In a completely normal year, a Disney blockbuster like “Raya and the Last Dragon” would have landed straight at number one on the movie charts on the opening weekend. This is also the case in the Corona year 2021, only with completely different numbers when it comes to the gross profit. While in earlier times one would have expected such an animated film to have at least 100 million, if not 150 million dollars in grossing on the first weekend, this year “Raya” has grossed just 8.5 million dollars at the US box office . And that’s only because the cinemas in many metropolitan areas, including New York, Chicago or San Francisco, opened their doors again – many of them after almost a year of forced break due to the corona virus. “Raya” started at the same time on Disney + – with a surcharge.
For Liam Neeson, the cinema is a sacred institution
Many people use the cinema opening for publicity: Hollywood star Liam Neeson appeared at the AMC Lincoln Square cinema to promote his new film “The Marksman”. “Write that in your diary,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “We’re back, and I think there was always something sacred about cinema. I felt that even as a boy.”
How touching. In any case, no stone is left untried to bring the New Yorkers back to the cinemas – the arthouse cinemas and museums are also open again. For example, the Angelika Film Center café in New York, which takes up the entire first floor. On a normal Friday evening, it would be teeming with film fans, reports an APA reporter. “Today it’s empty. Two employees with mouth and nose protection stand quietly behind the counter. Nobody sits here at the box office. You have to buy tickets online. If you didn’t know better, you would think this New York institution is always there still closed. But it is not. ” The compulsory program includes masks, spacing and maximum occupancy of the cinema halls with 25 percent of their capacity – or a maximum of 50 visitors per hall. Industry experts know that this is almost impossible to do economically. This is how Liam Neeson assesses it: “The reopening of the New York cinemas is a strong symbolic gesture, nothing more. It tells the cinema-goers that it is time to put their toes in the water again.” While a number of cinemas have opened again on the east coast of the USA, most of the screens in the west and in the metropolis of Los Angeles are still dark.
The US cinema market leader AMC Cinemas, badly damaged by the crisis, has reopened 13 of its cinemas in New York, some of which have also been opened in San Francisco. In the New York metropolitan area, around $ 1.07 million in sales were generated on the opening weekend – a drop in the ocean.
Only 25 percent of the seats may be occupied
After all, many US distributors are bringing a number of streaming hits that have long been shown on Netflix and Co. to the cinemas for the first time. In New York last weekend there were Oscar-worthy films like “Mank”, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, “Da 5 Bloods” or “Trial of the Chicago 7”. Films that have long been available online. Some of the performances are said to have been sold out (25 percent full), but sometimes, according to the British Guardian, there was also the picture that “more employees were present in the foyer than guests”. While the president of the cinema operators in New York, Joe Mashner, hoped that the occupancy would rise quickly to 50 percent, New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio was rather skeptical about the opening allowed by the state of New York. “Wait and see” was his comment – wait and see and drink tea.
A New York cinema operator let himself be carried away on TV to give a twofold judgment about the reopening: “Half of our customers can’t wait to go to the cinema again,” he said. “And we have probably lost the other half to streaming for good.” If that’s not a sign of a paradigm shift.
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