I wonder if this will impact NTTD’s delay any further:
Question is: how long can MGM wait?
It is quite obvious that people won’t go to theaters automatically in high numbers again (heck, I don’t know whether I would go, even for Bond). Maybe they will have to settle for a mix of cinema release and on demand-release after all.
Since Bond still is a great seller on the home video market it would make sense to offer it very soon after the cinema release for home video, best of all for the Christmas season. Probably the best chance to have it make a lot of money that way.
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I bet they’re already working on ways to work this out. There might also be a big comeback for drive-in theaters. If I had the money, i’d start to rent spaces…
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I was having this exact conversation recently. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see a resurgence of that, especially given the advances in short range stereo radio signal and the state of the art audio in most cars nowadays?
I also agree, at some point everyone’s going to have to start releasing their movies and a mix of staged release platforms is probably the most logical approach as we project into an uncertain business model for the future.
And you don’t have to care about stupid peoples’ comments or spoilering, or youngsters talking all the time or making popcorn noises. Problems may occur when you go there in style in your Lotus Esprit and get parked behind a Dodge Ram 
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This would be the perfect time for a studio to test the waters of doing a release strategy that includes a first-run experience in the home. It’s just going to take a major studio, with a major product rather than the smaller fare we’ve seen this with already in this crisis, to take a risk and go for it. Unless something regarding the situation changes dramatically between now and November (i.e. an incredibly effective therapeutic or a cure), MGM, EON, and Universal are not going to get anywhere close to SKYFALL’s box office. They’re also, most likely, going to fall short of the numbers for SPECTRE, which they were clearly disappointed with at the time.
Would they make back some of that lost money with a streaming or home video release alongside the theatrical release? Who knows. But at a time when everyone’s box office is going to be down by a substantial amount, it would seem that, while they’re all taking the hit anyway, this is a time to experiment with these types of things, considering the momentum seems to indicate that, eventually, we’re headed in that direction to some degree anyway.
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I’d say you could probably get the project off the ground with an ‘executive prime on-demand ticket’ for between $ 30 and $ 40. It would be a hefty price tag, but not considerably worse than what people spend on the theatre experience. You could even promise to re-release the film in theatres next year (or once the situation definitely allows to).
It will most likely not perform as it would under usual circumstances - but then the revenues wouldn’t be split the usual way either. It will be a gambit no doubt - but I think right now a considerable part of the target audience would be entirely willing to see NO TIME TO DIE on a streaming platform and pay premium prices to do so.
The alternative would be to move release date to summer 2021 and just hope that the vaccine will be ready by then.
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One of the further kinks that they’d have to work out for this kind of scenario is the disparity in internet connections around the world. For those in urban areas, where the connections are generally pretty good, dropping $30-$40 on something that actually looks close to what one might actually see in the cinema would be a intriguing offer.
For those of us out in areas with abysmal internet connections, dropping that kind of money on something that is going to look decidedly mediocre, many times worse than what we’d see on even a low quality cinema screen. I’d be willing to drop between $10-$15 for a chance to see the film on that kind of connection, but it’s going to be a hard sell at anything above that.
One possibility that I would suggest to the studios contemplating this, would be to have an all-in-one price point where we not only get early access to the film but a physical copy of it as well. Adding up a typical trip to the theater (let’s say $35) and then the home release ($30 for a 4K Blu-ray), I’d be more than willing to drop between $60 and $70 to just get the 4K Blu-ray release now and call it a day. The studio still gets the cut of what they would have gotten in the cinema as well as the home release.
Only drawback to that plan is it might result in the window between “theatrical” and home releases becoming longer if it was a plan that became the norm, as there would need to be an incentive for both sides to jump in at that price point rather than waiting it out for a couple of months, but as an option for those of us stuck inside with nothing to do for the foreseeable future, it could be a pandemic-only solution to the problem for those with streaming “difficulties”. I know I’d gladly go in at that price point for NO TIME TO DIE and GHOSTBUSTERS, rather than waiting until November and March 2021, respectively.
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To be honest, I was having this conversation with a neighbour chap who runs the Vue cinema in Leicester Square.
Wouldn’t be at all surprised to the see the movie get pushed back to 2021 if they wish for a theatre-only release. Otherwise…?
It’s hard to predict, given it’s not exactly something that has a calendered end date. Eon/MGM are playing the same blind guessing game as we are right now.
If MGM and Universal are looking for a theatrical-only release, then we’re most likely looking at another delay. China might be able to safely get themselves to the cinema in November, but the United States and Europe, even if the outbreak is “over” in the sense of the disease still spreading like wildfire (which is unlikely), the US and Europe will very much be on their collective knees psychologically and economically and will still be facing some form of restrictions that will either keep cinemas closed or significantly reduce the number of people allowed inside at a time.
Early-to-mid 2021 seems like the best bet at this point, and even that might be a touch optimistic.
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Hold on, this is all very interesting, but I’m confused.
Why would people be less inclined to go to the cinema after the pandemic? There will be no virus then, so no risk, surely?
Maybe I’m naive, but I was under the impression we’d all go out and see it when this is all over. Hopefully, November.
Unless the experts are wrong, this virus isn’t going away. It’s going to be a new presence in our daily lives just like the common cold and influenza. Eventually, they will find therapeutics that will render it far less dangerous than it currently is, in addition to the potential for herd immunity that could develop after a while, but the virus is going to be with us.
Until the vaccine arrives, at the earliest in spring or summer of 2021, there won’t be any mass rush to the cinemas on the global scale that a Bond movie demands. Unless MGM and Universal experiment with alternate release strategies in addition to theatrical releases in areas where the danger is lower, sometime mid-year 2021 is the earliest that they could put it out in a wide theatrical worldwide release and expect to get anything near the box office returns that they were expecting pre-pandemic.
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I see. Thank you.
I’d be okay with that, as long as the cinema release is also an option for those who want to attend. I think the November cinemas option should absolutely be taken if it’s viable, otherwise the film and every other film delayed by this pandemic becomes old news. I respect the cast and crew who worked on these projects, but the studios should just get the products out there and move on.
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Eventually, MGM and Universal will begin to lose quite a bit of money if the film has to get delayed again. At some point, a decision will have to be made if the film would still be viable in cinemas if it has been too long. I still firmly believe that No Time To Die will get a streaming/on-demand release with a more limited run in cinemas if the film is forced to move from its November release window. But we’ll have to wait and see.
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Part of the problem is that, whichever way they decide to go, it looks as if it’s always going to cost them. That statement about things not going to go back to normal seems accurate - things will eventually work out towards the ‘new normal’, whatever that’s going to be.
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Am sort of in the same boat.
Self employed contractor. Director of LtdCo, so no support. But more importantly, the changes to the implementation of IR35 tax laws has just completely f–ked me. Even though due to CV, the laws were lifted, the damage had been done and I had to leave my previous client. Little or no chance of work or support.
Oh well, at least the sun continues to shine…
Terrible. It‘s easy to say but… hang in there. We‘re all in this mess together.
Perhaps the leak from a meeting in which Cummings is reported to have said they should let the old people die sheds some light on the shutdown delay.
Brexit is a storm in a tea cup compared to the ever darkening thunder clouds of the pensions time bomb. With folk living longer there’s ever increasing strain on the ability of tax revenue to fund a state pension for the old. The government can only defer retirement/pension age so much before it become totally untenable.
Not to mention the extra NHS & care resources this growing demographic consume.
Of course for the vast majority of us, who may be in such a position one day, it’s a responsibility we don’t want to shirk - we want to provide for the sick and elderly.
However, to corporate the sociopath, those peering down from their ivory towers and the politicians desperate for cost efficiency (and of course the megalomaniac Bond villain), this virus that predominantly attacks the old and the NHS resource sucking weak with their underlying conditions, might look like mana from heaven…
You can picture the scene in Boris’ soundproof office…
Dominic Cummings is sat across from a PM whose head is in his hands in disarray. Boris’ expertise lies in spin and BS, much like his transatlantic counterpart, in fabricated melodramas like Brexit, but most definitely not in the real thing - a pandemic. As much as he craved his Churchill moment, his Falklands, the manifestation of this crises is way out of his comfort zone.
Boris inaudibly grumbles a curse as he laments how his Tory party has decimated the NHS with austerity policies over the past decade. It’s a course he’d always been thoroughly happy to endorse. But now he needs the NHS more than he needs the financial backing of elites with healthcare ambitions; more than the Northern voter; more than the armed forces, more than the aforementioned spin doctor. Perhaps even more than his divorce lawyers. But it simply isn’t there anymore - at least not in the functioning way this crises calls for.
Cummings pipes up, “You know, Boris, this virus might not be such a bad thing after all. We could even make it a good thing, at least for us - for you, me and the Tory party.
Boris looks up. Could this be true, is this really possible? Has his chief advisor, his Brexit guru, really found a shovel to dig them out?
“What if this virus was allowed to run its course? Imagine us emerging from it with far less pensioners to fund, with far less elderly, diseased and chronically ill taking up beds in the NHS? You’d have a few trillion extra in the coffers to offer tax cuts at the next election. And all of those lefties moaning about NHS staff shortages due to your Brexit would be silenced with all of those beds and staff suddenly available.”
Perplexed, Boris frowns under the blonde mop, uttering a short string of indistinguishable words that at once signal a total understanding, pompous disdain and, to the adept, his total incomprehension. To Cummings constant chagrin Boris doesn’t seem to have grasped the simple, diabolical elegance of his pensions timebomb solution.
…But then again is Boris just feigning ignorance to force him to say it out loud… Cummings remembers his vow to never underestimate the bumbling buffoon; perhaps the sneaky blowfish of a PM is already preparing for a future enquiry in which Boris can blame him should this backfire.
Cummings bites the bullet…
“We do nothing…! We don’t shutdown…! We ignore everything we learned from China, South Korea, Italy and Spain. At least for as long as is plausibly deniable.
From Boris’ silence Cummings is certain that he’d already thought of this, but wanted someone else to put the words in his mouth. If nothing else Boris is the consummate politician. Cummings continues…
“You need to delay, delay, delay and finally delay some more. We can pretend we’ve got scientific modelling to back us up, which of course we never show anyone. We tell the nation to Keep Calm and Carry On… it’s the trigger phrase for the English to ask no questions and just do what they’re bloody well told by us - it always works. Mention the ‘blitz spirit’ a couple times.
We keep everyone working, keep the tubes and other transportation as crowded as possible by cutting services. But most importantly we keep schools open; the children are our super spreaders. I’m told they often remain A-symptomatic, so they can give it to each other and take it home to their families, to their grand parents.
Boris interrupts, “People won’t allow their children to go to school if there’s a risk to them?”
“Bojo, old chap, they raise their scurrying progeny in a country where knife crime and drugs are out of control. every time they send them to school they don’t know if they’ll see them again. They’ve all been been thoroughly desensitised to risk. So long as you tell them it’s ok, they’ll happily bury their heads in the sand. All they want is routine - give them the excuse to Keep Calm and Carry On watching their box sets, buying iphones and living their best lives and they’ll send their children anywhere.”
Boris still isn’t convinced, “But people will simply suggest we keep schools open just for key worker children and lockdown the rest, like all the other countries.”
“And we will, Boris, but not until we really, really have to, when we’ve exhausted all deniable plausibility. Until then we put the chief medical officer and chief science officer either side of you in a very dower, serious wartime briefing scenario; you tell press that our top scientists are telling us that shutdown may make the disease spread. I know it makes no sense at all, but trust me, the public will lap it up. Er… Tell them It’ll mean key workers staying at home with their kids and some other stuff - fragments and half truths in mix to keep it just confusing enough to… Boris?
Boris glances behind, as though warned someone was sneaking up. Then the penny drops… “Oh, right, yes, Delay, delay, delay?”
Cummings grins with satisfaction, reclining further than Boris thought possible into the ancient leather folds of the chair usually preserved for visiting dignitaries of the highest rank…
Cummings points a bony, reaper thin finger at the PM ”When you get questioned about it you let the expendable duo either side of you, Science and Medicine present the answers. Then once this virus dust clears and questions are asked about the high death count and the delays we can throw those two under the bus…”
A bead of sweat escapes the blonde mop and runs down Boris’ nose… “And what if I happen to get pulled under the bloody wheels with them?”
“*I’ve an idea for that too! You’re used to performing on TV! We put you in Chequers, mess your hair and ruddy you up a little more than usual and say you’ve got the bloody virus!
“But you’ll battle on, heroically giving briefings and steering the ship throughout your life and death struggle. When all’s said and done, you can counter the bad press of delaying with the Churchillian image of you leading from your sick bed.
“Now, when you do need to finally lockdown, close schools, restrict jobs to only the key workers and essentials, we play our last card. We don’t test!
Testing is the best way to contain the spread, so we say that we are trying Our hardest and we show best intentions, but we…”
Boris, on cue, “Delay, del…”
Cummings doesn’t wait for Boris to finish, too excited by his own evil plan, “We let the journalists tell the public that it’s because of this and that; getting beaten to the equipment by other countries; buying dodgy ones from the Chinese - always blame the Chinese. We can blag our way through that. But in the meantime, with the children taken out of the equation, we use the doctors and nurses as the super spreaders instead. If they can’t be tested, then they’ll unwittingly pass it onto everyone they come into contact with. When they finally show symptoms they have to self isolate, meaning they can’t treat those they’ve infected. The old and weak among them will continue to die.
“It’s going to be a bloody mess, Boris, but the alternative is this thing battering the economy with god knows how many years of new infection waves followed by stretch after stretch of lockdown. We’d reach the next general election in the worst recession in history…
“But, do exactly as I’ve said, and we’ll be the first country open for business. The multi-nationals will flock here without a second thought of Brexit. And best of all, in 4 years time when the general election arrives, you’ll be able to cut taxes because all those old and sick leaches are dead and buried, or burnt - whatever it is we do to plague victims these days. You can unveil a big memorial in the arse end of Hyde park and do one of those Churchill quotes you love so much to say sorry about the dead people. Tell them we all ‘got through it together’ and hey presto the country’s united; no one thought that’d be possible after Brexit!
“We’ll be more powerful than ever!”
Boris’ shoulders relax, revealing his neck for the first time in months. But a moment later the tension returns, as he hunches down even lower than before with a look of deathly foreboding on his slowly ruddying face.
Cummings unsprawls himself from the armchair and leans forward, concerned for his prize poodle… “Are you ok, Boris?”
Boris coughs… Then he coughs again, this time rasping from the depths of his extremely well stocked gut… He glances furtively up at Cummings…
“Like this?”
Cummings reclines back into the 300 hundred year old leather armchair. “That’s perfect, Boris!”
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