Last year, not much was known about the future of the pandemic when the theaters shut down in March. At that time, everyone was naive to wonder if we’d see a summer movie season in 2020. Obviously, not only did that not happen but we haven’t seen a full slate of films hit theaters in over a year, with many thinking that we should realistically start looking at fall before there’s any semblance of “normalcy” in how studios release films theatrically. Well, the CEO of Cinemark, Mark Zoradi, seems to think that it’s coming sooner than that. He believes we very well might have a full summer movie season.
Speaking on a recent investors call (via Deadline), Zoradi talked about the challenges facing Cinemark, the third-largest cinema chain in the US, and explained that he’s “optimistic” about this summer beginning the recovery process for theaters.
“We’re optimistic that we’re going to be able to light up these theaters again come this summer,” said Zoradi.
He pointed to three major releases that he feels will kickstart the summer movie season and lead to a recovery for the theater business.
“The last weekend in May, in that traditional beginning of summer, you have ‘Cruella’ from Disney and you have ‘F9’ from Universal and you have ‘Infinite’ from Paramount,” the CEO said. “So, you’ve got three big movies.”
Interestingly, he didn’t mention the May 5 release date for “Black Widow,” the next Marvel Studios feature that has been delayed by a full year and is in the middle of a ton of speculation about how/when the first MCU film since 2019 will arrive. It’s clear that he didn’t mention it because of this uncertainty, with many just assuming Disney will either delay the film (seemingly more and more unlikely, as it’s holding up the rest of Phase 4) or release it in theaters and on Disney+ is some sort of hybrid model.
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But as we’ve heard from various other movie theater executives, the problem isn’t that theaters are now closed, but that people aren’t rushing out to the ones that are actually open. And Zoradi chalks that up to the lack of film offerings. One way he thinks Cinemark will be able to help in that regard is by potentially making deals with streaming services like Netflix, Apple TV+, and others to provide a limited theatrical release for some of those platforms’ original features.
“We’re not talking about huge quantities [of streaming films],” Zoradi explained. “There’s a half a dozen pictures that are really important to some of the streaming services. They’re either big, important Academy movies or bigger, midsize commercial films that we would be interested in playing. We would be open to a shortened window, depending on the financial terms.”
This is a stark change than what most theater chains were saying pre-pandemic, when they wouldn’t allow Netflix to showcase its films because of the lack of exclusivity window. But now, theaters are having to change how they operate to keep afloat.
Obviously, Zoradi is talking to financial analysts during these investors calls, so he’s trying his best to put the nicest light on what really is a terrible situation. We’re still not certain if the summer movie season is going to exist, but right now, at least, Cinemark is thinking it very well might.