DC Film Society: Adam's Rib November 2020

Requiem for Movie Theaters?

Up until this past March, I had never liked teleworking. Many of my colleagues, including some whom I supervised, teleworked regularly but it wasn’t for me. The few times I tried it only reinforced my desire not to do it again. Logging into work remotely was a long, tedious process that went wrong easily. Even when I did log in successfully, I’d feel disconnected from the office. Calling into meetings resembled trying to hear people in a wind tunnel. When I would try to contact someone and received no response my options were limited. To me telework was an awkward, clunky method of half-working.

Earlier this year, our tech office had changed the teleworking sign-in, making it much simpler. Then COVID hit. Since almost everyone was teleworking, I didn’t feel disconnected. In many ways I found it easier to contact colleagues than when I was in the office. The phones and videoconferencing generally worked well. Add in dressing casually and an extra hour of non-commuting sleep, and I gradually became a telework believer. Even when my office starts to work in person again I hope to telework some days. Simply put, I got used to it.

That sense of getting used to a new reality scared me the other day when I saw the trailer for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Chadwick Boseman (in his final role) and Viola Davis. I found myself hoping that the film would play on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or one of the other streaming services I used. When the trailer ended and the Netflix logo popped up I felt relieved, then I felt ashamed and frightened. This isn’t me. I have argued in person and in writing that a movie theater is by far the best way to see a film. I still believe that but, as I did with teleworking, I have become used to seeing first-run movies at home. These past few months I have streamed Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, Judd Apatow’s The King of Staten Island, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Julie Taymor’s The Glorias. Also festival, international and indie films including Palm Springs, Driveways, The Vast of Night and Atlantics. Fourteen years ago I viewed the first Borat film in a packed house at the Toronto International Film Festival. Last week, I saw the Borat sequel in my living room.

Like many, my venue choices are limited. The movie theaters in suburban Maryland, near DC, have not been allowed to reopen yet. Neither have the movie theaters in DC proper. As my wife reminded me, streaming movies, while not ideal, was better than no movies at all. During these past few months all of the streaming advantages resonated with me in a way they hadn’t before. It’s incredibly easy and you can control when you watch it. You don’t have to deal with bad projection, sticky floors, or people who can’t stay off their phones. You can bring your own snacks without sneaking them in. All of these reasons to see films at home have been around for years. While I acknowledged these arguments for staying home, I never truly took them seriously. I am a true film lover I told myself, and we real cinephiles see films in the theaters. Now I am torn between my true believer self and my practical, adjustable self.

Two months ago, after some delays, Warner Brothers finally opened Christopher Nolan’s Tenet in movie theaters. The theaters in northern Virginia, unlike others in the greater Washington area, reopened. Again, I was torn between my head and my heart. Most public health experts still maintain that going to movie theaters is not safe. My wife and I have tried very hard to follow the medical and scientific guidance. Still Christopher Nolan makes his films for movie theaters, and with Tenet specifically for IMAX theaters. I just couldn’t enjoy the vast scope of the visuals and the pulsating sounds on my TV.

For that one day in September I thought I was moving one small step back to normal. I drove to Tysons Corner, roughly 30 minutes from my home, to see Tenet. Not a normal visit to a theater by any definition. I bought my ticket ahead of time so I could check in by phone. I wore not just a mask, but also a hoodie and gloves to minimize the contact with my seat. Before sitting down, I wiped down the area completely. My seat was well over 20 feet from anyone else, with no one else in my row or the rows behind and in front of me. When the lights went down, the trailers for Black Widow, Wonder Woman 84, and the James Bond film No Time to Die played. All were supposed to open earlier in the year but had been postponed. Maybe I would actually get to see them this year. Then Tenet played and was everything I hoped it would be. I think I understood the story, but don’t hold me to that. All in all, I had a great time.

Black Widow and No Time to Die to 2021. No Time to Die was reportedly even shopped to streaming services, but the price was too high. For the moment Wonder Woman 84 is still scheduled for the end of the 2020. That’s another Warner Brothers film. Will the studio push the film through as it did with Tenet? It was no bomb, passing $52 million at the U.S. box office. Forbes estimated that this was about 1/3 what it would have made in normal times. The film made up some ground overseas, but was it enough? I’d call Wonder Woman 84 in 2020 iffy at best.

Beyond my corner of the nation, the fact is that even where movie theaters are open, people are not coming. The truth is in the numbers. CNN reports that “the 2020 domestic box office has brought in just $2 billion this year. That may sound like a lot of money considering that the pandemic has kept movie theaters shuttered for months -- but it’s a whopping 76% drop from the same point last year.”

Now the studios and theaters are in a classic chicken and the egg game. Audiences are staying home. The studios shift their films toward streaming. Disney put the live-action Mulan on Disney+ “Premier Access” meaning you would give Disney access to another $30 of your money on top of what you were already paying for the streaming service. Subscribers did not pony up enough and now Soul is moving to the regular Disney+ in time for Christmas. Remember Soul is Pixar (the folks behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and, you get the idea) and Pixar films have made over $6 billion in the U.S and over $14 billion worldwide. Disney has so little confidence in theatrical exhibition that one of their showcases will be available for only the Disney+ $7 monthly subscription fee. Maybe it will give them some more subscribers but nothing close to what it would have made in theaters only a year ago. Even a Tom Hanks film, Greyhound, went straight to streaming. Those films, along with those I already mentioned, are just a fraction of those delayed. You can find a fuller list here.

Once the studios move their films the theaters have little to show, and it’s taking a toll. More from CNN: “The absence of movies and audiences led Cineworld Group, the owner of Regal Cinemas, to suspend operations at all its theaters in the United States. Other major theater chains continue to stay open, at least for now, but the outlook for rest of 2020 looks grim. AMC, the world’s largest theater chain, said that its existing cash resources would be ‘largely depleted’ by the end of 2020 or early 2021.” According to the L.A. Times indie and art house theaters, in many cases, have been hit even harder. Some of them, such as the AFI Silver and the Avalon in the DC area have been streaming films, but they are not able to compete with the big digital platforms.

With studios keeping their films away and theaters either closed or on life support, where does that leave all of us? The L.A. Times predicts that “You’ll be watching most, if not all, of the Oscar contenders from the comfort of your home this year.” The theatrical drought could last well into 2021.

Truth be told theaters faced challenges from streaming well before COVID. I addressed them in an Adam’s Rib column last year. Back then I wrote that “Netflix is not going anywhere. But, guess what, neither are movie theaters.” The first part still holds true. I think the second part does too, but it’s gradually less of a belief and more of a hope. Every day we are drifting a little bit further away from seeing films the way they should be seen. Every day, we are getting more used to the alternative.

Clearly most of us have little control over when and how theaters will open. We have little control of what films these theaters might show. The only part we have some control over is how we will react. Will we have gotten used to exclusive home viewing so much that we don’t go back to the theaters at all, or only sporadically? Will we still remember the joy, the rapture of immersing ourselves in a great film? Chilean director Pablo Larraín said that “I think that there’s something very important, which is the reflection — to be able to reflect on the movies that you’ve seen. Some movies can change your life, can really affect you … in such beautiful ways. That’s why the cinema experience is so interesting. You go to a place, you see something, then you walk out, [get] some fresh air, everything’s new, and you can absorb that movie and digest it.” Will financial issues, along with familiarity and convenience, stamp out the cinema experience that Larraín described?

No, it won’t. I write that partly out of hope. Yes, I got used to telework, and will likely still use it more after COVID. Still, I will want to look someone in the eye and have a full human interaction, one that Zoom and Webex cannot replicate. I will want to be with my colleagues, to stand together as a team.

More than anything though, I have faith that we will return to movie theaters. We still have the capacity to love again what we loved before, a love that still exists as unrequited as it may be. That part of us hasn’t died just because we got used to something else. It might take some time for rediscovery. Some theaters may not reopen at all and we may have to look harder to find other ones. But we can and we will. We will have to if we want to keep this love alive. For us film lovers the only thing scarier than movie theaters disappearing is the idea that we wouldn’t care if they did.

Adam Spector
November 1, 2020