The global film industry is in turmoil, crippled by cinema closures and production restrictions.
Perhaps famed television producer Dick Wolf said it best.
It's show business.
No show, no business.
So, what will happen to your favorite shows?
Towards the end of 2020, a leaked recording of Tom Cruise berating his ‘Mission Impossible 7’ film crew
for breaking Covid safety protocols made headlines worldwide.
Cruise made clear the dire state of the motion picture industry in no uncertain terms.
I’m on the phone with every f------ studio at night!
Insurance companies!
Producers!
And they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies.
We are creating thousands of jobs.
That’s what I sleep with every night.
The future of this f------ industry!
In 2019, global box office revenues brought in $42.2 billion, of which $11.4 billion were from the U.S. and Canada.
With cinemas in the lucrative North American and European markets shuttered for most of 2020,
it would be hard to put a price tag on the losses.
Film and TV productions worldwide were abruptly halted in 2020, including Warner Bros’ ‘The Batman’.
When filming resumed after a 6-month delay, lead actor Robert Pattinson tested positive for Covid-19 in September.
Other highly anticipated blockbusters had their 2020 release dates delayed to 2021,
including the James Bond film ‘No Time to Die’, ‘Black Widow’ and ‘Dune’.
After months of production delays, cameras are starting to roll again, with part of a movie’s budget
dedicated to coronavirus-related costs, such as setting up routine swab tests, quarantines and filming bubbles.
Michael Moffett is the co-founder of a production network supporting shoots in 50 territories worldwide.
He said film crews are finding ways to jumpstart the industry.
Production is resuming in live action films, it’s underway in most major film hubs around the world.
We, as an industry, have taken extreme measures, adopting health and safety precautions, protocols
to ensure that we can indeed return to work.
On set, what the bubble concept has achieved, is identifying a grouping really, people that
need certain protection and ensuring that there really is non-essential exposure.
The stakes are high, Singaporean filmmaker M. Raihan Halim said.
At the start, we always say that we do not want to be that group that actually had a case.
Because all it takes is literally that one chink in the armor right, that can actually make everything stumble.
Slowly, go.
Projects are definitely affected. I know companies that have projects that are meant to be done overseas
but they had to rejig the whole storyline to either fit into Singapore or mimic Singapore as another part of another country.
So we have contingencies, we have the Europe contingency, we have the Malaysia contingency.
So it’s all about evolution.
And the evolution is so fast, we’re literally taking things by the minute.
The rising cost of insurance is also proving to be challenging for the film industry.
According to insurance provider Allianz, premiums in the entertainment industry are typically
between 0.6% and 1% of a film’s budget.
That means a movie with a $200 million budget would be spending as much as $2 million on insurance.
We now are in a situation where no insurance company is really offering insurance against
the pandemic, or if they are, it’s at rates that are just off the charts.
It could be a 5-10% increase up to as much as 30%. It depends very much on the type of project.
This is an incredible burden to take on, and this is what’s actually holding back a lot of productions from moving forward.
And it’s not just the pandemic that’s affecting box office sales.
The rise of streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Peacock are challenging the dominance
of films released in brick-and-mortar cinemas.
This trend has accelerated in 2020 as more people stay indoors and turn to streaming services to get their pop culture fix.
Other SVOD services – or subscription video on demand – include Amazon Prime Video,
Disney+, Apple TV+, CBS All Access and HBO Max.
Besides acquiring popular content, these platforms are creating original content to add new paying
subscribers and keep existing ones glued to their screens.
Since 2015, streaming giant Netflix has poured nearly $700 million into partnerships and
co-productions in South Korea.
Disney is also focusing all its firepower on its streaming platform through its franchises
such as Star Wars, Marvel, FX and National Geographic.
Covid accelerated the rate at which we made this transition, but this transition was going
to happen anyway because essentially, what we want to do is, separate out the folks who
make our wonderful content based on tremendous franchises, from the decision-making in terms
of where the prioritisation is, in terms of how it gets commercialised into the marketplace.
As dynamics change in the marketplace though, we want to make sure that we’re giving consumers
who want to go to theaters, to experience everything that a theatrical release can give them.
But at the same time, there’s a lot of consumers that want to experience the movie
in the safety, comfort and convenience of their own home.
In the traditional business model of moviemaking, films typically premiere in cinemas for 90 days
before being released directly to consumers through platforms such as on-demand channels and streaming services.
However, the widespread theater closures have accelerated film releases directly on home media,
leading to a rethink for studio giants like Warner Bros., Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Universal.
In 2020, Universal released ‘Trolls: World Tour’ in theaters and streaming platforms simultaneously,
while Disney did the same for ’Mulan.’
However, nothing was as drastic as Warner Bros.'s decision to release its entire slate of
17 films scheduled for 2021, and ‘Wonder Woman 1984’
on HBO Max at the same time they’re available in theaters.
Why does it make sense to release your next 18 films simultaneously on streaming and also in theaters?
Well, it really obviously stems from the pandemic.
We’ve been trying to figure out the best way forward, for the last 8 months.
We've recorded many movies which are ready to go, and they've been sitting on shelves,
so we thought this was the most creative and win-win situation to bring them out not only
in theaters, but simultaneously for 31 days on HBO Max.
We're working through this system with our talent, with their agents.
Anything new is always a little bit difficult to work through for the first time,
but this new hybrid model has not been tried before.
The way we consume content is changing, and so too is the art of storytelling.
But even with all the changes — be it technological advances or restrictions imposed by the pandemic —
the show business continues to be a source of escape for many.
Even as streaming platforms surge, there are signs that business is slowly picking up again in cinemas,
and along with it, a familiar business model for the industry.
The biggest blockbuster in 2020 is not from Hollywood, but China.
The war epic, ‘The Eight Hundred’, earned $468 million at the box office.
In Japan, a record for the best opening weekend was set with the manga movie,
‘Demon Slayer: Mugen Train,’ grossing $44 million at the box office.
That has given a glimmer of hope for Hollywood executives.
Encouraged by the sight of busy cinemas, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ was launched in China a week
before the U.S., which until now, was taboo in Hollywood due to piracy concerns.
This is a win-win for the motion picture industry and viewers.
Entertainment, we’re not saving lives, right. But that's what is keeping people sane during quarantine.
So not saving lives, but nourishing them.
Yeah, we’re nourishing the mind, nourishing the soul.
How many people turn to the Netflixes and all the online materials, because you can’t go out?
It’s good to know that people are watching stuff, hopefully appreciating more stuff.
Hey, guys. We want to know if and how your streaming habits have changed.
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Thanks for watching, and stay safe.