Anna Daniels
It’s been decades since Comscore ceased reporting on box office grosses. But March 2020 also marks the first time in the motion picture industry’s 100-plus year history that practically all of the 5,400-plus U.S. theaters have been simultaneously closed, according to The Hollywood Reporter. With the possibility of cinemas staying shuttered for up to three months looming, it’s not just the industry’s analytics firms operating at a reporting standstill. Studios like Disney have already announced plans to suspend global weekend reporting, given the high number of theater shutdowns globally. Without their reports, Comscore has no choice but to halt their work.
Amid the rapidly growing number of confirmed domestic coronavirus cases, the box office as we know it is quickly being redefined. Universal Pictures was the first to make the huge decision to skip a theatrical release altogether, with the studio instead opting to premiere its animated feature Trolls World Tour digitally on April 10. It was a total upending of the film industry’s distribution standards, which typically see multi-month theatrical runs with a three-month buffer before video on demand and physical DVD/Blu Ray drops. While many studios haven’t yet followed suit, they are delaying virtually of their upcoming releases for the next two months.
The Fast 9 release was hit with a massive delay of nearly a year due to the spread of coronavirus, despite star Vin Diesel’s earlier promise to fans that the release wouldn’t get pushed. The pandemic has also reshaped all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4, and pushed the release of tentpoles like No Time to Die and Wonder Woman 1984 by months. All of this doesn’t even count all the February and March theatrical releases that are now coming to streaming services early because of coronavirus.
Written by: Looper
