The effect of the COVID pandemic on the film industry

The COVID pandemic had an impact on all walks of life, and none more so than the film industry.  Many long-anticipated feature movies in production were pushed back, the box office tanked to levels never seen before and encouraging cinema attendances at the beginning of 2020 came to a grounding halt. There was also a growing popularity in streaming service with millions of consumers stuck in their homes for months on end.

FILMS PUSHED BACK

Films that were due for release were pushed back as a result of the pandemic. A Quiet Place 2, directed by John Krasinski, had its worldwide premiere on 8^th March 2020 and was initially to be released in the United Kingdom and Australia 11 days later. Paramount Pictures, its distributor, had already spent around 60% of its budget on global prints and advertising. The abrupt effect of the pandemic contributed to dates behind rescheduled over the course of the next year, with the film finally being distributed to cinemas in late May 2021.

PRODUCTION DELAYED OR CANCELLED

Film production was also another problem. In the industry, more than 155 films were delayed to 2020 and produced either the following year or in 2022. The Batman had started production for two months before Warner Bros announced the postponement of filming. This was hoped to only last two weeks, but filming was not resumed until the middle of September, six months later. In a wider sense, production for virtually all films also grounded to a thundering halt, with production of some films only just beginning to start up again in countries with low rates of infection.

STREAMING SERVICE INCREASE

As the pandemic took hold and more of us stayed at home, streaming services reaped the benefits. The number of streaming service subscribers catapulted to levels never seen previously. Netflix, for example hit 200 million subs in 2020, while Disney+, just a year and a half into its inception, reached over 100 million in March 2021. Despite the return of cinemas over the last two years or so, streaming subscriptions are still steadily rising as we move further into the 2020s. The graph below indicates that streaming revenues are projected to exceed $110 billion dollars by 2026.

CINEMA ATTENDANCE DROP

Cinemas are by nature a high-risk environment, as they often pack hundreds of people into a small space together for extended periods of time. In addition to this, it can be difficult and time-consuming to clean them, making them less than ideal for a highly contagious virus like COVID-19.

Cinema attendances had been encouraging at the start of 2020, with a plethora of new films leading to high turnout during movie season. The collapse in numbers was ultimately detrimental to some movie theatres. Several major chains such as Cinemax were forced to close down permanently. Even AMC, the largest chain in America, was in such dire straits that they almost filed for bankruptcy.

SIGNS OF RECOVERY TWO YEARS ON

He’s not wrong. As a result of movies such as Top Gun 2 Maverick and Super Mario Bros, there are signs of a full recovery. Tom Cruise, star of the former, received plaudits from the likes of Steven Spielberg for bringing the box office back to pre-pandemic levels. The director directly told him at an Oscars luncheon in February: "You saved Hollywood's ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously Top Gun: Maverick might have saved the entire theatrical industry."

Thompson holds a similar view in terms of the influential role Cruise played. He said: "Top Gun came out and this thing of Tom Cruise - the man who saved the film industry - there's a bit of truth in that. It really did fire people up, it got them back in and when Super Mario then came out, cinemas were truly on the road to rehabilitation.

"I'm quietly optimistic. The model will keep continuing to work in some way, with tweaks, with some kind of modifications and rethinking."

In France, for the first time since the reopening of cinemas in May 2021, attendance is finally higher than it was before the health crisis. According to estimates from the National Film and Moving Image Centre, admissions recorded in April 2023 were an increase of 37.8% of the previous year and a level higher than the 2017-2019 average (+2.7%).

CONCLUSION

The film industry is displaying signs of recovery as we move further and further on from the pandemic. It faces new challenges as the projected rise in streaming numbers continues, but the big screen has always had its fair amount of obstacles throughout the years. Events have occurred in the past which has thrown its whole existence into deep peril – the 1918 influenza epidemic, the internet and the Second World War. But, like a phoenix, it rises to the top because its ''overall product'', the chance to escape from the trials and tribulations of everyday life, still exists – and that will never change.