Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

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aox
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#301 Post by aox » Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:20 pm

I agree with your sentiment that the GOP doesn't give a shit, but someone has their ear: U.S. judge ends decades-old movie theater rules set by Hollywood studios. That crusade was lead by Trump's Justice Department.

Nasir007
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#302 Post by Nasir007 » Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:43 pm

The judge who made the decision was an Obama appointee.

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#303 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:07 pm

It's also questionable whether it changes that much where theater ownership is concerned, since the prohibition on theater ownership (which wasn't really a prohibition, just a requirement for preclearance) only applied to three studios—Loew's/MGM, WB, and Fox—and WB had already been granted a waiver to go back into exhibition when it bought 50% of the Mann, Festival, and Trans-Lux chains in 1989. I don't think MGM has been covered since Loew's sold it off in 1959, though in any case the modern MGM doesn't seem very likely to jump into the theater business. (Loew's itself was granted an exemption to resume film production in the early '80s, but I'm not sure if they actually did. They were given another exemption a few years later when the chain was bought by Tri-Star.)

felipe
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#304 Post by felipe » Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:39 pm

I'm surprised to read that Mulan made more in the US alone than Tenet was able to worldwide. And Disney doesn't have to share those dollars with movie chains...

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tenia
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#305 Post by tenia » Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:05 pm

Except if I missed it, there is currently no clear figure of how much Mulan made.

Nasir007
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#306 Post by Nasir007 » Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:59 pm

yeah I don't quite think that is true. I think the estimate was 9 million households rented Mulan at 30 bucks a pop for 270 million. Maybe the entire thing goes to Disney and Tenet is at 300 mil ww and not all of it goes to WB.

So net-net, you could perhaps claims that Disney got more on Mulan than WB on Tenet. But make no mistake, both films will lose money in the short time and incur huge write-downs for both studios. There really aren't any winners here.

John Shade
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#307 Post by John Shade » Wed Oct 07, 2020 6:13 am

All Regal cinemas to close later this week.

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tenia
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#308 Post by tenia » Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:58 am


Nasir007 wrote:yeah I don't quite think that is true. I think the estimate was 9 million households rented Mulan at 30 bucks a pop for 270 million. Maybe the entire thing goes to Disney and Tenet is at 300 mil ww and not all of it goes to WB.
The issue is that later analysis tended to show the 9m figure for Mulan was a misreading of the available data.
So it's not a question of doing the proper net-net comparison, but to have an accurate figure for Mulan to begin with.

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aox
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#309 Post by aox » Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:59 am

Nasir007 wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:43 pm
The judge who made the decision was an Obama appointee.
OK, but judges don't pursue cases. They judge cases brought before them. It was Trump's Justice Department that pursued it.

Nasir007
Joined: Sat May 25, 2019 11:58 am

Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#310 Post by Nasir007 » Wed Oct 07, 2020 12:28 pm

aox wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:59 am
Nasir007 wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:43 pm
The judge who made the decision was an Obama appointee.
OK, but judges don't pursue cases. They judge cases brought before them. It was Trump's Justice Department that pursued it.
Judges decide cases. If the case was pointless, she would have thrown it out. If it was fraudulent, she would have ruled against them. But she ruled for them. Maybe she saw something in the argument they were making. (I say this without having any idea about what the litigation is).

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aox
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#311 Post by aox » Wed Oct 07, 2020 12:49 pm

Nasir007 wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 12:28 pm
aox wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:59 am
Nasir007 wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:43 pm
The judge who made the decision was an Obama appointee.
OK, but judges don't pursue cases. They judge cases brought before them. It was Trump's Justice Department that pursued it.
Judges decide cases. If the case was pointless, she would have thrown it out. If it was fraudulent, she would have ruled against them. But she ruled for them. Maybe she saw something in the argument they were making. (I say this without having any idea about what the litigation is).
Correct. A Republican Administration brought a suit that was evaluated by a judge. Now see my original post in the context of the conversation. It wouldn't have mattered if a Carter judge had the case, a GOP Administration brought the case. Meaning, we wouldn't be discussing this if Trump's Justice Department didn't pursue it.

Nasir007
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#312 Post by Nasir007 » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:44 pm

Meritless cases are pursued all the time. All the damn time. Surely you won't disagree with that.

It makes no difference to me as to who brought the case. People bring cases. That's a given. It's more important to me whether a case has merit.

Does this case have merit? Who decides?

Judges.

And in this case an Obama appointee decided that the case has merit.

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domino harvey
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#313 Post by domino harvey » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:55 pm

Imagine feeling compelled to repeatedly weigh in on something you have already admitted you know nothing about

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Brian C
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#314 Post by Brian C » Wed Oct 07, 2020 2:53 pm

Imagine being interested enough in the case to see who appointed the judge but not interested enough to care about literally anything else.

kidc
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#315 Post by kidc » Thu Oct 08, 2020 7:08 pm

tenia wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:58 am
Nasir007 wrote:yeah I don't quite think that is true. I think the estimate was 9 million households rented Mulan at 30 bucks a pop for 270 million. Maybe the entire thing goes to Disney and Tenet is at 300 mil ww and not all of it goes to WB.
The issue is that later analysis tended to show the 9m figure for Mulan was a misreading of the available data.
So it's not a question of doing the proper net-net comparison, but to have an accurate figure for Mulan to begin with.
The $260m figure was from Yahoo who misinterpreted what the data was telling them. 7Park (who supplied the data in the first place) clarified that the estimate should be around $60-90m.


Nasir007
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#317 Post by Nasir007 » Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:13 pm

kidc wrote:
Thu Oct 08, 2020 7:08 pm
tenia wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:58 am
Nasir007 wrote:yeah I don't quite think that is true. I think the estimate was 9 million households rented Mulan at 30 bucks a pop for 270 million. Maybe the entire thing goes to Disney and Tenet is at 300 mil ww and not all of it goes to WB.
The issue is that later analysis tended to show the 9m figure for Mulan was a misreading of the available data.
So it's not a question of doing the proper net-net comparison, but to have an accurate figure for Mulan to begin with.
The $260m figure was from Yahoo who misinterpreted what the data was telling them. 7Park (who supplied the data in the first place) clarified that the estimate should be around $60-90m.
Yikes. The yahoo number was what I was going by. That's a huge adjustment. And given how expensive Mulan was - I think that might create an even bigger financial loss than Tenet.

They are giving away Soul for free essentially. And that movie would have made bank in normal times. That's gotta be another huge write-down.

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captveg
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#318 Post by captveg » Fri Oct 09, 2020 8:23 pm

Nasir007 wrote:
Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:13 pm
Yikes. The yahoo number was what I was going by. That's a huge adjustment. And given how expensive Mulan was - I think that might create an even bigger financial loss than Tenet.

They are giving away Soul for free essentially. And that movie would have made bank in normal times. That's gotta be another huge write-down.
Tenet at least got $260m in international box office, which is much better than Mulan's $67m, even though both are gonna be huge money losers for WB and Disney. So I do think Disney's loss on Mulan will end up being more significant than WB's loss on Tenet.

Pixar with an awful year with Onward and Soul both essentially being DTV. They likely expected $1.25-1.75b combined WW box office for the two films, and they'll be lucky to get Soul's international box office to match Onward's $140m WW box office take.

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Lemmy Caution
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#319 Post by Lemmy Caution » Sun Oct 11, 2020 2:38 am

Nasir007 wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:54 pm
Large scale movie watching is untenable without a vaccine. You need one large scale disaster to get the government to get in and it will all be downhill from there.
Or proper containment of the virus.
It was always possible to stop transmission with a coordinated and serious effort.

For various stupid and unfathomable reasons the Trump Admin was never much interested in containment and decided to focus on treatment and vaccine development instead, allowing 10M plus Americans to get sick and at least a quarter million to die. China effectively eradicated the virus within its borders with a 2 month fairly strict national lockdown (voluntary in Shanghai, but there wasn't really anywhere to go), followed by a 2 month gradual phased in reopening.

The resulting economic disruption and resumption was much shorter in duration and significantly less than anything the US experienced. China reopened movie theaters at 30% capacity back on July 21 for the Shanghai Film Festival, and since upped capacity to 50% (with masks mandatory) in August. So it's been already over 2 months China has had a pretty functioning movie theater industry. I don't know if they are filling their permitted 50% quota -- if movie-goers have returned -- or what other cities have done.

I just think it's important to point out that alternate outcomes were definitely possible and the mess the US finds itself in is due to the ineptitude and extremely poor decisions made by the Trump Admin. And for those who get spooked or dismissive when China gets mentioned, New Zealand's Covid restrictions just almost completely eliminated any regular flu cases during their winter/flu season. A 99.8 percent reduction in flu cases; 6 flu cases total; an estimated 1500 lives saved.

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tenia
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#320 Post by tenia » Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:08 am

Many govs are waiting for a vaccine because it's their exit door to the incapacity to handle the virus while stull clearly prioritising the economy.
It's kind of the last hope to be able not to do anything too drastic regarding our lifestyle despite being basically sieged by the virus, so let's just all hope for a vaccine so that we don't have to think about what we can do in the meantime.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#321 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:47 pm

tenia wrote:
Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:08 am
Many govs are waiting for a vaccine because it's their exit door to the incapacity to handle the virus while stull clearly prioritising the economy.
It's kind of the last hope to be able not to do anything too drastic regarding our lifestyle despite being basically sieged by the virus, so let's just all hope for a vaccine so that we don't have to think about what we can do in the meantime.
It sounds like it's going to happen, it just sucks that it's going to take a year to get enough people vaccinated.

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tenia
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#322 Post by tenia » Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:33 pm

I hope it does happen, because it's our best protection on a mid to long term, but yeah, it's going to take 12 to 18 months to have enough stuff up and running and staff trained to administer the vaccine properly (yes, it's a requirement though I don't know why it seems more complicated than it looks).

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hearthesilence
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#323 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:22 pm

tenia wrote:
Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:33 pm
I hope it does happen, because it's our best protection on a mid to long term, but yeah, it's going to take 12 to 18 months to have enough stuff up and running and staff trained to administer the vaccine properly (yes, it's a requirement though I don't know why it seems more complicated than it looks).
Manufacturing and global distribution of the physical materials alone will be a slow process, especially when most of them appear to require boosters (though there's one that may not, we'll see). Right there that doubles what you need to manufacture. I have no doubt the pandemic will eventually come under control, but given the idiocy and complete lack of discipline and patience on display during the pandemic, I also have no doubt that this will get needlessly worse in the meantime.

John Shade
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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#324 Post by John Shade » Mon Oct 12, 2020 9:53 am

Lemmy Caution wrote:
Sun Oct 11, 2020 2:38 am
Nasir007 wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:54 pm
Large scale movie watching is untenable without a vaccine. You need one large scale disaster to get the government to get in and it will all be downhill from there.
Or proper containment of the virus.
It was always possible to stop transmission with a coordinated and serious effort.

For various stupid and unfathomable reasons the Trump Admin was never much interested in containment and decided to focus on treatment and vaccine development instead, allowing 10M plus Americans to get sick and at least a quarter million to die. China effectively eradicated the virus within its borders with a 2 month fairly strict national lockdown (voluntary in Shanghai, but there wasn't really anywhere to go), followed by a 2 month gradual phased in reopening.

The resulting economic disruption and resumption was much shorter in duration and significantly less than anything the US experienced. China reopened movie theaters at 30% capacity back on July 21 for the Shanghai Film Festival, and since upped capacity to 50% (with masks mandatory) in August. So it's been already over 2 months China has had a pretty functioning movie theater industry. I don't know if they are filling their permitted 50% quota -- if movie-goers have returned -- or what other cities have done.

I just think it's important to point out that alternate outcomes were definitely possible and the mess the US finds itself in is due to the ineptitude and extremely poor decisions made by the Trump Admin. And for those who get spooked or dismissive when China gets mentioned, New Zealand's Covid restrictions just almost completely eliminated any regular flu cases during their winter/flu season. A 99.8 percent reduction in flu cases; 6 flu cases total; an estimated 1500 lives saved.
This is so true on so many levels. Blame Trump for what happened in NY and what they said would happen in Florida; blame Trump for the outbreak and new lockdowns in Europe, because it obviously must be his fault if their economies are still suffering and new cases happening. Oh, and also blame Sweden for not following the methods of an oppressive and authoritarian regime who has things "under control."

Remind me again about "following the science" (err, pseudoscience peddled by aspiring authoritarians)

The lockdowns are a world historic horrible idea, but at least some people might not get sick while others commit suicide, go unemployed, and schoolchildren get setback for a generation.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-failed ... 1599000890

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/busi ... urity.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... rs/616669/

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/when-did-c ... est-death/
Last edited by John Shade on Mon Oct 12, 2020 10:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Coronavirus' Effect on the Entertainment Industry

#325 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 12, 2020 10:00 am

John Shade wrote:
Mon Oct 12, 2020 9:53 am
Oh, and also blame Sweden for not following the methods of an oppressive and authoritarian regime who has things "under control."
Sweden had the huge advantage of one of the lowest population densities in Europe - only Norway, Finland and Iceland are lower. (And Russia, if you count the entire land mass as "European").

Residents of Stockholm, where the population density is much higher, and there's currently a serious and growing outbreak, may feel differently about Sweden's pandemic strategy. They're still falling back on the "persuade people to use their common sense for the national good" method (something which was always going to work better in a more socially-conscious country than, say, the US or UK), but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they changed tack over the next few weeks.

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