It’s fascinating to watch local governments—New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans—rush to enact Covid vaccine requirements for entry to the publicly accessible spaces of private business, including, yes, movie theaters. I’m not equipped to judge the ultimate propriety or efficacy of such mandates. Frankly, the complexities posed by breakthrough, uncertain vaccine longevity, variants,
Public Policy
What a great time not to be a movie marketer. Theaters half-closed, with COVID-19 again rising. Pipeline dried up. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asking, in a survey that was due last week, how the pandemic is affecting your craft. Or what’s left of it. But movie promoters on the whole are an
Last week, just before the President’s diagnosis consumed us, Hollywood leaders joined in asking that Congress send coronavirus relief funds to exhibitors. Those were described as a life-and-death issue for theaters. A mortal threat. And who can doubt it? If the White House isn’t safe, movie houses are certainly still a question mark. But the
As Deadline’s Tom Tapp reported last week, Los Angeles County isn’t quite ready to join other parts of California and the nation at large in allowing movie theaters to reopen, even with restrictions. So the coronavirus-beset movie capital remains closed to indoor movies. Which isn’t entirely bad. It buys some time, at least, to figure
If the film industry is ever going to be what it was—just a few short months ago, when pictures as varied as Parasite, 1917, Joker and Little Women were among those vying for honors—it’s going to need more than union safety protocols, disposable seat covers in theaters, and new Oscar inclusion standards, all of which
A group of 51 European film and audiovisual organizations and individual companies has released a call for action by EU and member state decision makers to safeguard the future of the sector in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The statement, see it in full below, says the industry requires “urgent financial support now and
If any good is to come of the coronavirus outbreak, and just now it is hard to see even a glimmer of good, we might consider this: The media will have a shot at redemption. Japan is closing its schools. Saudi Arabia has put Umrah on hold. Cruise ships are dead in the water. And