Cinema is struggling. We all know this. Having just about held off the twin threats of piracy and streaming for many years, the COVID closedowns retrained an entire generation to consume product at home.
This was then reinforced by a dried-up product pipeline from the strikes.
Suddenly, even hardened cinephiles such as Outposters can be heard to openly comment that they don’t see much point in dealing with the hassle and expense of a trip to the movie theater when their massive TV, reasonably priced snacks, and bottomless wine can be enjoyed without dickheads on their phones, uninterested ushers, and with unlimited toilet breaks. These things become more important as we age. Trust us.
Release windows barely over a month long also don’t help.
But now some executives at Sony have been trumpeting that cinema is back, baby!
Despite Furiosa, the first massive release of the season, flopping and this being on the back of box office returns that are, to put it technically, in the shitter, they say they are “optimistic” about cinema.
CEO Tony Vinciquerra says the headwinds caused by COVID, strikes, streaming, and other disruptions including inflation are clearing. He said the biggest issue to them was lack of product, and the pipe is now flowing:
“What really is happening is that people got out of the habit of going into theaters. As the marketplace begins to recover in terms of having big films, you’ll see people start to go to theaters again.
The second half of this year, you’re going to see quite a resurgence. One film will improve the odds of the next film. Starting in July you’ll see every week a big film coming out.
Once we get back into the normal cadence of producing films, I think you’re going to see the comeback. We may not get back to pre-pandemic level. It is more difficult to produce a film that generates cultural action within the community but we’re pretty optimistic about the next couple of years.”
Bad Boys: Ride or Die is Sony’s first chance to test this theory and it arrives in just four days outside the US. Let’s see how this works out for you. It is tracking around $50 million for opening and the budget was fairly modest compared to other big movies these days.
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