The 2020 (Maybe) Summer Movie Preview

May 22, 2020

We’re going to lighten things up this week and get back to talking about movies.  Yes, there are far more important things going on in the world, but we need some distractions at times, right?  That’s what I’m here for this week.  We’ve come to Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start to summer.  Ever since Star Wars opened in May 1977, this weekend has been known as the official start of the summer movie season – except this year.  With movie theaters shut down, a number of big releases have been pushed back to late summer, the award season heavy fall, or even into next year.  But we do have a number of films I’m looking forward to this year that I’ll mention in this week’s post.  We just may need to be a little creative in how we consume movies for (at least) the next several months.

As states begin to reopen businesses throughout the country (some more aggressively than others – I’m not going to opine on that topic, we covered it last week), movie theaters have started to open in a few states.  It’s highly likely that the next time we go to the movies, like most ways of life, it will look and feel very differently than the pre-pandemic movie experience.  Increased sanitizing procedures, more automated purchasing, and potentially new seating arrangements are just some of the considerations.  I’ve also read articles of potential “checkerboard style” seat assignments to limit interactions among customers.  It remains to be seen if consumers will make their way back to the movies once they are open.  There have been a few new releases the last few weeks, but not anything of consequence to attract an audience to those theaters that have already opened, although word of strong results at drive-in theaters is a nice story to see.  You may ask yourself if a theater chain can make money with limited seating – I’ve read some articles that indicate they can make money with at least 50% capacity, but if that means 50% “on average”, including sold out weekends, that’s another story.  The number of theaters that have already opened is so limited, it won’t provide meaningful data, but there is one film that is circled on the movie industry calendar that could be the “unofficial” opening of the summer movie season – more on that below. But first, let’s discuss an important consideration to the decision making process for film studios and distributors.

The 2020 Oscar Rules

Back in April, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced an important rule change for this year’s Oscars eligibility.  Prior to this year, a film needed to have a theatrical run in Los Angeles, for a minimum of seven days during the calendar year, to be eligible for the Academy Awards.  It didn’t need to have a nationwide release – a limited release would suffice.  This explains why some films that didn’t play in large theater chains (like we saw last year with Netflix’s The Irishman and Marriage Story), or that don’t open nationwide until early January (like we saw with 1917 this year), were still eligible for the 2019 Oscars. 

With theaters shut down for two months (and perhaps much longer), the Academy announced that, for this year only, a film released directly to streaming or Video on Demand would be eligible for this year’s Oscars, with one big caveat – the film must have planned for a theatrical run.  I’m not quite sure how the distributors “prove” that, or if they will even need to, but it’s interesting nonetheless.  For Netflix films, this is easy – a film can bypass theatrical release and go straight to streaming.  For traditional studios, this actually could open the doors for us to see some films sooner rather than later, as long as the economics can work for all those involved (the studio, the distributor, and the streaming services) to strike a deal.  One more note on the Oscars – there was a story this week that the Academy is considering postponing this year’s Oscars, which could mean a change in the eligibility window.  I can imagine that with most (if not all) production shutdown, some films targeted for late 2020 release may see their completion date target in jeopardy.

This Summer’s Tentpole Movies (For Now)

Even with the relaxed Oscar rules, there are still three major releases on the calendar for theatrical release this summer and the date that the industry has circled is July 17^th, when Christopher Nolan’s next event film, Tenet, is scheduled to be released.  Nolan is one of our most talented filmmakers whose work on The Batman / Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Dunkirk, and Interstellar, have achieved strong box office results and critical praise.  An underrated Nolan movie – The Prestige – is one of my favorites, if you haven’t seen that one.  Like most of his movies, the plot details on Tenet are murky, but it appears (based on the mind-twisting trailers) to be about an international espionage plot with what is described as a “time inversion” element (whatever that means).  The cast includes Robert Pattinson and John David Washington (who was outstanding in Spike Lee’s last film BlacKkKlansman – more on Spike in a moment).  There are two reasons Tenet will not be moved directly to streaming – first, Nolan is a cinema purist and is pushing hard for his movie to be released in theaters; second is financial – the reported budget for Tenet is around $200 million, so all parties involved will need a theatrical release to make a profit for this film.

Two other marquee films scheduled for release are Mulan, the Disney live-action remake of the 1998 animated film on July 24^th, and Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to 2017’s very successful first Wonder Woman film, starring Gal Gadot.  Both films have already had their release dates moved from earlier this year, so it remains to be seen if they will keep the new dates.  For all three of these films, the large budgets will likely influence a decision to keep their scheduled date, or postpone when more theaters are open.  In reality, the deciding factor will probably be the percentage of theaters open, and which large cities (New York, Los Angeles in particular) have opened their theaters.  For this last reason, I’m a bit skeptical if these dates will be kept, especially given the large box office needed for these films to be successful.  But I hope I’m wrong.

Streaming Services

We saw a few interesting developments this week in the streaming world, including a couple of surprises.  The first news was from Netflix, who announced that Spike Lee’s new film, Da 5 Bloods, will be released on June 12^th.  With no theatrical requirement, this one will go straight to streaming.  I’ve been up and down on Spike over the years, but really liked his last film BlacKkKlansman – a great satire movie with John David Washington (Denzel’s son), and Adam Driver (who received an Oscar nomination for this role).  This film also saw Lee finally win an Oscar for his screenplay at last year’s Oscars.  Da 5 Bloods is about a group of Vietnam veterans who travel back to the site of their war experience to find a buried treasure left by their commanding officer.  The trailer just came out for this one and it looks good.  Plus, a big new movie in June!

The next piece of new this week came from Disney.  Back in February, it was reported that Disney acquired the film rights to Hamilton, the blockbuster Broadway play.  But this was different than your traditional “turn a play into a movie” deal we’ve seen in the past.  The film footage for the Hamilton movie would be from 2016 with the original cast, edited together based on the footage from three filmed performances.  Disney paid $75 million for the rights to the film, with a planned release in the Fall of 2021.  This week, Disney announced that they would release the film to their streaming service (Disney+) on July 3^rd of this year.  This is a huge release for Disney given the lack of new movies coming out.  While I see the obvious connection of a film about an American historical figure being released during the Independence Day weekend, the finance guy in me knows that this will help Disney’s subscriber numbers for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, which starts July 1^st.  I never saw Hamilton on Broadway, but my wife and daughter are huge fans, so I’m looking forward to checking this one out.

The last piece of news was the most surprising to me, until I thought about it for a bit.  Back in the fall, Apple launched its own streaming service called Apple TV+.  Unlike Disney+, HBO Max, and Netflix, the strategy Apple took was to focus on original content, instead of spending large money on film or TV libraries.  That’s a pretty good strategy if you want to dip your toe into the streaming world, until a global pandemic shuts down virtually all film and television production.  This week, Apple announced the acquisition of Greyhound, the new Tom Hanks World War II film that was produced by Sony, who decided to sell the distribution rights instead of waiting for theaters to open.  Apple reportedly paid $70 million for the US streaming rights for 15 years.  Sony still holds the international rights to the film, which reportedly cost $50 million to produce.  In announcing the deal, Sony noted that they see deals like this as exceptions, not the rule for their film strategy going forward.  A release date for Greyhound hasn’t been announced yet, but hopefully we’ll see it this summer, as its original release date was scheduled in June.

I’ll close with a few other movies on my radar for this summer that I’ll mention here.  When HBO Max launches on May 27^th, the extensive film library will include On the Record, the critically-acclaimed documentary about the sexual assault allegations against record producer Russell Simmons.  Another documentary I’m looking forward to is The Go-Go’s, which premieres on Showtime on August 1^st.  To close out the summer, Labor Day weekend will see A Quiet Place Part II, the anticipated sequel to 2018’s hit, and The Beatles: Get Back, a documentary from director Peter Jackson who used the massive amount of footage from the Let It Be recording sessions to tell the story of the Beatles last recorded album.  A film version of the sessions was released in 1969, but has been out of print for years.  As a long-time Beatles fan, this is one of the films I am most looking forward to this year.

That’s all for this week.  Thanks again for reading and I’ll be back next week with a new topic.  If you’d like to subscribe to be notified of future posts, you can do so here.