IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond says he’s optimistic that a five-month long pandemic isn’t going to wipe out the need for cinemas.
Speaking to Deadline this week, Gelfond was asked about the future of his company in the wake of the pandemic and how the industry will fare with the push for Premium VOD releases by studios over the past several months.
Gelfond is in the obvious position of championing the exhibition industry, not to mention his company is one that genuinely offers an experience that can’t be repeated at home. So he’s keen to let people know IMAX will always be here:
“So, I think the fact that a couple of movies moved to streaming has created this narrative that a lot of movies are going to go to streaming and in the case of blockbusters I just don’t believe that to be true. And again, what do you say when nobody’s open? But I think starting this weekend with ‘The Eight Hundred’ in China and then going into ‘Tenet,’ I think people are going to see that people, where the virus is low, are going to return to movies in fairly significant numbers.
I know it’s popular to say the world is forever changed, but I don’t think that one-hundred years of history gets changed in five months. Just like people have kitchens in their houses, they like going to restaurants. Just because people have a streaming service, I think they’re still going to want to go to the movies.”
Gelfond also says he believes that watching a film at an IMAX location is safer than a lot of other situations people are finding themselves in:
“I think if you look back, I don’t know of any case where COVID spread has come out of movie theaters so I don’t really understand. I understand people are cautious, but personally I think movie theaters are safer than restaurants.”
On the other side of that particular argument is Dr. Anne W. Rimoin, a professor of epidemiology and director of Center for Global And Immigrant Health at the University of California.
Speaking with AV Club recently, she says the idea of heading to your local multiplex to catch films in coming weeks is not a good idea:
“Short of renting out an entire theater, which is obviously not an option for most of us, there is no scenario in which going to a movie theater is a good idea. [You] should definitely not be in an indoor area where you’d be taking your mask off, not even for eating. Movie theaters have all of that.”
Fellow epidemiologist Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a self-described movie fan, concurs with her assessment:
“I’m a huge fan of movies. I really enjoy them. They’re a great way to have some fun and escape from the world – which we need, especially right now. But going to see a movie in an indoor movie theater, it’s just about the last thing I would do right now.
And if they’re selling concessions, people are gonna be taking off their masks and eating, and that’s tantamount to eating in a restaurant in a closed space – even worse, because you’re basically in a closed box. There aren’t even windows, there’s no ventilation. Right now you want to be thinking about ‘time, space, people, place.'”
Will audiences return? China appears to be leading by example with big-budget Chinese war epic “The Eight Hundred” having earned $27.6 million in pre-sales in the lead up to its release today, and analysts predicting a stellar $72 million opening weekend.
