A Quiet Place 2, Lovebirds and F9 delayed, no release dates announced

[Frank Cox]

I just received some emails stating that A Quiet Place 2, Lovebirds and Fast and Furious 9 are now delayed with no revised release date announced.

I was just talking to my wife about what we'll do if we run out of movies to play, which is starting to look like something that could actually happen... I guess we'll just close for a while -- what else can I do?

[Steve Guttag]

Fire up the film projectors and run an "analog" festival.

[Geoff Jones]

F9 is pushed to April 2021.


I'd love to see more theaters showing older movies in the meantime, and it makes financial sense, as long as people are willing to congregate in the cinema.

Yesterday, the Alamo in Westminster, CO showed John Carpenter's THE THING to a completely sold-out crowd in an 84-seat house with a small constant-width screen, while 6 people sat in their 245 seat auditorium watching ONWARD on the 60-foot-wide screen. SMDH

[Frank Cox]

Unfortunately I can't see older already-on-video movies selling many tickets in a small town like this. In a larger city you have a bigger pool of prospective customers who might be interested in a revival screening of The Thing, but in town of 5000 people, well....

I just did the math. 84 people in a place with 113,000 population equates to not quite four people in a town of 5000.


Too bad, though. Stuff like that would be fun, but it just doesn't scale down to a town like this.

[Mike Blakesley]

Agreed, people have all those movies on video and they don't want to pay full ticket prices to see them on the big screen, unless you can tie it to some sort of special occasion (like Polar Express at Christmas time, for example).

Even if you could get a decent crowd, the studios want $300 or more for a booking, so you'd have to do $1000 in ticket sales to make it worthwhile, and in small towns it just isn't happening. Sad to say.

Although.....what if we DO run out of product for a while? I know there are two movies we were planning on playing on the break that are gone now....(the Bond film and F9). So that's a month we have to fill. Maybe we should have a survey and ask people what movie they've always wanted to see on the big screen and try something that way.

As with so much stuff these days, the saying applies.... "It's gonna be interesting!"

[Geoff Jones]

I hear you, Frank. It certainly may not work in your market.

But there are two things to consider with your calculations:

1. THE THING would have sold more than 84 tickets in Colorado if Alamo had put it in their large house. How many more? Who can say? In northern Virginia, where Alamo played THE THING on their largest screens at two different locations, they sold at least 250 total, maybe more.
2. Do you ever have fewer than 4 people show up for a showing of a new release? If that's the case, a classic showing every now and then might make sense, no?

[Stephan Shelley]

Add Mulan to the list of postponed release dates.

[Frank Cox]

And New Mutants and Antlers.

[Jim Cassedy]

Most of what I do involves pre-release press, preview, and industry screenings of movie titles
about to hit theaters, and sometimes now I even do per-release screenings of stuff that's going
to be streamed online for critics to review in advance.

Long story short-: EVERY one of my press screenings for the remainder of the month,which
included all the titles listed elsewhere in this thread, and a few more, have been cancelled.

Usually, this time of year when my schedule slows down a bit, I can get Union work at
the convention center, or at the sports & event arena near me, but all the trade shows,
conventions, & concerts have either been put on hold or cancelled altogether.

Basically, as it stands now, my work calendar has been wiped clean till at least the end
of the month at all of my usual projection & tech gigs. Thank God I'm well beyond living
paycheck-to-paycheck, or I'd be looking for a bridge to jump off of.

Not sure what I' m going to do with all this extra time. I won't even be able to go to
a movie since I've either seen them all, or they'll be shutting all the theaters next,
and now, I can't even go to NAB or CINEMACON, or not even Disney friggin' land.

Question: Do you think some flicks (Like "Quiet Place 2, for example) could wind up
going direct to online access or Blu-Ray, and bypass planned theatrical release altogether?
Depending on how bad this gets, and how long it goes on, it could have an effect on the
exhibition business as we know it that it may, or may not, be possible to recover from.

[Jim Cassedy]

Sorry- Don't know how this got here.
Tried to remove it, but, like a virus, it won't go away.

[Frank Cox]

One other factor that might come into this is how many small (and not so small) theatres will be able to survive even a short-term closure, let alone closing for several months or longer. That could easily push marginal or heavily-leveraged operations over the edge. And as I mentioned before, staff and management people aren't likely to just sit around waiting for a call to come back to work when and if the theatre re-opens, so getting the thing back up and running again could be quite an undertaking on its own, assuming that it even still exists.

If theatres close for a period of time, how many will be left afterward?

[Mike Blakesley]

I hope banks will be cooperative with those having loans. This is an advantage of banking with a small, local bank. When it comes to other monthly expenses... heat, lights, insurance, water... "savings" (if any exist) can only go for so long.

Do you think some flicks (Like "Quiet Place 2, for example) could wind up
going direct to online access or Blu-Ray, and bypass planned theatrical release altogether?
Depending on how bad this gets, and how long it goes on, it could have an effect on the
exhibition business as we know it that it may, or may not, be possible to recover from.

This is what keeps me up nights. This could be just the opening they're looking for to smash the windows.

[Frank Cox]

Have any of you had people asking you if you're going to be closing the theatre? Somewhat to my surprise I haven't had anyone ask that, yet.

[James Wyrembelski]

Nobody is asking us if we are closing. However, I'm beginning to see smaller theatres around me close up. We still have no plans to close as of yet.

[Sean Falk]

With all the movies we were planning on getting being delayed, especially A Quiet Place since we already had tickets up, we're kinda scrambling to find content to fill the gap. My little theatre hasn't talked about closing, but it's been something I've thought about since going into April we won't have any big new releases and the spread could get worse.

We couldn't get Invisible Man and Emma like we wanted, so now is the chance I guess.