How The Lockdowns Affected The Filmindustry

During the ongoing pandemic, a lot of things have changed this year. With social distance as the new norm, it has become harder to have social interaction in the way we are us to. Wearing masks has become a symbol of the crisis.

Protests have been ongoing for a long time in different countries for various reasons. Most political and emotional restraint takes a toll on people. It’s a defining age as this year, 2020 is not only a year of a global health crisis. It is also the beginning of a new age in the digital era and another decade to come.

In 2019, two defining franchises came to an indefinite end; Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars where the first one was far more successful than the other. With Disney crossed a milestone for their epic conclusion with the original six of the Avengers and making the impression that they were on the right track last year. This year however the big Mickey Mouse House does the opposite and struggles like so many other studios in Hollywood and on a global scale. 

The pandemic has made theatres closed in the U.S., Europe and Asia just like the rest of the world, the studios have taken other measures to assure that the income they needed was at their disposal either way. Most studios have made a trend from April and May to postpone their production while other production teams have managed it differently. Easiest has been for those in post-production, as they use more technical approaches to apprehend instead of filming. Animated series such as Netflix’s Final Space recorded their actors’ voices remotely and those in the post-production phase have been underway in a different way of work as the crisis has worsened over the latest months. The fourth season of Stranger Things had just started its principal photography when the crisis struck at its worst. While on a half-year hiatus, the showrunner Matt and Ross Duffer took the opportunity to finish the script of the fourth season already in June. And then we’ve also lost the momentum of Comic-Con in San Diego which usually is the highlight of the year as various studios announce their upcoming film project. Instead, we got DC Fandom, an online global event that was successful with panels and guests throughout 24 hours. 

With delays of Black Widow, No Time To Die, Wonder Woman 1984, Top Gun: Maverick, The Conjuring 3, West Side Story and more, there’s still uncertainty that some of the upcoming films this year will also be postponed with the fear of the coronavirus cases returning to rise… again. Moving MGM James Bond No Time To Die, has cost over 30 million dollars with the delay between April and November.  With studios losing a big amount of money moving a release date from one quarter to the next, a lot of rumours are still uncertain whether No Time To Die will release on its current November 12th day. The studio has James Bond as a front-runner and Daniel Craig’s final outing is expected to be a global box-office success. 

The tragic crisis has also given opportunities with streaming services such as HBO Max and Disney+ as more people now than ever are home-based. This presents also a projection as the streaming service appears to be a more common thing. The Covid-19 crisis has given the chance for global streaming companies a way to take advantage of this situation. Disney and HBO Max together with Amazon Prime and Netflix will have a turning point in how the distribution of scripted shows and films is used. It has been a part of the norm for a while, but with two major distribution channels stepping into the streaming wars, they will also be defining a new age of media where the digital medium is more apparent than the physical and as we’re in the progress to move from traditional media to digital and online services that will be the standard for years to come.

In the end, we might get a future with people in poverty, and unemployment and this happens not just in the entertainment sector. Everyone is affected by this pandemic and maybe this is our best chance to learn from our mistakes.