Max McAuliff, Opinion Editor
COVID-19 has affected everything. Sports leagues have suspended their seasons, restaurants have restricted seating, and cities have gone into lockdown. One of the biggest industries affected by COVID-19 is the movie industry. Movie studios have pushed back release dates of highly anticipated upcoming films. Those films include “Black Widow,” “F9,” and “Mulan,” to name a few. Because of this, a lot of moviegoers are clamoring for studios to release films on-demand or straight to streaming services. While the demand for new content is higher than ever with the country being quarantined, movie studios should continue to wait and release their movies in theaters.
There is something about seeing a movie in a movie theater that makes the experience that much better. There’s a big difference between watching a movie on the big screen and watching one on a tv. Movies are made to be shown on the largest screen with the loudest speakers. If movies were released straight to on-demand or a streaming service, that element would be taken away.
Studios should also wait to release movies straight to theaters if they want to make a profit. The budget of “Mulan” was $200 million. If Disney were to release “Mulan” straight to Disney Plus, then they would lose roughly $200 million. “Mulan” has the potential to make $1 billion so Disney would surely not want to lose the chance of making a boatload of money.
“Black Widow” faces an additional problem because it is a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie. The MCU is an interwoven universe consisting of 23 movies based on Marvel comics characters. “Black Widow” is set to be the 24th film in the universe and is kicking off a new direction that the MCU is taking. Because all the movies (and soon to be tv shows) are connected Marvel strategically plans when they release content. Because “Black Widow” has been postponed, Marvel may have to postpone other upcoming projects like “Falcon and the Winter Solder” which is scheduled to come out in August and “Eternals” which is scheduled to come out in November.
The economy also needs the movie business to thrive in a time like this. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped roughly 10,000 points in the past month due to COVID-19. When things begin to return to normal, the movie industry will surely be a factor in helping to stimulate the economy.
While the national economy will be positively affected, local economies will see a positive effect as well. People who are currently jobless because movie theaters are closed will benefit greatly from not only going back to work but working a lot because of all the movies that will be in theaters. It will be important for people who have been temporarily laid off to be able to land on their feet when movie theaters, and other businesses, reopen.
The hardest part of the situation surrounding COVID-19 is that nobody knows what is going to happen or how long society will have to quarantine itself. This period of uncertainty and unrest will come to an end, and when it does our society and economy will recover.
mcaulimr18@bonaventure.edu
