Box Office Will Plunge 50% Due to Coronavirus Closures, Analyst Predicts

Variety ^ | June 1, 2020 | Brent Lang

[Viking2002]

IOW, the movie studios pumping out this schlock are gonna take a bath at the box office. (Boo frickin' hoo.) They'll have to find alternate outlets to try and recoup at least some of their losses, and put it out in places like Netflix and Hulu, a lot sooner than they expected. They'll want a pretty chunk of change from the online streaming services to do it, so you can bet that $7.99 a month you're paying for your base subscription will jump, at least in the short term. Or, the price to view a premium movie will increase to offset it. We have Hulu and reciprocate with family to have access to their Netflix account, so I don't know what either costs at the moment. 95% of what I watch online is free, anyway, because it's either so ancient that there's no real licensing involved now, or it's grade B sci-fi or horror crapola. Ever since we cut the cable and went with whole-house Roku, Chromecast, and streaming Internet, we discovered more sources of entertainment than any cable package will give you. Not to mention that since all of that requires a broadband connection, you still have to keep your Internet service, and your account login is all you need to view many of the channels you used to watch with your cable package. It's dirt cheap compared to whatever package you were forced to buy at gunpoint, without paying for the 90% of the garbage you didn't want, anyway. A la carte for pennies on the dollar. Still, if it's an interest-specific movie I really want to see (with is very rare) I still like going into a nice, clean AMC or Carmike, smelling the popcorn, blowing a few bills in the arcade while I wait, and plopping down into a theater seat next to my wife with a overpriced bucket with extra movie theater butter and an obscenely large soda. (I've learned to eat dinner first, not vice versa.) What I don't miss is showing up for a 7:15 show, not getting into a seat until 7:20 because they have to sweep and vacuum and pick up all the trash, and having to sit through 20 minutes of commercials and new movie trailers before the feature starts.

[Falconspeed]

Sad. Going to movies was fun. I would go to the biggest movie palace on Friday nights at 8:00 PM and sit in the middle of the huge crowed on opening nights. Really fun. Last time I did that was 2004 for the Passion of the Christ. When Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ was ignored by the Academy Awards, I stopped enjoying movies in big movie palaces.

Sad. Newspapers, malls and movie theaters might lose to the stupid Covid virus.

[TnTnTn]

Yawn....those pompous asses can watch their own movies...

[ConservativeMind]

I agree with you on that.

That’s an amazing experience.

[Oscar in Batangas]

The thought of being inside of one while ANTIFA is setting the place on fire isn’t too helpful, either, I’ll bet

[BookmanTheJanitor]

The people cheering on the destruction of average Americans isn’t making as much money? Shame...

[wally_bert]

Same here.

Plus TCM runs some that are new to me every so often.

[RetiredArmy]

And, that means that so called movie “stars” will have to accept less salary for their pig scum of movies. Ain’t a danged one of them in hollyweird today could make movies like “The 10 Commandments”, “King of Kings”, “Ben Hur”, etc. NONE in hollyweird today are of standing to make those types of movies. You saw their “ATTEMPTS” at making a Christian type movie when they tried to make Noah’s Flood with their idiot movie about the Flood of Noah. Even the fool playing Noah was a fool. He barely could play a ship’s captain in the Master and Commander movie, much star as Noah. Pig movies out of hollyweird for the past 35-45 years now. Movies stink nowadays. Just stink.

[jmaroneps37]

Some good news at last.

[caver]

So, what’s the bad news?

[dfwgator]

It’s a good start.

[Enterprise]

Keep all theaters closed until 2025.

[joma89]

Less money to the leftists in hollywood is a huge win.

JoMa

[Dutch Boy]

Covid or crappy movies? It may be hard to tell.

[lurk]

Pity. How will Hollywood Karen us without their money?