The Cinema Industry In The Time of A Pandemic: How Will It Go On?

Health and well-being come first, everyone should know that by now. As the #stayathome movement becomes widespread across social media and quarantines become more strict all around the world we are trying to collectively be more responsible. But what comes an immediate and rather bitter aftertaste of the temporary pause we had to press on our lives is what will happen to our finances once we leave our houses (hopefully weighing the same or here’s hoping - in better form) and for those of us who are a part of the film and art sector, we might as well start crying right about now.

When going through Facebook posts of colleagues or groups for filmmakers (Movie Set Memes are filled with themed messages) it becomes obvious that as a group primarily represented by freelancers living from project to project, they are a high-risk group of financial ruin in the next few weeks. Unfortunately, it extends to more than cinema - art and culture budgets get cut first, as they technically aren’t instrumental to our lives, even if they’re instrumental to our souls. 

My projects have been postponed or canceled, since moving a project by months makes it extremely probable that it will be called off due to costs incurred through rescheduling. Imagine a set is at least thirty people, and that’s just the crew. There are many more behind production, post-production, and editors, and of course, then comes the marketing and distribution team. All of them out of office, unable to plan for the future. Not to mention the people who are handling low-budget, indie productions, which already had issues with bringing revenue even before this crisis. As reported in The Guardian, some are forecasting that the film industry will lose around $20 billion during the coronavirus pandemic. The cinemas are closed and the sets are canceled or left behind, and the culture of verbal or “loose” contracts provides practically zero security or insurance in a case like this. And it doesn’t end there. Premiers have been rescheduled due to the health hazards, artists have been hauled up at home, slowly going towards mental insanity like the rest of us. Festivals have been halted or postponed, there will be no publicity, no box office results. If James Bond was defeated by the virus, no film can stand a chance. And with a handful of significant releases, including Marvel's Eternals, Godzilla vs. Kong, Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon and No Time to Die, being all postponed to November, one is left to wonder how these movies will perform now that they are set to open against each other.

If there is anyone who has benefitted from this tragic time its definitely Netflix, HBO, Disney+ and other streaming services that have been in heavy use by practically everyone who is at home trying to fill their days and take their mind off the sadness that seems to be omnipresent nowadays. The problem with that is, no new content can be created during months of quarantine, and there’s only so many times we can watch Friends. 

How does this phenomenon translate into “sister” markets such as art and culture? Art is in the same situation, if not worse, with auctions happening online, auction houses struggling to reach their sales targets and masterpieces being sold undervalued. Culture and PR consultancy are losing all clients and so are most design-oriented businesses — although we might need home design and furniture more than ever, seen as we’re spending so much time at home. For the most part, these markets are deemed useless and will be considered archaic unless they adjust to the new realities of an online presence. 

So how do we go from here? Will the streaming companies swallow production companies once we are back to work? After all, it is their time to shine and gloat over the corporations that actually need physical locations in order to generate profit. Without Bob Iger to steer Disney in the right direction, will they make the right decisions? Perhaps the inspiration is bubbling inside the homebound artists as we speak and it will burst out as soon as everything is back to “normal”. One thing is for sure - we can’t wait to read and watch scripts created during this time. After all, it does feel like we are living in a “Contagion” staged reality, so what better setting to offset creativity? So many days alone in front of a computer might make one confront the pages they couldn’t bring themselves to finish for the past two years. Here’s hoping.