Thread by @bopinion

In the wake of the global pandemic, the movie industry is facing an existential crisis.

Whether due to emergency decree or fear of infection, people are staying home and out of the cinemas in droves trib.al/qGhW4JI

Hollywood’s response has been to postpone “tentpole” movies to 2021, including:

🎬James Bond: No Time to Die
🎬Dune
🎬Black Widow trib.al/qGhW4JI

There’s a predictable negative synergy: If there are no big movies, few people will go.
If few people go, the big movies will be postponed even further

Small wonder that the world’s largest theater operator might soon file for bankruptcy trib.al/qGhW4JI

All this raises two questions:

➡️Can movie theaters be made safe enough that audiences will be persuaded to return?
➡️What’s the cost if they collapse? trib.al/qGhW4JI

In much of the U.S., shutdown orders keep theaters closed. Experts are divided:

Some argue that if audiences wear masks and socially distance, it’d be safer than going to the gym.
Others insist they remain risky trib.al/qGhW4JI

The rest of the world seem less afraid of theaters than we are. Cinemas are open in :

🇯🇵Japan
🇮🇹Italy
🇫🇷France
🇩🇪Germany
🇵🇱Poland
🇧🇬Bulgaria
🇩🇰Denmark
🇪🇸Spain
🇸🇪Sweden
🇮🇳India
trib.al/qGhW4JI

Lately, in an effort to lure U.S. audiences back, the big chains have been touting their upgraded ventilation and other cleanliness measures.

But the “ick” factor is keeping the public at home trib.al/qGhW4JI

We still lack good data on Covid transmission in cinemas. Some cinephiles assert there have been no reported cases of transmission in a movie audience.

That’s hard to know for sure, given the failure of most efforts at contact tracing trib.al/qGhW4JI

Why does this matter? Can’t everybody just stream at home?

Sure. But that’s a different experience, involving consumption of a different product trib.al/qGhW4JI

Film critic @OwenGleiberman warns that if theaters die, we will lose “the greatest art form of the last century.” The public seems to agree:

📺Game of Thrones peaked at 19 million U.S. viewers
📽️Avengers: Endgame sold 94 million tickets in the U.S. alone trib.al/qGhW4JI

Going to the movies is one of the last public activities that we attend by choice where the political views of the people around us make no difference whatsoever.

We sit in the darkness, eyes on the screen, sharing a unique experience with strangers trib.al/qGhW4JI