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Cinema Purgatorio: When Should Movie Theaters Reopen? Maybe Never.
Netflix fatigue. It’s practically a pandemic itself. The remedy? A shot of real-life cinema — square in the eye — coming soon to a theater near you. Someday. Maybe.
As part of Trump’s plan to reopen post-coronavirus America, cinemas will be among the first businesses to in the queue — at least according to this bit that recently surfaced in my newsfeed:
Theaters were hit hard by coronavirus closures, but they could be poised for a comeback under a three-phase plan unveiled Thursday by President Trump.
- USA TODAY
Specifically, cinemas are part of a proposed “Phase One” that includes “LARGE VENUES (e.g., sit-down dining, movie theaters, sporting venues, places of worship) can operate under strict physical distancing protocols,” reads the plan.
This might save your local multinational conglomerate’s theatrical chain but what about the indies and smaller operators who have had to innovate new ways of keeping an audience while waiting for their CARES Act loans to get funded? These rare, single-screen gems and art houses that don’t have access to, say, the $500 million in private debt funding that AMC Theatres is raising to…
