The Pandemic That Has Eroded Hollywood Forces A Number Of Film Schedule To Be Delayed

JAKARTA - Morbius, Marvel's new film for Sony has been postponed from March 19 to October 8, 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still the reason why they chose to postpone the broadcast. With cases increasing drastically in North America, it seems they are choosing to move the date to the second half of 2021.

Sony is also trying to keep Morbius films from streaming. The reason is, in 2020, Sony Pictures has sold the viewing rights for the Greyhound, Tom Hanks film to Apple TV +.

This time, they believed Morbius could make a profit by showing theatrically. Jared Leto was also enthusiastic about Morbius, who was showing in theaters.

When moving the release date to 2021, no one can predict that the COVID-19 pandemic conditions will increase compared to 2020. Indeed, there have been several developments such as the presence of vaccines around the world and the condition of cinemas that provide large capacity so that business continues to run.

There is a term called dump ground or dump where a movie is shown not having big profit expectations, but major production houses rarely use this term. January to March is usually a dump ground for film production. They will show a new film or much anticipated by the audience.

Early in 2021, Sony scheduled the film Cinderella and Morbius, Disney will release the latest film The King's Man. But looking at the cast and budget, it looks like these three films will be postponed again without even glancing at video on demand or streaming.

last day of being a freakin badass rebellious dreamer princess! Today was our last day wrapping Cinderella. I'm so grateful for having had this experience & to our crew for making it possible (& completely Covid safe!) During a pandemic. I can't wait for all of you to see this movie pic.twitter.com/xiE31ZJG6F

- camila (@Camila_Cabello) October 2, 2020

In addition, production houses usually carry out promotions for at least six months from the release date. To date, there haven't been any major promotions for Cinderella and The King's Man - which are supposed to air in early 2021.

If you look at the film until May, there are many tentpole films ready to air, including Black Widow from Marvel, Godzilla vs Kong from Warner Bros., Free Guy from 20th Century Studios, Cruella from Disney, F9 from Universal, and Infinite from Paramount.

The production house strategy changed. Some have divided the release into theatrical and streaming like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or Apple TV +.

Citing Variety, Paramount only left the film A Quiet Place Part II for theaters, the rest has been screened digitally. Paramount has not announced any plans for a new film to hit theaters.

The Warner Bros production house shocked the public after deciding to release the film in two formats: cinema and HBO Max. Starting from Wonder Woman 1984, this decision caused blasphemy from a number of film activists.

As previously reported, Warner Bros. will release 17 films such as Mortal Kombat, Tom and Jerry, Godzilla vs Kong, The Conjuring: Devil Made Me Do It, In the Heights, The Suicide Squad, Dune, and others.

Warner Bros. will release the film on HBO Max within 31 days of theatrical release. But this is Warner Bros.'s way of staying productive. Although they may have lost their chance to win box office titles, on the other hand, HBO Max subscribers will increase in this way.

Seeing Warner Bros. strategy towards its release, this strategy will be followed by other production houses to keep going in the film industry.

After all, streaming releases aren't always negative. Hamilton, the film that aired on Disney + gained unexpected popularity. Hamilton is not included in the tentpole film, but Disney + gets 74 percent of new subscribers with 752,451 total downloads thanks to this film.

On the other hand, Netflix has just announced 21 new films so it is certain that there will be new films every week throughout 2021. Some of the films released on Netflix are Army of the Dead, Red Notice, The Woman in the Window, Kissing Booth 3, To All The Boys: Always and Forever, Untitled Alicia Keys Rom-Com, Malcolm & Marie, Finding Ohana, and many others.