by Rosalie Kicks, Old Sport and Jaime Davis, Fixer

Welcome to the first installment of Hot Takes, in which MJ’s Rosalie and Jaime shout into the void about the latest movie thang that’s got them all in a tizzy. Today’s topic: the disappearing theatrical windows in the wake of COVID-19. Are we here for it or absolutely against it? Will movie theaters survive after this is all over with?

Rosalie Kicks, Old Sport

If I think hard enough or manage to have just the right amount of quarantinis (must give where credit is due, thank you Allison Yakulis for this award worthy term) I can still smell the buttery popcorn, hear the fizz bubbling from my ginormous soda pop and feel my feet sticking to the greasy floors. A visit to the movie theater may seem like it is in the rear view mirror, but much like E.T., I know I soon shall make my return trip home.

Listen, I have to get this out there… I am in no way the glass is half full kinda gal. Instead, I am more the glass is shattered, I have now crawled into my velvet lined bunk, shut the coffin lid cause everything is awful and it is time for sleepies type of chap. However, when it comes to the future of the cinema - I have to say I am rather optimistic. There is always and forever going to be those movies that require the big screen, the earth shattering sound and an evening with butter laden fingers.

Do I think everything is going to come back in the exact way that it was? Of corpse not. Things change, life changes… nothing is constant. One thing is for sure though, when this whole pandemic thing blows over, there is no doubt that you’ll find me in an aisle seat (need room for the tubes) at my local cinema. The movie theater will be my first stop, no doubt. However, if the world decides to take away my paradise, well I got two things to say about that.:

1. How about I give you the finger (said in Neo voice when he gives Agent Smith the finger)
2. Welp, time to go to the basement! My partner and I met in a video store.

So it's totally logical and normie that we have now decided to re-create the rental store atmosphere/environment within the confines of our basement. It allows us to hold on to and capture that moment of our meet cute. First love memories. Plus operating the cash register is really fun.

F it. The one place that I love will probably be taken away and turn to ash. Luckily, I’ve been preparing for this all along and I have thousands of friends awaiting for me to hit play in the cinematic bunker that Best Boy and I have built. Twenty bucks to rent a flick - well they can shove that where the sun don’t shine. And that’s the bottomline cause Old Sport said so (Yes, I am a huge fan of pro-wrestling. Are you watching AEW? Let’s talk!)

Jaime Davis, Fixer

Universal’s decision to stream recent and new theatrical releases like Emma., The Invisible Man, The Hunt and Trolls World Tour made major waves when it was announced last month. I must admit, my first response was to be totally and completely here for it, until I read the fine print. Titles are made available only for rent for a period of 48 hours at the hefty price of $20. I get it…you pay $14 a ticket per person in the theater or whatever and you may have a family of four crowded on the sofa, hunkered down with their Flaming Hot Cheetos (quite possibly one of the world’s finest snacks) to watch Trolls World Tour - well, yep, the studios are giving us a bit of a price break here. But as someone who, like millions of others, recently lost 75% of their monthly income due to COVID-19’s disastrous effects on the economy, $20 felt like, to me, a little too much to bear. And then I remembered: studios and distributors are not benevolent entities….they’re like, big corporations trying to survive just like the rest of us right now! I guess I originally thought the studios were trying to do something nice for mankind, shut up in their homes and whatnot, sending positive vibes into the universe for this to be over with as quickly and with as little loss of life possible. But nah. It’s a strategic business move.

After thinking more about it, and talking with a friend who has extensive history in film distribution and marketing, it makes more sense to me. What’s really going on is two things: you’ve got major distributors testing the market to see if this $20 theatrical rental thing works, and in what ways. And then you have art houses trying to stay afloat, offering virtual tickets for fare like Bacurau and Corpus Christi at $14 a pop. A quick Googling reveals that a lot of news outlets are asking the same question right now: what happens to movie theaters after this? Will shrinking the theatrical windows, the very business model allowing cinemas and movie chains to remain intact, finally ruin theaters for good? Since Netflix’s disruption, I feel like every year there’s some Big Panic that This is it!! This is finally the time when the windows will close for good!! And yet…it still hasn’t happened. Why? I believe people still enjoy going to the movies. Can they afford to do it all the time? Will they shell out $60 to take their families or partners to see any old thing, like Tolkien or Stuber or The Art of Racing in the Rain? Maybe not. But your Black Widows and your Mulans and your F9’s - another story. I believe people still want to see some movies with buckets of popcorn and Coca Colas bigger than you can hold with one hand. And Goobers. Goobers are really fucking great. A 2018 study also suggests this fact (that people still like to go to the theater, not that Goobers are great, though this is also a factual statement). I feel people in North America, who, in my opinion, were slower to wake up to the threat of COVID-19, will be rushing out in droves to resume normal life once things stabilize, which includes going to the theater. This is already being tested in China; as the source of the outbreak, they’re ahead of the rest of the world by about two months. As things calmed there, more theaters re-opened, tempting potential theater-goers with comfortable, audience-friendly fare like the Harry Potter franchise, only to close once again. While China currently faces an increase in infections due to people returning from abroad, it will be interesting to see how this all pans out there and in our respective countries. All we can do is stay at home, stream, and wait.