Ankler Preview: The Week The Movies Died
We don't like to rush but your case has been packed...
We were singing, bye bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Lexus to the multiplex
But the multiplex was fried.
And good ol' film geeks re-watching
Vanilla Sky
Singing, this'll be the day that I die.
This'll be the day that I die.
If historians someday look back on moviegoing in the same breath as pantomime theater, tableau vivant, radio dramas, bear-baiting, gladiator fights, and network holiday variety specials, then they may well point to this week as the moment when, after a hundred years, the bottom fell out of the cinematic tradition.
It's not to say all the news was a complete unmitigated disaster. If you squint and hold your head at a certain angle then you can even look at the Slovakian grosses for Mulan tell yourself, "Movies are back, baby!"
Or if you've got the right sorts of beverages around your house, you can watch NATO's Welcome Back to the Movies video, and say, "Hey, these guys have got it all figured out! Pour me another!"
But by any normal standard, every blip in the news over the past week shows an industry hurtling through space, flailing and spinning and still not accepting what happens when this plummet to Earth meets its inevitable conclusion.
Meanwhile, the great enemy of theatrical—the streamers, and one in particular—looks confident, focused, ruthless, and by all measures, in command of the moment.
All of which is to say, I know what winning teams look like and what losing teams look like, and the events of the last week make it pretty clear who's playing for which side.
Nolan For Dollars
The Tenet experiment has begun, and Warners is declaring that because they have nothing else to compare it to, they're going to call it a success.
Fair enough on some level. If theaters are ever going to reopen, someone had to go first with something serious.
On the other hand though: Are you out of your mind??
Yes, there are no direct comps, but let's take a step back and be clear on what happened here.
Warners just launched the first film in two years by its only fail-proof, billion-dollar director at a moment when the two biggest markets in the country aren't having bad weather, or a competing sports event, but are closed. Doors locked. Nada. Grand total box office take from the two biggest markets: zero dollars.
As has been widely, universally pointed out, this isn't your grandfather's box office plan. They are writing a whole new playbook for box office victory.
As Deadline put it, "If you want to know how to open a tentpole during the pandemic without NY and LA, here’s the playbook, which Warner Bros. just wrote."
Alright, we'll file that away for future reference, if in the event of another pandemic, we find ourselves needing to release a movie while that contagion is still raging across the globe.
In the meantime, do you suppose MGM, with the clock ticking towards the release of Bond 25 (the big enchilada for the survival of the entire studio), is looking at Tenet's results and saying, “Terrific! A road map to make something like half to a quarter of what we were expected—What. We. Are. Expected!—to make”?
Apparently Warners doesn’t feel particularly enthralled by the new roadmap Warners has created either, just today announcing they are yet again pushing back Wonder Woman, the remaining crown jewel, rather than pouncing to follow Tenet’s lead.
There are some good reasons why studios don't generally do things like this.
First, given the choice between making much less money now or a lot more money a little bit later, most companies generally go with more money, rather than less.
But that's a personal choice, I suppose. In interviews, Ann Sarnoff has been refreshingly enthusiastic about the idea of experimentation with releases plans. So if you're willing to sacrifice one of your crown jewels for the cause of experimentation, I'll drink to that.
But then there's the other possible outcome here, the Tenet superspreader one. There’s one big reason that we don't plan events that encourage large numbers of strangers to come together in enclosed spaces in the middle of a very active pandemic. How do you factor in the non-zero possibility that showings of Tenet could lead to an outbreak, or two, or two thousand around the globe?
Our trade reporters have been pretty upbeat about the elaborate safety precautions in place. Deadline posted this reassuring video of a couple AMC staffers in San Diego spraying down the seats between shows:
Outside of the industry, however, here was another view, from The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last:
Of the 9 people at my screening, only three of us wore masks. The other 6 were eating popcorn and so did not wear their masks at any point during the presentation of the film.
What good is it to have a "wear a mask" policy if there's a loophole that says, "If you buy a bag of popcorn, you don't actually have to wear your mask"?
I put this under the "bad news" category because people are not going to come back to theaters en masse if mask protocols aren't working.
But here's what I found really depressing: AMC is the best large chain in the country. And it seems like the company's response to an extinction-level event is not to innovate their way out of the problem, but to cross their fingers and hope that everything goes back to normal somehow.
So the potential upside of this release is maybe half the box-office revenue of normal times. The potential downside, Nolan's stop-at-nothing demand that his film be seen on big screens, goes down in history as the last ride of Emperor Incel and The Superspreaders, bringing God knows what health and financial havoc with it.
I mean, say . . . a few thousand people nationwide can trace infections back to Tenet screenings. What does a class action lawsuit look like filed against the people who encouraged them to come sit in mask-optional-while-you're-eating enclosed spaces in the midst of a pandemic?
So why is Warners taking this chance? A chance to experiment is great . . . the need to please their marquee filmmaker.
But also suppose that Warners had a good sense that it wasn’t sitting on a goldmine, but in fact were….
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