View Comments
The China Film Group in Shanghai and the China Film Bureau are reportedly opening up their offices again, a sign that movie theaters in China could open again at the end of the month, Deadline reports.
- The opening would begin “ a gradual recovery after being shuttered since the Lunar New Year due to the coronavirus outbreak,” according to Deadline.
- China’s box office has lost about $2 billion from the closure, Deadline reports.
- “They’re starting to lay out a plan for the reopening of cinema in China. They’re starting to assess what movies are available, in what time periods and how they want to manage the reopening,” Imax CEO Richard Gelfond told Deadline.
Meanwhile, in the United States ...
- The United States’ box office is multiple steps behind what’s happening in China. Multiple theaters — like AMC, Regal Cinemas, Cinemark and Megaplex Theatres — have also closed their doors until the situation has resolved itself.
- Eric Schiffer, CEO of The Patriarch Organization, a private equity firm based in Los Angeles, told me that we “are witnessing the single greatest destruction” of the American box office in history.
- He added: “A drive-by shooting by a virus that typically would have been on the screen as the antagonist but instead it is inside the theater. This will change the way the box office operates for years to come and will speed up the push to streaming and the way in which films are released in the future.”
- But Jeff Whipple of Megaplex Theatres suggested theaters will be ready when they’re open again. “We’re looking forward to the time when people are ready to come back to the theaters and we’ll be ready.”