The World After Coronavirus

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Oh, here's a couple of thoughts - we might see the end of cinemas, and at least some forms of printed media.

Some film studios are already starting to release their films online rather than at the cinema. If they find that that's a viable model, then they may not go back to the old model. And cinemas operate on a razor's edge of profit as it is, so this crisis may see many of them close. If that were to happen, that would exacerbate studios not returning to the cinemas, as fewer cinemas means fewer profits.

With a budget of $125m Artemis Fowl is the most expensive film yet to be released on streaming rather than in cinemas: https://www.thewrap.com/artemis-fowl-pulled-disney-plus-streaming/

Of course the whole film and TV industry is going to be up in the air for a while, because you obviously can't make films or TV programmes if people can't come within 6ft of each other. But I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the ones in reserve being released online, even the bigger ones. This is certainly an indicator of that (and, given that it's Disney, perhaps suggests the same for Black Widow?), and even if all cinemas come out the other side of this completely fine, I'm not sure how much public appetite there will be for sitting close together in rooms once global deaths are in the millions and we've lived through repeated waves of the disease.

So studios may possibly think it less of a risk to concentrate more on streaming. Especially a company like Disney with huge spending power and its own streaming service.

 

[applecorped]

Who says there's going to be an after?

 

[JoeMorgue]

But I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the ones in reserve being released online, even the bigger ones. This is certainly an indicator of that (and, given that it's Disney, perhaps suggests the same for Black Widow?), and even if all cinemas come out the other side of this completely fine, I'm not sure how much public appetite there will be for sitting close together in rooms once global deaths are in the millions and we've lived through repeated waves of the disease.

//Lay person prediction//

Marvel/Disney will release Black Widow to the home/streaming market in some fashion if this goes on much longer.

Why? Because Black Widow is their first MCU film since Spiderman: Far From Home. That's been almost a year.

And the one thing Disney's production cycle needs is momentum. This is already happening at the worst possible time since the big blow your wad payoff of Endgame and then the light after dinner sorbet palette cleanser of Spiderman:FFH was supposed to last us for a while longer then the normal MCU release cycle, but a year is pushing it.

Disney either smartly or predatoryly depending on how you want to look at it made an ongoing blockbuster franchise out of selling us the idea that we had to watch all the movies in order to get the whole story while the truth was about 80% of the MCU works perfectly find as a stand alone film. But they get the formula of sprinkling just enough stuff to get us excited for the next film in all their films down to a good enough science that people who didn't give a crap about Thor or didn't even know how the Guardians of the Galaxy where went to see their movies to they would understand what Captain America was on about in the next film.

But that needs uninterrupted momentum. The longer we go without an MCU movie, the harder it will be to get us back into it to the same degree we were before. And you know Marvel is going to start dropping the X-men and Fantastic Four into the MCU about a year or two down the line, you want maximum hype for stuff like that if they want another decade of being THE box office property.

So my guess? If push comes to shove they will release Black Widow to home streaming and just eat the loss because A) well you just can't sit on a movie forever and B) it will be worth what ever loss that have to eat just to keep that "momentum" going.

So unless they figure out some way to keep that "momentum" going, like somehow doing a rushjob to get one of the Disney+ shows or something finished, I simply do not see them sitting on a finished film until November like they are saying they are going to do now.

This same thing, to varying degrees, will effect other long-going series/franchises and even genres, with studios eating losses on projects just to keep them in the public eye in many cases.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Oh I see, so it automatically tracks when you go in, when you go out, and what you have with you when you do? I could see that working.

https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=s9_acs...5b-49db-8fa7-b5e241f00d04&pf_rd_i=17608448011

 

[rjh01]

Well, as I understand it, you can't. To enter the store you have to set up an account linked to a bank account and if you walk out with something you're charged for it. So unless you break a window there's really no way to "steal" anything. Although I'll assume there's some alert that goes off if you're over your balance.

<snip>

I wonder what happens if you (an honest, but forgetful person) buy stuff, walk out and then remembered you forgot to buy some other stuff. Can you walk back in and purchase the other stuff without having the pay for stuff you already have purchased?

Edit. Just read the above link. So cameras detect the fact that stuff is put in your cart, so entering several times is ok. You will only put the same item in the cart once.

 

[Segnosaur]

Oh, here's a couple of thoughts - we might see the end of cinemas, and at least some forms of printed media.

Some film studios are already starting to release their films online rather than at the cinema. If they find that that's a viable model, then they may not go back to the old model.

I think there are a couple of problems with that:

1) With the proliferation of streaming services (Disney, Warner, Netflix, Amazon), studios would risk missing a certain segment of the market just because not every viewer will want to subscribe to yet another streaming service.

2) Releasing things in the theater brings in a substantial amount of publicity (that will drive later DVD sales, merchandise tie ins, etc.) I can't seem online releases providing the same amount of publicity

And cinemas operate on a razor's edge of profit as it is, so this crisis may see many of them close.

Actually I think most major chains are still relatively healthy.

Cineplex (the main theater chain here in Canada) regularly has profit margins above 4% (which seems to be higher than many successful companies, like Walmart.)

https://ycharts.com/companies/CGX.TO/profit_margin

Its true that theaters often don't see a lot of ticket revenue from the movies they show... but they get substantial revenue from concessions, and extras such as arcades that many theaters have.

 

[Horatius]

Who says there's going to be an after?

Barring some sort of sci-fi super mutation, there pretty much has to be. We'll either develop a vaccine, or we'll eventually get to a point where enough people have caught it that herd immunity starts to work.


Obviously that second option comes with a whole lot of deaths, but it would still be an "after".

 

[novaphile]

Barring some sort of sci-fi super mutation, there pretty much has to be. We'll either develop a vaccine, or we'll eventually get to a point where enough people have caught it that herd immunity starts to work.


Obviously that second option comes with a whole lot of deaths, but it would still be an "after".

Both of these things require acquired immunity. We don't know if that happens yet. There are many reports of people 'getting better' but continuing to test positive. We also don't know if the disease has secondary or tertiary effects.

If you haven't come across this as a concept, I recommend that you look up tertiary syphilis.




My prediction is a little unkind:

Wealthier people will remember how much money they lost.
Poorer people will remember how many family members and friends they lost.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

//Lay person prediction//

Marvel/Disney will release Black Widow to the home/streaming market in some fashion if this goes on much longer.

Why? Because Black Widow is their first MCU film since Spiderman: Far From Home. That's been almost a year.

And the one thing Disney's production cycle needs is momentum. This is already happening at the worst possible time since the big blow your wad payoff of Endgame and then the light after dinner sorbet palette cleanser of Spiderman:FFH was supposed to last us for a while longer then the normal MCU release cycle, but a year is pushing it.

Disney either smartly or predatoryly depending on how you want to look at it made an ongoing blockbuster franchise out of selling us the idea that we had to watch all the movies in order to get the whole story while the truth was about 80% of the MCU works perfectly find as a stand alone film. But they get the formula of sprinkling just enough stuff to get us excited for the next film in all their films down to a good enough science that people who didn't give a crap about Thor or didn't even know how the Guardians of the Galaxy where went to see their movies to they would understand what Captain America was on about in the next film.

But that needs uninterrupted momentum. The longer we go without an MCU movie, the harder it will be to get us back into it to the same degree we were before. And you know Marvel is going to start dropping the X-men and Fantastic Four into the MCU about a year or two down the line, you want maximum hype for stuff like that if they want another decade of being THE box office property.

So my guess? If push comes to shove they will release Black Widow to home streaming and just eat the loss because A) well you just can't sit on a movie forever and B) it will be worth what ever loss that have to eat just to keep that "momentum" going.

So unless they figure out some way to keep that "momentum" going, like somehow doing a rushjob to get one of the Disney+ shows or something finished, I simply do not see them sitting on a finished film until November like they are saying they are going to do now.

This same thing, to varying degrees, will effect other long-going series/franchises and even genres, with studios eating losses on projects just to keep them in the public eye in many cases.

I don't quite agree with this. Momentum is going to be interrupted no matter what happens. All production (and most pre-production) is shut down now, and will be for the foreseeable future. And we're likely to see waves of resurgence of the virus and rolling lockdowns from that, once it is more under control. So I think that all studios (and many other businesses) are going to have to factor instability and flexibility of working schedule into their plans, and I think the idea of momentum is one that is going to have to be abandoned. I don't think there will be any guarantees, and trying to stick too rigidly to a schedule will see a drop in quality of future films, which the studio won't want - especially after The Rise Of Skywalker.

And while I think it's likely that Black Widow will end up coming out on streaming, I see it more as a case of coming out in the autumn if it becomes clear that releasing it in cinemas is still a no-go. Or, at least, doing what they've done for some other films and releasing it simultaneously in cinemas and on Disney+.

The biggest questions are: how close to finished is the film, and how feasible is it to finish it under current conditions? It's unlikely that all the VFX are 100% completed, as these things usually come down to the wire (which is why the final fight in Black Panther looks the way it does, for example). So how can that work be completed? Wait until restrictions have been eased and get the VFX companies back working on it? Deliver powerful work computers to artists' homes, have them do their usual jobs at home and then send their work to the central company for rendering? I don't even know how feasible that is either practically or economically. And will every VFX house be able to still work on it, or will different companies have to take over (or re-do completely) the work of previous companies?

My point is that there is almost certainly work that still needs to be done on the film, and they'll likely have to find some way to adapt to the new circumstances before Disney can even think about releasing it on any platform

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I think there are a couple of problems with that:

1) With the proliferation of streaming services (Disney, Warner, Netflix, Amazon), studios would risk missing a certain segment of the market just because not every viewer will want to subscribe to yet another streaming service.

Yes, I've been saying for a while that the streaming bubble is going to burst at some point. Most of them are running at a loss just to try to dominate the market and, as you say, there are too many of them for people to subscribe to them all.

I see it ending in one of two similar ways:

1) Smaller services collapse and end up selling their content back to one of the survivors. And, for the record, I think the likely survivors are: Netflix because they have market and cultural domination already; Disney+ because Disney has huge financial clout, and has an absolutely massive back catalogue as well as so much IP that they owned about 38% of the box office in 2019; Amazon Prime because they are already well-established and a Prime membership gets you much more than just the streaming; and Apple TV+ because the Apple ecosystem is a thing and they already have a massive captive audience.

2) A new service comes along that negotiates a deal with other streaming services and allows consumers to pick "packages" of which services they subscribe to for cheaper than subscribing to them individually, and then makes up the difference with adverts. Sort of like the way that if you want to get HBO on cable you don't buy it directly from HBO but instead from a third party who will also include other broadcasters in the package that you buy. So it becomes just one service that you subscribe to at a reasonable cost, making it both cost-efficient and simpler.

2) Releasing things in the theater brings in a substantial amount of publicity (that will drive later DVD sales, merchandise tie ins, etc.) I can't seem online releases providing the same amount of publicity

I don't know. All the same advertising tricks can be applied to streaming, and there are plenty of streaming things which do get huge publicity.

Actually I think most major chains are still relatively healthy.

Cineplex (the main theater chain here in Canada) regularly has profit margins above 4% (which seems to be higher than many successful companies, like Walmart.)

https://ycharts.com/companies/CGX.TO/profit_margin

Its true that theaters often don't see a lot of ticket revenue from the movies they show... but they get substantial revenue from concessions, and extras such as arcades that many theaters have.

Okay, fair enough.

 

[Darat]

Your 2) is already happening to a degree with Sky, which you can now attach your Netflix to and now Disney. The major advantage for both companies is not that they get access to Sky customer base but get access to the “Sky box” platform.

 

[Zambo]

Oh I see, so it automatically tracks when you go in, when you go out, and what you have with you when you do? I could see that working.

What about kids?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Your 2) is already happening to a degree with Sky, which you can now attach your Netflix to and now Disney. The major advantage for both companies is not that they get access to Sky customer base but get access to the “Sky box” platform.

Is that cheaper than subscribing to each individually?

 

[alfaniner]

I think we'll have to see quick improvements in streaming video chat technology. Even the cable news anchors broadcasting from home have horrible video connections. It's awful hard to do an interview (and difficult to watch) if the picture keeps pixellating and the audio is out of sync or the signal is delayed by several seconds.

 

[Darat]

Is that cheaper than subscribing to each individually?

Apparently yes.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Apparently yes.

Cool.

Well, I think that in this thread I've established that I'm not terrible at predicting the present, anyway. I'm not sure that's an incredibly useful skill, but it's something.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

This might be a bit of a "well, duh", but I suspect that mask-wearing in public will increase over the next few months, and if there are repeated outbreaks (as seems likely) that it'll remain a common sight for quite a while to come. I am, of course, talking about Western countries. I think everybody's aware that it's been commonplace in some Eastern countries for a few years now.

 

[alfaniner]

This might be a bit of a "well, duh", but I suspect that mask-wearing in public will increase over the next few months, and if there are repeated outbreaks (as seems likely) that it'll remain a common sight for quite a while to come. I am, of course, talking about Western countries. I think everybody's aware that it's been commonplace in some Eastern countries for a few years now.

And in Middle Eastern countries for thousands of years! Well... sort of. Only the women, of course.

 

[Trebuchet]

The plastic panels to separate customers from employees at supermarkets will probably stick around for a long time. That makes me sad.

 

[Elagabalus]

I think we'll have to see quick improvements in streaming video chat technology. Even the cable news anchors broadcasting from home have horrible video connections. It's awful hard to do an interview (and difficult to watch) if the picture keeps pixellating and the audio is out of sync or the signal is delayed by several seconds.

I think the tech is already there. It's just that laptops suck at everything. But I've told you this before.