While the US is preparing to begin reopening some theaters as early as next week (even if that’s entirely too soon), the bulk of theater chains seem to think that June/July time frame is much more realistic. However, around the world, the projection is even worse. As one cinema chain executive recently said, Europe, particularly France and Spain, could have theaters closed for months still.
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Speaking to Deadline, Nathanaël Karmitz, CEO at Paris-based Mk2, the company that owns a variety of art-house theaters in France, doesn’t have as optimistic a view of theater reopening as most. In his eyes, we’re still a long way away from seeing theaters reopen in France, as well as the rest of Europe.
“Right now to have a projection in July, I think it’s not realistic,” he explained. “We can say ‘we want to open’, ‘we want people to come back’. We all want to have a drink with our friends and go back to the movies, especially in France.”
He continued, “But today no one is able to give a serious date for that. We still don’t know how people are going to go back to school, to work, it’s question after question. We can speculate, but there’s no realistic way to talk about this.”
Karmitz’s company also owns a theater chain in Spain. And while he’s not sure about when France might be able to reopen, he does think that Spain is most likely not going to be ready to open theaters until late-2020, at the earliest.
“Spain won’t see cinemas opening before Q4, October or November,” Karmitz said.
At this point, at least in North America, everyone is thinking July is when most theaters will be back, just in time to release Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” on July 17. However, if that is unrealistic around the world, with European territories still months away, will Warner Bros. still be confident about releasing “Tenet” without the full support of global cinemas? No one knows for sure.
But for now, it’s clear that Europe is still pretty far off from its cinemas returning to “normalcy.”
