Have you heard things are uncertain when it comes to summer movies? As with everything else, the typically blockbusting season’s outlook is as murky as ever due to COVID-19’s grip on the world at large.
Most years, Free Times uses this space to break down several looming highlights to look forward to. In 2019, that included hits like Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a Fast and Furious spinoff and a handful of Disney’s recent live-action remakes. This article will still try to tell you what you should be able to expect, but the truth is that the industry is in flux and theaters will operate differently than what we’re used to.
“We kind of live in a sort of day-to-day, almost hour-to-hour life right now,” Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at industry publication Boxoffice Pro, tells Free Times.
Locally, at the Nickelodeon Theatre, Columbia’s lone arthouse cinema, things are just as hazy. Executive Director Anita Floyd reports that the theater has yet to set a reopening date, it will likely be a “minute” before that changes — indeed, Gov. Henry McMaster has yet to lift restrictions on movie theaters.
She explains that it’s been difficult to make plans due to the lack of concrete information on how to reopen. Her team has been planning to implement increased sanitation, social distancing and other health measures, but she says it’s been a difficult experience.
“We thought we were kind of making the decision to close on our own, we hope that we have good information on opening,” she offers.
While South Carolina theaters are closed, in other states, like Texas, the reopening is beginning, and their health efforts mirror what Floyd details. Robbins says the state’s cinemas have introduced social distancing guidelines, including measures like blocking out every other row and limiting which seats can be sold together, while also introducing no-contact concession purchasing, digital tickets and other efforts.
Robbins details that those that are allowed to reopen have targeted and hit modest revenue goals of about 10 percent of their normal totals.
“Really it’s going to be all about limiting to the absolute highest possible way, limiting how much interaction people have to have with staff and other people in the theater,” Robbins posits. “Really kind of the emerging trend is the goal to get people in the door and get them to their seats as quickly and as efficiently as possible.”
Beyond the actual logistics of opening, Floyd says potential film offerings are difficult to pin down. The theater plans to screen the prize-winning films from this year’s Indie Grits festival (which was carried out in a limited, digital capacity when its March events had to be canceled), and she points to other potential films, like the John Lewis documentary John Lewis, Good Trouble, the Russell Crowe led thrilled Unhinged, the British-Italian comedy film Made in Italy and Tenet from director Christopher Nolan.
During the Nick’s closure, Floyd and her team have been live-streaming independent films and trying to offer interactive digital events like talkbacks. She says these measures could remain when they reopen with limited capacity.
Still, she expects that filmgoers will want to return to the big screen and that the Nick will be around whenever that is possible.
“I don’t have a doubt that the Nick will continue to operate. I just think that the interest and support is too high,” Floyd concludes.
As to what might hit the city’s other theaters this summer, below is some brief info that Robbins says might actually hit megaplexes before the fall.
Tenet is scheduled for release in July.
Tenet (July 17)
Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors left who is a major draw without having to tie into an existing brand. Details on what his latest sci-fi/thriller/action film is actually about are still sparse — a trailer gives little insight other than some mildly wacky time distortion — but Nolan’s not one to miss. Almost all of his visually adventurous movies are hits with critics and audiences alike.
Mulan (July 24)
Disney’s live-action remake of its ‘90s animated movie is shaping up to be the most promising of their reboots. After a string of releases that range from average to disappointing — Lion King, Dumbo, Aladdin, etc. — the new version of the Chinese legend turned animated children’s tale had built considerable momentum on the back of an electrifying trailer. It promises to be a somewhat weighty film, as kid’s flicks go, tackling ideas about one’s devotion to country, family and gender roles and expectations.
Wonder Woman 1984 (Aug. 14)
While Marvel’s Black Widow was postponed, DC’s sequel to the 2017 critical and commercial smash Wonder Woman is still set for the summer. The original stands as DC’s most successful film since Marvel started to dominate the box office and the zeitgeist in the late 2000s. It reigned in the franchise’s penchant for being overly serious, and was led by a dynamite one-two punch in director Patty Jenkins and star Gal Gadot. The sequel seeks to capture that same lightning and lean into some recent nostalgia with its ‘80s setting — and, if the trailer is to be believed, a rockin’, synth-heavy soundtrack.
Robbins is also looking ahead to The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, Bill & Ted Face the Music and, further out, A Quiet Place Part II in September.
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