Illustration by Cristina Spano
While the U.S. has only recently approved a COVID-19 relief package, many of Hollywood s global counterparts are moving on to more ambitious strategies, including finding a solution for the lack of virus insurance.
On Dec. 21, nearly a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in America, the U.S. Senate passed a $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief package and government spending bill. It includes billions in relief for movie theaters and live venues battered by the pandemic which could save some 70 percent of small and midsize theaters that would otherwise be forced to close or file for bankruptcy protection, according to John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners. The bill also expands unemployment benefits for workers who, like many in the entertainment business, combine traditional and freelance employment. That s all good news. But outside the U.S., many countries are already looking well beyond emergency aid
Sacramento Magazine
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Movie theaters are where we gather to share stories and find our way through the darkness together.
Sacramento’s descent into the purple tier forced movie theaters to again close their doors this past fall. And while I know the move was essential, I can’t help but worry that many of those doors may remain shut forever.
Movie theaters have always been an escape for me. Maybe it started in 1976 during a heat wave in Los Angeles, when my mother and I sat through the three-hourlong classic “The Sound of Music” twice. I could not peel my 6-year-old eyes away from Julie Andrews cavorting with her guitar in her nunnery streetwear or leading her charges in Do-Re-Mi wearing (gasp!) old curtains. Mom and I fled to that movie theater/icebox from our small, non-airconditioned apartment; she’d packed us lunch and dinner before we’d sped off in her Chevy Malibu. In between showtimes, we stayed in the empty th
– Erica Barry, “
Something’s Gotta Give,” Columbia Pictures, 2003
It’s finally 2021 and from the movie perspective, not a lot has changed.
Movie theaters cleaned up their collective acts scrubbing stuff, opening, closing, scrubbing stuff, opening, closing, opening and…hoping for the best.
Studios kicked the can down the road again and again in the Americas and the EU with their multi-million-dollar mega hopefuls only to see chump change openings despite the massive marketing build up.
Prepped –
While theaters around the globe struggled to meet health and safety requirements, China was one of the first countries to open entertainment venues successfully and attendance has grown steadily.
Goodbye, snow days. Hello, babies: 6 ways COVID will continue to change Kansas City Eric Adler, The Kansas City Star
Dec. 31 Predicting the future is an iffy game.
Few people before 2020, after all, seriously believed that a pandemic, generated by a virus from bats in China, would end up hobbling world commerce and in only nine months kill 1.7 million people, more than 300,000 in the United States.
Yet vaccines hold the promise that in 2021 the COVID-19 virus will begin to be tamed.
What might the new normal look like then? Will everyone discard protective face masks or might they become a lasting part of the U.S. wardrobe? Will you ever really return to an office full time?
Trump signs $900bn Covid relief package into law (update) screendaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from screendaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.