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I'm devastated to think about where theaters will be by the time it's safe for them to reopen, but once you have a badly bungled response to a public health crisis, there are no *good* solutions. https://twitter.com/mattsinger/status/1334566582522142723
Among other things, people who make entertainment also have to keep working, so endlessly delaying everything is also bad. Plus, when your country's dismal record on this lags behind everyone else's, there's only so long the world will wait for you.
Meaning the alternative might have been to open these films in theaters elsewhere, without any U.S. release at all. And given piracy, that could *also* hose theaters. I can't think of a solution that wouldn't be terrible.
And that's not my way of disagreeing with people who are dismayed and broken-hearted over theaters and their futures. There is nothing like seeing movies in theaters. That experience going away is unthinkable to me.
But there's also part of me, if I am honest, that has been so grateful for the good entertainment that's been available since this started. I have been SO GLAD to see things that are interesting and fun. I am not ready to have everything pause for six months.
It's awful. It's baked into how we did (or, really, didn't) respond to this from the beginning, and it's awful. I hear about live theater/performance spaces that people love closing permanently every single week. It seems doomed to be a devastating setback to arts and culture.
All this is me wrestling with the competing thoughts: (1) I'm so afraid for the theaters I love and take refuge in, and (2) I'm really glad I'll get to watch new movies.
Addendum: Lot of very confident "this is a cynical ploy to prop up HBO MAX" takes, but I'm not sure what those takes propose is the good-faith alternative. You can't *force* releasing movies in U.S. theaters to be a plausible alternative before people are ready to go back.
