COVID-19 Pushing Back The Big Screen

Several movies being delayed due to pandemic

Tyler Leach, Staff Reporter

A few days ago, it was announced that due to COVID-19, the movie Jurassic World Dominion has been delayed for release until the summer of 2022. This is hardly the first time a film has been pushed back this year.

Throughout 2020, as the pandemic ensued, places where groups of people would be assembled were closed down. This included places like film studios, which has caused several movies to delay filming. Aside from Jurassic World Dominion, some other films that were delayed include No Time to Die, The Batman, A Quiet Place: Part II, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Dune, Wonder Woman 1984, Godzilla vs Kong, and several others.

Companies have tried to work around this, Disney released their planned to be theatrically released live-action Mulan film on their streaming service, Disney+ and Paramount released their romantic action-comedy The Lovebirds on Netflix. However, most studios have just delayed production, filming, or release of their films to later dates. At the very least, sometime next year, at the most, two or three years from now.

Another factor to several finished movies getting pushed back for release is the fact that many movie theaters have closed down due to COVID-19. Some movie theaters have tried to fix that by making certain seats closed so that it follows social distancing. However, a very large amount of theaters remain closed, which greatly affects profits that could be made from the movies themselves.

Unfortunately, as long as the COVID-19 pandemic is still going on, there isn’t a good indicator to tell when the movie theaters and film studios will be back to normal operation.