is still in turmoil about the future events to unfold. To make sense of it all, let's take a closer look at what transpired the previous year. As the famous American futurist and scientist Dr. Carl Sagan (1980) stated, “You have to know the past to understand the present.” This is especially true as we look at the ramifications of the global Pandemic and its effects on the today’s world and the world of tomorrow.
Looking back to 2020
The most memorable movies pre-corona era was without question the Sam Mendes directed 1917 movie, which at its core is a wide screen film experience at its purest and works wonderfully for movie theater audiences. The movie sets place during World War I, where two British soldiers -- Lance Cpl. Schofield and Lance Cpl. Blake -- receive seemingly impossible orders. In a race against time, they have to cross over into enemy territory to deliver a message that could potentially save 1,600 of their fellow soldiers-- including Blake's own brother. The whole narrative is gripping and mastered with the illusion of one-shot filming.
Another highlight is the movie Da 5 Bloods directed by none other than the famous Spike Lee. The film tells the story of four African American vets battling the forces of man and nature when they return to Vietnam to seek the remains of their fallen squad leader (Stormin played by Chadwick Boseman) and the gold fortune he helped them hide. As in Lee's previous movie BlacKkKlansman, this movie also succeeds masterfully to combine the past societal discrepancies with the current day issues. Delroy Lindon gives a convincing performance and, though in a supporting role, Boseman's acting is truly awe inspiring. For obvious reasons, the Finnish actor Jasper P??kk?nen is also seen in the Hollywood movie just as he did in Lee's previous movie.
Of course, the most memorable of all the 2020 movies is the respectable movie Tenet, directed by Christopher Nolan, the great defender of the big screen theater experience. The movie and director are both respectable due to the faith placed on the magic of the cinematic experience during a pandemic. The plot introduces a secret agent (protagonist John David Washington) is given a single word as his weapon and sent to prevent the onset of World War III. Through intense turn of events, he must travel through time and bend the laws of nature in order to be successful in his mission. The response to the movie was as anxiosly anticipated as the climax of the movie. Alas, it was not so, the corona restrictions prevailed and delivered a meagerly worldwide result of a little over 363 million dollars in box office numbers. Compared to Nolan's previous movies Inception ($836.8. million), Interstellar ($701.8 million) and Dunkirk ($526.9 million) - the reception was less than encouraging.
As we began to close the year and people turned in their votes at the elections, the movie going audiences around the world set their hopes on Wonder Woman 1984, which ended up premiering on HBO Max and the 7.000 open movie theaters in the U.S. The havoc that Warner Media wreaked with its new streaming strategy can still be felt today. Around the same time, through the turn of the year, announcements of the very first vaccinations were turning up in the news. Cut-scene.
Introducing 2021
We enter the new year with wide spread rumours about postponements as virus variants continue the ravage countries around the world and vaccination operations stall. AMC is in dire straits as it failed to receive any dime from the $900 billion stimulus deal and continues to struggle paying down its nearly $5 billion and $750 million operating costs. There is a weird dichotomy between the hope for getting back to the theaters and the despair of never seeing the end of it all.
Warner Media still intends to stream all 2021 content but has begun negotiations with its tentpole movie directors and actors to release its greatest titles in movie theaters before putting them on HBO Max. In other words, going back on their direct-to-streaming announcement - no doubt the contract between the studio and Godzilla vs. Kong movie producers and financiers (i.e Legendary) forced its hand to re-evaluate its strategy.
Around the same time HBO Max is trying to up its game, Netflix announces its massive 2021 film slate and promise to deliver new movies every week totaling in 70 movies during the coming year! Gary Vaynerchuck, a media mogul in his own right, stated in an interview given to Drew Barrymore's instagram live feed: "You're going to see innovation over the next decade or two in the movie theater world, but I think this quantity execution by Netflix is brilliant." Drew asks whether movie theaters will come back, and are we all going to just sit in our houses forever? Vaynerchuck believes that we need each other and are yearning for the movie going experience and that getting back to normal will a first be weird - like coming out of summer vacation going back to school. I agree with his assesment that for the movie theaters to come back, they need to innovate.
Similar contemplation was offered at a recent Hollywood Reporter exclusive Directors Roundtable with George Clooney ('Midnight Sky'), Spike Lee ('Da 5 Bloods'), Regina King ('One Night in Miami'), Paul Greengrass ('News of the World'), Chloé Zhao ('Nomadland'), George C. Wolfe ('Ma Rainey's Black Bottom') and Lee Isaac Chung ('Minari) where the directors spoke of the future of the movie going experience, directing and making movies in these challenging times. Greengrass said it best:"There's not going to be the business around that there normally would, but I personally believe theaters will be back, the cinematic experience will be back, I think by the summer. I think that vaccines are going to get us back to normal...everyone's going to congregate in some version of that ground where theatrical movies coexist with streams, and I think it'll be fine. I'm optimistic about that. People will go and see movies, and movies will be back in business in a big way."
If Greengrass is to be believed, the very first movies we will be seeing on the big screen are Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick, Spacejam: A New Legacy with Lebron James and Marvel's Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to name a few. Many of the titles waiting to be released the first half of the year will be left out in the dry to and most likely suffer the fate of being postponed again just as rumours of Bond: No Time to Die push to the fall have already surfaced. This slow recovery will present a paramount challenge for the film industry to topple. Such movies as A Quiet Place 2, Tom and Jerry, Morbius, Kingsman 2 have already announced postponements. Other titles as Tomb Raider 2, Cruella, Ghostbusters Afterlife, Cinderella and Fast&Furious 9 have yet to announce their response to the inevitable.
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