We have at least 13 confirmed cases here in New Orleans. A friend of mine who is an EMT, transported a patient who later tested positive for the virus, so now my friend is in self-quarantine for 14 days. We are going to be seeing a lot more of this in the coming days. I feel that the MLB season is going to get delayed and more major motion picture releases will probably be delayed. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Black Widow moved if other films are underperforming right now as a result of quarantines.
I was initially pretty annoyed about NTTD’s seven month delay at the time it was announced. But since then, entire countries have gone on lock down, professional sports leagues have suspended their seasons indefinitely and air travel between continents has been prohibited. In hindsight, delaying the release of a new Bond movie seems insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
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So quite seismic release date shifts happened today:
- A QUIET PLACE 2, which was due to open next week, delayed indefinitely along with THE LOVEBIRDS (Paramount)
- FAST & FURIOUS 9 a full year to April 2021 (Universal)
- even some independent UK titles like OUR LADIES (Sony) moving to September from April here.
Expect Mulan and Black Widow and other Spring titles to all go. Bond ultimately the winner here by grabbing November.
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F9, the upcoming Fast & the Furious movie, just got delayed by almost a year. I wonder if it had “disastrous test screenings” as well? 
This just goes to show how wise the decision to delay NTTD was. If anything, their swift decision helped secure a time slot this year rather than next.
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The move looks much smarter and more cautious now. It initially seemed like EON might have jumped the gun. Now it definitely looks like the right move.
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A Quiet Place II was also delayed with no new release date given (it was scheduled to release next week and already had its world premiere). Disney is going to look really bad if they are the only ones pushing on with their current release schedule.
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Of course, people will not want to go to the cinema in this situation.
And quite frankly: who wants to see a movie right now which deals with panic in an end-of-the-world-scenario?
Unless the coming months see the infection rate go down significantly expect no new cinema release this year at all, or better: all cinemas closed.
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Tango.
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Listen to The Man With The Golden Gun on Radio 4, read through Dynamite’s Reflections Of Death and start your James Bond marathon, complete with “unofficial” Bond films, continuation novels and graphic novels.
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The closing of schools is a tricky issue (at least here in NYC). 75% of public school children are low-income and receive free breakfast and lunch at school (which can often be their only certain meals each day) in addition to other critical services. If you closed the schools, parents would scramble for childcare and might have to stay home from work, which would mean that essential governmental services/functions would go undone. For example, if government-funded agencies do not receive their funds on a timely basis, then they cannot provide the essential services which they are contracted to provide and cannot pay their staffs, who in turn would then be unable to pay for basic necessities such as food and shelter.
People in the information economy and some others can work from home and continue to receive income from their work. For example, as a non-profit administrator I can do some work at home, but there are tasks which I can only do on-site. By contrast, my husband cannot do nursing on-line.
We need to flatten the curve through social distancing, but we also need to ensure that people are able to meet their basic needs.
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That’s well reasoned, but surely this kind of global emergency is when government is supposed to step in and pick the financial slack in terms of rents, mortgages and money for food. The human resources that are lost from vital services when they need to stay home with their kids is a hit it’s worth taking and trying to work through day by day, rather than leave 100s of thousands of children in harms way. Leaving schools open and most adults working surely infects more, putting that much more strain on resources and i don’t see that method spreading the peak out since more ‘mixing’ will mean a higher exponential rate of new infection.
Mulan, New Mutants and Antlers releases just pulled by Disney too.
“Supposed” is the key verb. In the last great crisis, it was corporate interests that were bailed out. Individuals were left to fend for themselves.
Agreed. But children will still need food and there is no plan at the moment to supply it (and I am on the inside of this type of work). The extreme inequality of wealth and resources in the United States makes this country unable to respond properly to this crisis.
The healthcare system cannot handle this crisis, so the infection rate needs to be slowed as much as possible. In fact, tomorrow will see a new guidance from New York State whereby healthcare workers will remain deployed even after a known contact. It is a mess.
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It was only a matter of time. Black Widow is gonna get delayed and likely Wonder Woman 1984 too.
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That’s going to hurt fans, given it was already given a lengthy delay. But it is what it is.
Just like No Time To Die…
This is probably because we are in the chaos of the start of the virus explosion but I think the November release date is doubtful.
It also wasn’t wrong, sadly.
A Quiet Place, Part 2 seems like an ideal streaming release.