The reopening...Fall 2020

[Steve Guttag]

It would seem that with the "big-boys" opening up at the end of August and with Tenet set to open around Labor Day (starting 8/27, I see in some places, if not all)...it looks like most of our customers in states that permit indoor theatres (with restrictions, of course) are going to give it a go.

I presume theatres/chains across the US are in similar situations.

[Carsten Kurz]

We experience rising infection rates in some european countries that seemingly had overcome Covid-19. In some countries, cinemas closed again, in part due to rising infection rates, in part because attendance is ridiculously low, far below economic viability. I don't think it is over yet. Let's hope for the best.

[Steve Guttag]

Oh...I don't think it is over by any means. Until there is a viable vaccine that people have confidence in, this is not going to be over. It is a matter of figuring out how to live with it until such time that a vaccine renders it to be amongst the bazillion of other things that affect a very small portion of the population (which it actually already does but when it comes to people dying of something...that line can be drawn most anywhere and on a case-by-case basis).

What I'm noting in this post is that with A new feature (Tenet), cinemas are clamoring to see if they can put something in the positive column since March.

[Leo Enticknap]

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but I'd be very pleasantly surprised if any theaters apart from drive-ins (which re-opened in May) will be open again by Labor Day in California. The governor here is even threatening to re-impose a total lockdown in some counties if case reports don't decrease. Another worrying factor is that we're three days into what is forecast to be a week-long heatwave (the sensor in my backyard recorded a daytime high of 109 on Friday and 114 yesterday), which has caused huge crowds on the beaches, most of them not wearing masks, and "socially distancing" by six inches rather than feet. So there will likely be another spike in a week or two's time, just as there was after the riots in June.

[Marcel Birgelen]

We experience rising infection rates in some european countries that seemingly had overcome Covid-19. In some countries, cinemas closed again, in part due to rising infection rates, in part because attendance is ridiculously low, far below economic viability. I don't think it is over yet. Let's hope for the best.

I think nobody with half a functioning brain really thought it was over. The problem is, as soon as you give people a little finger, you'll see they'll not only grab the hand, but the whole torso with it... That's also what happened around here. Once lockdown measures came down, everybody started to act as if nothing ever happened. The result was pretty obvious: new measures.

I guess we knew from the start this will be a rough period of at least two years in which we'll see strict measures, followed by gradual loosening in waves.

As for the cinema business around here... yeah, it is what you would expect: Abysmal... some locations have since been partially shut-down or shut-down entirely. With nothing new to show and quite a few people being afraid of visiting dark, indoor places with a shaky reputation for hygiene, I guess it's what we could've expected.

As for Tenet: With the current capacity limitations, the ticket pre-sales are actually starting to sell out in quite a few markets around here. It looks like that despite everything is currently conspiring against it, people are eagerly anticipating the movie. It remains to be seen how it will hold up after the opening weekend though...

[Carsten Kurz]

We have very mixed presales over here. While Nolan track-records some block-busters, his more recent movies have been too complex to qualify for actual block busters. Still, it currently is the only international movie that is talked about. Unfortunately, Warner in germany imposed overly restrictive terms to play Tenet from launch date, so, many cinemas will be left out during the first few weeks.

[Steve Guttag]

Warner Brothers (AT&T) is definitely flexing their muscle a bit on this one as they know they are the only "choice" out there for new product. I'm sure they'll position their terms as needing to recoup investment with fewer tickets to sell, thus requiring a premium terms...however that can have a backlash effect as people already are not sure about watching movies in the theatre environment again. More hurdles hurt, not help.

[Carsten Kurz]

We have a rather large auditorium, with a high ceiling, and we only admit to roughly 30% of our capacity. We also often leave the emergency exits open at least during preshow (they open directly to the outside). So we do have a decent crowd that is coming regularly, I am sure because they feel relaxed under these conditions. We also have a forced/100% fresh air inlet, no HVAC. I know from colleagues with smaller auditoriums that people are too concerned about sitting in these smaller rooms, even if they know there will only be a few people with them.
Also, while germany still has low (while rising) infection rates, many people avoid coming to cinemas not because they fear an infection, but because of possible contact tracing, they are concerned they could be held under quarantine restrictions because someone else in the auditorium was tested positive. And as cinema going nowadays is much less essential than buying food, they avoid it.
To make things worse, we had summer holidays AND a real heat wave during recent weeks, and no one in germany is seeking comfort in cinemas under these conditions.

[Leo Enticknap]

...but because of possible contact tracing, they are concerned they could be held under quarantine restrictions because someone else in the auditorium was tested positive.

That dynamic is playing out here, too, but in a slightly different way. Per the Governor's order, anyone who receives a positive coronavirus test result is legally required to quarantine for 14 days. As a result of this, many people experiencing mild symptoms are likely keeping quiet about them and not mentioning them, because (a) they can't afford to lose 14 days' pay, and (b) they don't want the heightened risk of infecting family members, which would be the case if they were at home all day. As most people who contract this thing only experience mild symptoms if any, they feel that the risk/reward equation is in favor of saying nothing.

An MD I know reports that many people are showing up at the ER after having been symptomatic for a significant length of time, and are only seeking help by the time the disease has progressed to life-threatening.

If contact tracing combined with legally enforceable quarantines were added to that, I'm sure that many would refuse to co-operate (to the extent of leaving their phones at home or disabling their GPS receivers, if it were done via an app).

[Marcel Birgelen]

Until now, the "end-user" side of the case-tracking has been limited to mostly paperwork. If you visit a "venue" like a restaurant or theater, one of your party must leave their personal contact details. While I've seen some app usage for this, this is by no means a centralized effort by any government. The information you write down on that piece of paper isn't being checked against your ID, so I guess everybody can essentially just put in there whatever he/she wants, when he/she doesn't want to get tracked.

We have very mixed presales over here. While Nolan track-records some block-busters, his more recent movies have been too complex to qualify for actual block busters. Still, it currently is the only international movie that is talked about. Unfortunately, Warner in germany imposed overly restrictive terms to play Tenet from launch date, so, many cinemas will be left out during the first few weeks.

It's been a few years, but I was under the impression that Inception did pretty well in Germany, at least in NRW. Interstellar and Dunkirk were obviously targeted at a much more niche audience, but I guess it helped that Inception wasn't really marketed as a "die-hard" sci-fi movie, just like Tenet.

[Mike Blakesley]

We are going to reopen on 8/28 with "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (because we had told a lot of people we were going to play that one earlier and the year and it wasn't available yet, but is now) and then Tenet after that for 3 weeks. I hate going 3 weeks with that but there won't be much else to play anyway. I just want to get some damn movies on the screen again.

[Mark Lane]

We will be opening Tenet to crowds of 10 people or less. We are required to carry the movie for four weeks, but there isn't any other new releases and with such small crowds, I don't think carrying the movie for four weeks will hurt us..
We open the lobby for to-go orders so having a movie playing will be no real additional cost to us and will bring some life back into the theater.

[Steve Guttag]

Isn't "Unhinged" going to open before Tenet (as for wide releases)?

[Marcel Birgelen]

Unhinged is already playing around here, but drawing abysmal crowds. The relatively lukewarm reviews and complete absence of any marketing efforts whatsoever probably don't really help too much...

It was supposed to open in the U.S. yesterday, I guess we'll see after the weekend how it performed...

[Steve Guttag]

Yeah...it definitely opened...I have no idea if Unhinged is bringing in anything. Unfortunately, our newest ATMOS installation is in a state that doesn't allow cinemas to open yet. Unhinged is supposed to have an Dolby ATMOS version.