Coronavirus is the Nail in the Coffin for the Global Box Office

With the rapid spread of COVID-19 decimating economies and claiming an increasing number of lives globally, for theatrical movie-going, it's just the nail in coffin

Netflix is the big winner from COVID-19 (CREDIT: Getty Images)

by Jack Linsdell

With global cases of COVID-19 increasing rapidly across the world each day, so much so that putting the current death toll here would only make this article out of date within 24 hours, it's time to really take stock of it's impact to theatrical movie-going. 

We learnt today that streaming services in America alone have reported an increase of 13% in the use of their services (including sticks and Smart TV apps), due to people being urged and/or forced to stay locked down at home because of the pandemic. If there's any real "winner" from COVID-19, it's the likes of Netflix, Disney +, Hulu and Apple TV+. With most cinemas closed, and all the big movies for this Spring season pulled from theatrical release, some until the end of the year (No Time To Die), some pushed to next year (Fast & Furious 9) and others delayed indefinitely (A Quiet Place 2 and Black Widow), streaming services are the only option for consumers. This is concerning, if only because it's probably put the final nail in the coffin of theatrical movie-going. 

It's no secret that over the last five years, with streaming services taking off in a big way, and cinema ticket prices rising whilst wages remain the same, theatrical movie-making has been dying. Last year demonstrated that, unless you were Disney with a bunch of the biggest franchise IPs around to net you $12 billion in profit, most films couldn't justify a release into cinemas. Empty screens greeted even those films that used to be popular "star and concept" mid-budget genre flicks, with Will Smith unable to help power Gemini Man into the green zone, despite having success by riffing his Hitch role in Disney's Aladdin remake. We knew that the future of being able to go to the cinema to see a movie was soon to become an extinct concept, which was why 2020, with it's lack of big Disney movies and interesting commercial projects was a year to watch. But, then coronavirus happened. 

And, here we are with the American box office reporting it's worst slump in 20 years, with total receipts down 60% from this time last year. If theatrical moviegoing was on it's last legs before, the virus has most-likely signed it's death warrant. If that sounds drastic then, listen up. Firstly, if audiences were struggling to turn up for entertaining, 3-star, aggressively fun and escapist movies like Charlie's Angels in cinemas when they could stream the first two on Netflix at home before, then getting audiences back into theatres after months of potentional lockdowns will be even harder. Furthermore, with most families likely scraping the barrel in terms of finances due to the lockdown, it's unlikely that many (at least to start with) will have the money to afford the price of cinema tickets, even once they reopen. Also, with Universal releasing Trolls: World Tour, The Invisible Man and The Hunt straight to VOD, after those movies only just started or were about to begin theatrical release, we may have started down a road that will be hard to turn back from. Look, I'm not criticising Universal for this move, as I understand why they have wanted to prevent losing money by finding a middle-ground solution, and these are unprecedented times, indeed. However, once consumers have tasted new movies on VOD at home immediately after their theatrical release, it'll be very hard to go back to "released on VOD months after they've finished at the cinemas" process. 

Hopefully the virus can reach some sort of peak or at least be normalised by the start of summer season, specifically around Wonder Woman 1984's June 2020 release date. If so, we may see some form of recovery to the box office as cinemas open and rescheduled movies are given new release dates by the end of the year. However, and especially if the lockdown becomes a long-term event, it may not and therefore this might mean that the virus's biggest impact to the film industry is killing the global box office. Yes, the virus has caused massive economic disruption to the film industry (MGM/Universal losing $30-50 million on No Time To Die's marketing), halted all the biggest productions (Mission: Impossible 7, Jurassic World 3 etc.) and even effected some of it's biggest movie stars (Tom Hanks, Idris Elba and Olga Kurylenko have all had COVID-19). However, it's biggest effect will no doubt be bringing the demise of theatrical movie releases, as justifying releasing movies into cinemas instead of making them straight-for-streaming will become increasingly harder. 

The coronavirus is set to change the world for good. In what way, and how severely we still don't know. But, in terms of the whole theatrical-versus-streaming fight, the viruses' biggest change to the film industry will be speeding up that battle in favour of the streaming giants. Just spare a thought for cinemas when you open up Netflix on your TV at home...