You rarely see it in a period of time where new advances in technology are rapidly having an affect on how we live our lives.  In the same way that streaming brought about an abrupt end to the video rental market, many entertainment analysts believed that the theatrical experience itself would also see a decline over time, as on demand entertainment would soon become the norm.  It sure looked like that was a possibility.  With Netflix and Amazon’s rapid rise over the last decade, and the soon to happen launch of streaming services by some of Hollywood’s top studios, the turn of the last decade seemed to mark a turning point for entertainment, where movie theaters no longer stood out as the primary place to premiere a new film.  And then of course came the perfect storm that nearly brought the theatrical industry to the brink of extinction.  The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 forced the closures of movie theaters across the world, leading to an unprecedented halt on film exhibition.  Movies, including ones that were months away from their planned release, were moved off the calendar with no sign of when they might be able to finally be seen.  In the meantime, movie studios with their newly launched streaming platforms were finding it crucial to unload the burden onto these new services to provide entertainment for audiences who were now stuck at home.  With theaters unable to operate, and streaming now able to grow without competition, it looked as if this might be the nail in the coffin for a century old industry that had long faced competition only to see themselves evolve into something better and stronger.  But, as the shadow of Covid is beginning to finally fade, we are seeing something truly remarkable happening, and that’s a surprisingly resilient theater industry crawling ever so carefully out of it’s hole.  And it makes everyone wonder, are movie theaters really destined for irrelevance or are they a much stronger part of the culture than we ever thought.

The story of movie theaters enduring through it’s most trying challenge during this pandemic has taken a surprising turn in the last couple weeks.  Disney, with their popular brand Marvel, undertook what they considered an “experiment” to see if one of their movies could perform well enough without the help of a streaming option.  With the Delta Covid variant causing problems across the country, this seemed like a tricky gamble.  Also, the movie they were testing the waters on was based on a lesser known comic book character named Shang-Chi; not exactly a household name.  Sure, he’s part of the extensive Marvel family, but Shang-Chi has no where near the following that an Iron Man or Captain America has.  Essentially, he was going to have to perform solely based on the strength of the Marvel brand itself.  But, it’s a gamble that remarkably paid off in the end.  Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings not only broke records for it’s Labor Day weekend premiere, it shattered them.  The movie pulled in $95 million over the four day weekend, and it’s three day total was only slightly behind that of Black Widow for the highest opening of the year; a movie that featured a pre-established Marvel icon with a strong following.  Surely, the Marvel branding helped to carry Shang-Chi to a strong opening, but at the same time, it also proved something else, especially in the weeks that followed.  After it’s strong opening, Shang-Chi continued to hold onto it’s audience, dropping only 50% in it’s second week, and is on track to out gross Black Widow by the end of it’s run.  This, more than anything, proves the inefficacy of the hybrid release model, as a pure exclusive theatrical window allows for a stronger audience hold over time.  This is also something that Disney observed with it’s 20th Century Studios release, Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds.  Before Shang-Chi, Free Guy had been the box office champ 3 weeks running, and it managed to also cross the $100 million mark which is especially good for a movie made on a more modest budget than what Marvel is putting out.  As a result of both Shang-Chi’s and Free Guy’s remarkable success, Disney made the crucial choice of sticking with exclusive theatrical windows for the remainder of the year.

This news was a dream come true for the beleaguered theater industry.  The largest studio in Hollywood was abandoning the bet hedging practice of releasing day and date on streaming and in theaters, and was committing to an exclusive, albeit shortened, theatrical first strategy.  One can speculate that Disney’s premium Premiere Access was not performing as well as they had hoped, but as outsiders, there’s nothing we can prove with that being the case.  Disney’s keeping their internal numbers regarding streaming a very closely guarded secret, and they’ve only released total grosses from their $30 access fee publicly on opening weekends, with the hopes that it might help with the overall positive press with the movie.  But, after that, we don’t know exactly what the movie makes.  My educated guess is that even though the movie might do well on opening weekend, it’s following weekend grosses probably see a huge drop off.  And that’s probably because once someone buys the access to watch a movie like Black Widow, they basically own that movie after that point, so Disney no longer is making any more money on that single customer.  Movie theaters on the other hand has something that works well to their advantage and that’s repeat business.  Because people are paying for the experience of watching a movie in a theater and not just to own the movie outright, it opens the door for people to return again if they desire to view the movie again.  That repeat business helps to keep movies performing strong week after week.  What I imagine is that Disney saw that they weren’t making the same kind of long term money on their Premiere Access as they were keeping the movie in the theaters.  And a big sign of that is in how Black Widow lost 70% of it’s audience from week one to week two, while Shang-Chi managed to lose only 50%.  Yes, they do keep 100% of the profit from streaming, but they lose out on future gains that can accumulate through word of mouth.  That’s what they’ve observed over the last week, and it’s why Disney made the monumental choice to move away from that hybrid model.

With Disney committing to theatrical, it suddenly puts pressure on other studios to do the same, and some studios perhaps jumped the gun a little in response to the ongoing uncertainty in the theatrical market.  Only a couple weeks prior, Paramount made a bunch of drastic moves.  They took their family friendly comedy Clifford the Big Red Dog off it’s September release date and has not found a replacement date yet.  And after that, they moved two high profile Tom Cruise vehicles, Top Gun: Maverick and the next Mission: Impossible sequel and moved them months away from their intended dates; a big blow for Top Gun: Maverick as it already saw a year long delay from 2020.  Universal likewise changed it’s release strategy for the upcoming Halloween Kills release in October, choosing to put it on both it’s streaming service Peacock and in theaters at the same time.  And Warner Brothers, like they have all year, are continuing to release their entire 2021 slate of movies in theaters and on their streaming service HBO Max for no extra charge; a move that has irked many of their stable of filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villenueve.  The only other major studio to follow Disney’s theatrical only lead has been Sony (the only major studio without a streaming platform).  In fact, they doubled down on theatrical after the other studios began to hedge their bets.  Both of their big upcoming franchise films, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Ghostbusters: Afterlife moved up their release instead of delaying them, and most tellingly, they did so after the successful launch of Shang-Chi.  Clearly Sony saw the same promising numbers that Disney saw, and they decided that it was better to give theaters the exclusive window for the first month, instead of selling off their titles to Netflix like they have been doing.  So at this point, the movie studios are suddenly seeing their worst fears about the theatrical market not coming to fruition, and it’s leading to some second guessing.  This in particular is leading to some flare up confrontations between studios and talent, as these drastic, panicky moves have negatively affected already pre-standing contracts.  Christopher Nolan in fact has parted ways with Warner Brothers after a 20 year relationship, as he’s now setting up his next film at Universal instead.  It’s really interesting to see the dynamic flip so much on the industry in such a short amount of time, with movie theaters now back in a more dynamic power position, while the studios are struggling to figure out their next moves.

That being said, movie theaters themselves are not entirely out of the woods yet.  The pandemic is still going on, with some parts of the United States seeing the worst flare up they’ve experienced so far.  What’s helping keep the movie theaters from reaching the point of worry now is the fact that the two biggest markets (New York and Los Angeles) are experiencing a relative low rate of spread of the virus compared to other parts of the country, and that’s due to higher vaccination rates in those areas.  Certainly, there is still a lot of worry in those large cities, and they are taking drastic measures like mask mandates and proof of vaccine requirements, but overall it’s allowing businesses to function as close to normal as they possibly can.  Movie theaters in particular are following the guidelines set, and they have been able to operate throughout the summer without leading to any significant outbreaks.  I can say from first hand, even the packed out screenings of big films has all of the audiences members respecting the mandates here in the Los Angeles area where I live, and that has been a big contributor in seeing the confidence build back up for the theatrical industry.  If Los Angeles and New York manage to keep another disastrous spike happen again, the threat of another shutdown is almost assuredly behind us.  Even still, closures anywhere are still a lingering threat, especially in the parts of the country that are really hurting right now.  There’s also concerns about what effect vaccine mandates might have on future theater attendance.  In the coming weeks, Los Angeles County will soon be requiring proof of vaccination upon entry into many indoor establishments, including theaters.  Some see this as a bad thing because of how it might turn away audiences who refuse to be vaccinated.  On the other hand, some argue that requiring proof of vaccination may help bring more people back to the theater who have been hesitant before, because it will make them feel safe knowing that everyone around them has also been vaccinated.  So, even though movie theaters have seen promising developments over the last few weeks, the storm hasn’t cleared out of the way just yet.

Even still, with movie theaters doing the kind of business they’ve seen at all this summer is something pretty miraculous.  Going into the new year, it seemed like Armageddon was on the horizon for the theatrical industry.  Many chains, including the biggest of them all (AMC) was too far into debt to recoup, and in many cases, a few of them closed for good.  AMC still operates today solely due to the intervention of meme stocks forced higher through Reddit.  But even in the face of that, it took a lot of hope to believe that audiences would come back after having to rely on streaming for their entertainment over the last year.  Did streaming claim a foothold too strong for theaters to overcome in order to return to normal?  As evidenced by what we’ve seen in the last month, streaming in fact did not kill the theatrical market for good.  As some of us already know, and what more are probably realizing more and more each day, there really is no substitute for the theater experience.  No matter how big and impressive your home theater set up is, it can not replicate the experience of watching a movie in an actual movie theater.  What I’ve really noticed in the difference is the way a movie sounds in a theater.  A home theater 7.1 system just does not have the same oomph that a nearly 25 speaker set up in a cinema has.  It’s the immersion that makes all the difference.  Movie theater sound just puts you in the middle of the movie better than it does at home.  And of course, the bigger the screen the better.  I’m sure there is not a single home theater that captures the immensity of an IMAX image.  Big movies need to be seen in a big way.  I for one have always known that and during the past year I went to great lengths to enjoy movies the way they were meant to be enjoyed.  I sought out the only operating Drive-In theaters in the Los Angeles area and drove back and forth almost weekly to these venues that were well outside of town.  I even drove 120 miles to San Diego just so I could see Christopher Nolan’s Tenet in a theater, because it was the closest one open that was playing it in IMAX.  These are the lengths one will go to for that theater experience, and I know my case is on the exceptional side.  But, what I am pleased to see is that more and more people who don’t typically go to the theaters are also realizing that special connection too.

What people are beginning to realize now is just how much they took the theater experience for granted.  For a lot of people, returning to the movies has in some way become an almost healing experience.  The psychological effect of the past year has created an appetite for many people to have something in their lives that helps remind them of life before things began falling apart.  In a way, movie theaters are the beneficiaries of that effect.  After being holed up in their homes for months and in some cases over a year, people want to be outdoors again, as well as return to activities that require them to leave their homes.  With the vaccines and mask mandates helping to slow the spread, and making the weary feel more safe as they exit their homes, we are seeing more vigorous enthusiasm for wanting to get back to the things that we’ve missed out on in the last year.  This is why movie theaters might have a bright future, at least for a while.  It reminds audiences of better times, when it didn’t seem like the world was falling apart.  The act of going out to a movie theater, or any establishment outside the home, has a therapeutic effect now; like it’s a reward for having to endure the hardships that it took to get to this moment.  One thing I wonder is how streaming will be viewed in the years to come post-pandemic.  I’m sure that it will still be robust, but the rapid growth they saw during the pandemic will likely never be seen again, and in some ways, people might turn away from streaming viewership because it will remind them of the worst days of their life as they endured the uncertainty of the year 2020.  It’s probably going to be a small effect, but I think the psychological impact of how we endured through the pandemic year will in some ways be reflected in the way we chose to experience film in the years ahead.  One thing that I do believe is driving the renewed love of going back to the theaters is the realization for many people that a shared communal experience with an audience is an indispensable part of watching a movie.  The joys of cinema are in being able to laugh, cry, and cheer together with other people, including strangers, because we are a social species, and going out to the movies is one of the best ways we can experience that joy together.  This pandemic forced us apart; it’s cinema that is helping us to come back together and in turn, helping us to heal.

A lot of these positive signs are, of course, just an immediate observation.  It’s hard to say what lasting effect it will have on the long term future of cinema.  We certainly are no where near where we were pre-pandemic, as 2019 was a record breaking year for the box office.  We’ll probably never in our lifetimes see something like the fall off that box office took in the year 2020; going from an all time high in the year before to a near flatline thereafter.  2021’s box office is still stunted, but it is heading in the right direction, with Shang-Chi becoming the first movie in over a year in a half being able to perform like a movie without roadblocks, even in the face of a lingering pandemic.  One thing that the pandemic gave us in the meantime was perspective.  We began to realize just how valuable the theatrical experience was to us in our culture.  We don’t just watch the movies, we experience them, and that experience shouldn’t be done alone.  I think that after a hundred years of the silver screen, the need to go out to the movies is just embedded in our DNA now.  Sure, it’s going to take time for many people to feel safe and confident in a theater again, and streaming will undoubtedly be an ever present force in entertainment from here out.  But, movie theaters, through all the hardship, are still open and they are still seeing healthy amounts of business.  In time, we may actually see a theatrical market that looks almost normal and back to it’s pre-pandemic levels again.  Movie theaters have had to face many calamities over time; the Depression, the War, civil unrest, the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, not to mention the existential threat television, home video and ultimately streaming.  And yet, despite all these obstacles thrown their way, they’ve managed to survive and thrive.  Covid was it’s greatest challenge yet; a force so destructive  it that prevented any business from happening, and nearly forced the complete disintegration of the industry as a whole.  So, if it could survive that, it might be able to survive any calamity.  Like I said before, people are a social species, and our desire is to share a collective experience as a group.  Movie theaters, with their abundance in neighborhoods across the globe and relatively economical entry fee compared to other forms of entertainment, are the best places for communities to gather together and enjoy the bonds of joy that entertainment brings to us.  And after an experience like the Covid-19 pandemic, it something that we need more than ever to help heal the wounded world that was broken apart over the last year.

There are points in history where the world looks back and recalls where they were exactly when it happened.  As time goes on, the memory of those days recede into legend as past generations begin to leave us, and the only connection that we have left are the stories left behind.  Even still, the one thing that these moments in time have in common is the suddenness in which they occurred and the scars that result from the aftermath.  One such day was September 11, 2001.  It’s a day that still is etched deeply in the collective trauma of those who experienced it, either first hand or through the nationwide shock of what occurred.  Like many other days like it, it seemed like a normal, everyday morning.  It was a beautiful, quiet day for most of us.  But in the early morning, that all began to change.  At 8:46am on the southern tip of the island of Manhattan, an American Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles crashed into the upper floors of the North tower of the World Trade Center.  Believed to be a tragic accident at first, the response from first responders was swift but routine.  Then, at 9:03am, the unthinkable happened.  Another plane bound for Los Angeles flew right into the middle of the neighboring South tower.  A mere 34 minutes later, another jet crashed into the south end of the Pentagon.  And at this point, the world knew this was no accident.  America was under attack.  Only a few minutes later, New Yorkers witnessed the unthinkable as the South Tower buckled and collapsed, bringing all 110 floors crashing to the streets below.  The North Tower followed soon after, only 100 minutes after the plane hit.  News also broke that a fourth hijacked plane, United 93, had plummeted out of the sky in rural Pennsylvania, with it’s intended target (the US Capitol) never being reached.  And as many Americans began waking up that morning, they would soon learn that the world they knew would never be the same.

That was the reality of September 11, 2001.  An efficiently coordinated act of terrorism conducted by the terror group Al-Qaeda and it’s mastermind Osama Bin Laden.  And as we would learn, it was only the beginning of massive changes for not just the United States but also for the entire world.  For New Yorkers, they were left with unimaginable trauma after witnessing the iconic Twin Towers be erased from the Manhattan skyline forever.  As the smoke cloud receded, the true scope of the damage was revealed.  A gaping hole where the towers once stood mightily over the Financial District of Lower Manhattan now was a mangled pile of debris.  It would take many months for all of the debris to be cleared in what effectively became the largest crime scene in world history.  After the shock of the event, the question soon became what do we do now.  Mourning soon gave way to retribution, as our leaders promised to bring down those who committed this terrible act.  Sadly, the sense of unity that the tragedy brought in it’s immediate aftermath soon gave way to division, as the run-up to war soon became a political hot button issue.  This likewise led to a widespread rise in Islamophobia across the country and the world, as everyday Muslim Americans, who have no connection whatsoever to the terrorist groups that actually committed the attack, were suddenly viewed as suspect.  And that is a scar that still lives with us today, even as we are now almost a generation removed from the events.  People with their own agendas likewise began spreading disinformation about what they believe really happened on 9/11, and this led to a rise in a conspiracy theory culture, which in turn has evolved into a monster of it’s own that caused a bungled response to a global pandemic.  The mantra after the events of 9/11 would soon become “Never Forget,” and though we still honor the lives that were lost on that sad day, 20 years out we must look back and wonder what lessons we exactly took from 9/11, and whether or not we lost a part of ourselves in the process of coping with the tragedy, as political division, distrust in institutions, diminished global presence after costly wars, and a rise in nationalism and bigotry have come as a result of the tragedy.

Like many other earth-shattering events that have marked to progression of human history, a large part of how we process the impact of those events is through storytelling.  Because 9/11 is still so fresh in people’s minds, and was so widely covered by the media as it happened, we have an endless supply of first hand accounts of what that day was like for everyone.  And as we move further away in time, these artifacts of first hand accounts will tell the story of 9/11 for future generations.  But the interesting thing that will likely define the decades ahead is what stories are we going to be telling about that day as more and more of us who remember it are no longer around.  Specifically, what will it be like as we dramatize 9/11 in future media.  Because so many Americans still live with the memory of living through that day, it becomes hard to distill 9/11 into a narrative that effectively puts it into perspective.  That’s why we have so few movies that address the events head on.  It’s hard to put people in the middle of the events again because for many, it’s a wound that still hurts.  That’s not to say that there haven’t been attempts at it.  The range of media related to 9/11 in the last twenty years have included documentaries (lots of those), narrative films, stage plays and even a Broadway musical (Come From Away), and the way that they address the events either falls into direct confrontation or periphery side stories.  Overall, it’s interesting to see just how different we have processed the trauma of 9/11 in different forms of media, and how that has been contrary to other earth-shattering events like it.  In particular, the movies of the 9/11 era have been an interesting assemblage over these last 20 years, and depending on who is making them and for what reason, you begin to see just how complicated the lasting discussion over the events of 9/11 has been.

For perspective, 9/11 is not the first tragedy to have been dramatized by Hollywood over the years.  If it’s a headlines grabbing tragedy, there will almost certainly be a movie in it’s future.  Two tragedies in particular over the last century of film have been especially impactful.  First, there is the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.  Even with cinema in it’s infancy, the trauma of that colossal tragedy was encapsulated on film, with filmmakers using the tools of their trade at the time (including early animation and models) to recreate what happened that fateful night.  In the years that followed, movies began to look at the events of the Titanic’s sinking as a backdrop for their own original stories.  This included a fateful reveal in the Oscar-winning Cavalcade (1933), as well as an epic scale recreations in A Night to Remember (1947) and Titanic (1953).  As the generations that followed began to grow more distant from the sinking of the Titanic, the connection to that trauma also disappeared.  Upon the discovery of the wreckage of the Titanic as the bottom of the ocean, the tragedy took on a new phase, as legend etched in our collective history.  This inevitably led to James Cameron’s behemoth Titanic (1997) which redefined cinema itself.  And within it, we saw the interesting transformation of a tragedy turned into a backdrop for a epic romance.  There’s nothing wrong with that angle in storytelling, but it’s something that probably would only have been acceptable after so much time has passed in-between.  The same progression also has followed the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Unlike the Titanic, there were plenty of cameras rolling on that day, capturing the horrors of that day for everyone to see.  But, it too also saw many film dramatizations in the decades that followed.  It inspired it’s own epic romance with From Here to Eternity (1953), though the attack is used mostly as a starting point for the story.  There were other interesting film adaptations that tried to put the attack on Pearl Harbor into perspective, like In Harm’s Way (1963) and Tora, Tora, Tora (1970) which took a both side dramatization of the events from both the American perspective and the Japanese.  But, as Hollywood would learn, not all tragedies can be mined for entertainment so easily.  Made in response to the success of Titanic, Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor (2001) tried and failed to inject the events of that fateful day into an epic romance narrative.  It’s interesting to see how the passage of time changes the way that we observe these tragic events and how real life trauma eventually molds into popular entertainment the further away we are from the immediate impact.

The same thing may hold true for the events of 9/11, but even 20 years out, we have yet to actually reach that point.  Most movies made over the last two decades in relation to 9/11 have been more geared to the fallout of the tragedy and less towards actually recreating the day itself.  There were a couple attempts though to do so, which surprisingly happened very early on.  Upon marking the 5th anniversary of the events in 2006, two major movie studios had 9/11 themed films that centered around the actual events that took place.  From Universal Studios, we got the movie United 93 (2006), directed by Paul Greengrass, and from Paramount we got World Trade Center (2006), directed by Oliver Stone.  Both films attempted to tell the story of two different occurrences that happened that day.  United 93 of course tells the story of the fateful flight that didn’t reach it’s ultimate target.  Through his cinema verite style, Greengrass puts the viewer there inside the plane itself as the events unfold.  We watch as the terrorists take over the plane and we see the way that the heroic passengers took it upon themselves to fight back and ultimately sacrifice themselves to thwart the terrorists from reaching their goal.  In addition, Greengrass also details the goings-on from ground control, with some FAA officials even cast as themselves, recreating their own experiences from that day.  It’s actually a really interesting dramatization of the event that does the best it can to put the viewer into the mindset of those who lived through the tragedy.  Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, by contrast, is a bit more conventional Hollywood with a more substantial budget for visual effects and movie stars.  Even still, the story it does tell is a fascinating one of survival, as it’s about two first responder firefighters (played by Nicholas Cage and Michael Pena) who managed to survive the collapse of the towers and were pulled out of the rubble days later, broken but still living.  It’s interesting that Stone chose to tell this kind of story, given his proclivity for conspiracy theories, but my guess is that it was more about honoring those heroes on that day and less about defining one’s own agenda in the narrative.  To date, apart from multiple TV movies (including ones that lionize then President Bush and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani that have not aged well in retrospect) these are the only films from Hollywood that actually puts the viewer into the middle of the events of that day.  Apart from that, 9/11 has largely been addressed through indirect reflection.

Perhaps it’s because the trauma of that day is still too raw for some people that we haven’t seen too many movies recreating the events of 9/11.  One interesting outcome that came about in the aftermath of 9/11 was how Hollywood quickly had to adjust in the aftermath.  A movie trailer for the then upcoming Spider-Man (2002) had to be pulled from theaters because it included a moment where a helicopter was dangling in a web strung in between the Twin Towers; which of course was no where to be seen in the final film as well.  Other movies released during that time, like Ben Stiller’s Zoolander (2001), had to quickly scrub out any image of the World Trade Center in the background, in some cases digitally.  The events also created a disruption in the world of entertainment that saw a halt in production for weeks across the industry, and even the shut down of theaters on Broadway for a few months.  But, as time went on, the healing began and before we knew it, life was mostly back to normal.  But, as we processed the way that the world changed in the days after 9/11, it began to manifest itself in the stories that we were telling about society in general.  Spike Lee for instance addressed the impact of the terror attack on his beloved New York City in a protracted rant delivered by Edward Norton in the movie 25th Hour (2002), which really spells out the indignant rage that many people in the city felt about the senselessness of what happened.  The war on terror that followed the attacks also have contributed a cinematic documentation of a post-9/11 world.  In particular, the films of Kathryn Bigelow really delved into the effect of a world changed by terrorism in the last 20 years, with her Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2009) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012) which dramatized the long in the making manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, with his eventual execution at the hands of Seal Team Six, ten years after the attacks.  While these movies don’t tackle the events head-on, they nevertheless tell us how the country and the world began to cope with the pain of those events in the years that followed.  You can honestly find many other movies that address the trauma directly or indirectly with regards to 9/11, because it’s a moment in time that changed the world forever.  It’s in our collective societal identity now, whether thorough culture, politics, or how we live our lives.  9/11 changed everything, so most movies made within the 20 years since that speak to our contemporary society is in some way or another influenced by those events.

What I find really fascinating about movies made in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11 is how they are evolving with every new passive generation.  We are now approaching a point where those who were born during or after September 11, 2001 are now reaching adulthood.  For them, 9/11 has just always been a part of their history.  They have no concept of what life was like before, and so their response to the events is taken from a second degree perspective.  In many ways, they are the audience that is going to be more influenced by the way we portray the events of 9/11 through the prism of film.  And it’s in that regard that we’ll see a very different view of the events unfold over time as we get further and further away from the actual day, much like what happened to the Titanic and Pearl Harbor.  There are no more survivors of the Titanic left to differentiate fact from fiction, and there are only a handful left who remember the events of Pearl Harbor with clarity.  So will be the case with 9/11 as well.  The best we can do as a society is to remind ourselves of the magnitude of what happened and treat the tragedy with a sense of dignified solace.  We lose that, we lose perspective on what matters as a direct result of that tragedy.  That’s why we remind ourselves, “Never Forget,” because the memory of 9/11 can be so easily manipulated to suit some external agenda that in turn can lead to many other tragedies.  Hollywood itself is not above beyond using the tragedy of 9/11 for it’s own benefit.  Take the case of the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011) which was a shameless attempt to use 9/11 trauma as a means of Oscar baiting.  In the years ahead, we need to make sure that those indirectly impacted by 9/11 aren’t misinformed by sensationalized accounts of the tragedy that are more fiction than fact.  One of the most interesting explorations of the legacy of 9/11 in cinema that I’ve recently seen on film is stories of those who have grown up in the shadow of the events.  Last year, Judd Apatow brought to the screen the movie The King of Staten Island (2020), which is a semi-autobiographical story based on the life of the film’s star, comedian Pete Davidson.  In the movie, an aimless 20-something slacker deals with coming into adulthood after living most of his life without his father, who died tragically when he was young while heroically fighting a fire.  Though 9/11 is never mentioned, the story does reflect the real life story of Davidson, whose father was one of the first responders lost at the World Trade Center that day.  It’s a perspective, the generation raised in the aftermath of 9/11, that we have yet to see and with many more young Americans like Pete Davidson coming of age in the next few years, and being able to express themselves through film too, it’s going to take the conversation about the impact of 9/11 into a whole different direction.

For those of us who were old enough to be aware of what was going on, and to remember where we were on that day, each one of us has our own story to tell in remembrance of 9/11 on that day.  Strangely enough, my own is even movie related.  I was at home watching The Adventures of Robin Hood (1939) on Turner Classic Movies that morning when I changed the channel after finishing the movie to find the South tower already collapsed and the North tower still smoking before it’s eventual demise.  In retrospect, I can remember both the shock and the disbelief.  For me, it immediately called to mind the larger than life disaster movies of the past that so casually depicted the destruction of national icons like the Empire State building or the White House.  Now, after seeing the real Twin Towers utterly destroyed before our eyes, those kinds of movies in retrospect appear trivial and even reckless.  This kind of destruction made us rethink the value of human life that succumbs to such a tragedy and helped us reconsider how we approach mass destruction as an element in our storytelling.  At least that was the hope at the time, as many films since, particularly those of directors like Roland Emmerich and Zack Snyder have gone right back to creating mass destruction as a back drop for popcorn entertainment.  The worry over time is that the lessons of 9/11, particularly the humanitarian side, will be pushed aside in favor of spectacle.  With so many voices out there who still remember sharing their personal stories, that human perspective still remains, but as successive generations begin to add their own narratives to the mix, more becoming further attached from the events of the day, who knows how we as a society may reflect on the importance of 9/11.  One thing that makes this 20th anniversary so impactful is that it is occurring in the middle of another worldwide tragedy, the Covid-19 pandemic, which is helping to remind everyone of what shared trauma really feels like.  The pandemic itself is likely going to see it’s own evolution in media over the years, especially as future generations learn from our first hand accounts of these tragic days.  There are plenty perspectives to take away from the way cinema has dramatized the post-9/11 era, but as we have learned thus far, the most potent stories are the ones that come from those who actually lived through those events, and the best thing we can do is to preserve those memories as best we can.  On this day, if you aren’t anywhere near a memorial where you can pay your respects, look up an documentary that includes the harrowing recollections of first responders, victims, and people who were there that day, and listen to the grief, anger, hope that they feel and live with everyday since.  That is the real story of 9/11 and the reason that even 20 years on we must never forget.

For cinema lovers, a happy ending seems to be something more and more that we will only ever find on the big screen.  At the beginning of this Summer, things for once were finally beginning to look up for the pandemic ravaged movie theater industry.  Nearly all domestic theatrical markets were reopening, including the biggest ones in New York and Los Angeles, and the studios were finally setting their release calendar in stone after a long year of delays and cancellations.  And for the most part, we did get something of a Summer movie season, with heavy hitters like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Universal’s Fast and the Furious franchises all delivering us something to watch over these last couple months.  There were certainly a lot of high hopes that things were indeed coming back to a sense of normal finally.  But, happy endings don’t always happen like they do in the movies.  While box office has indeed gotten a lot healthier than it was during the almost non existent lockdown box office of last year, it still remains soft when compared to the record breaking numbers seen over the last decade.  Black Widow for instance has seen a $175 million gross to date, which is great during a pandemic affected market, but puts it on the low end of Marvel movies overall.  And that’s one of the few bright spots, as other high profile movies like In the Heights and The Suicide Squad opened soft and faded fast from the box office.  There are a lot of factors that attribute the still low box office, and it shows that even though we have gotten past the worst of this pandemic, we are still not out of the woods yet, and that “normal” is still far away.  But, there’s another question that may arise out of what we’ve seen so far from these post-lockdown days; is normal really achievable, and are we going to need to reassess what it actually means in a cinematic sense.  Business is still definitely not back to normal despite some definite improvements in the last few months and it’s going to make the movie studios rethink their strategies moving forward.  And that, in turn, may end up changing the way we think of success in entertainment overall.

Certainly the biggest factor in the soft box office that we have seen so far is the fact that the pandemic is still taking it’s toll on the population.  Now, things were certainly worse off last year for both the population in general as well as the movie theater industry.  What has changed today is that we now have a vaccine which is the best weapon in our arsenal right now to combat the spread of Covid.  In many parts of the country, particularly the urban ones, the vaccine rollout had been overwhelmingly successful, and has kept hospitalizations and casualties low, enabling the health care system to better provide service for those most affected by the ongoing infections.  Though reaching herd immunity is difficult against such a rapidly spreading and evolving disease, it’s not impossible and getting a majority of the population vaccinated is key to achieving that goal.  This in turn has enabled the movie theaters to return to normal operations, especially for those in the largest markets which experienced a year long closure.  But, even with businesses being allowed to reopen, there remains one lagging problem; audiences are not ready yet to fully return.  Though vaccines have helped to bring the the numbers down in many places, there are still several parts of the country that the virus is still running rampant.  This is due to what is called the Delta Variant of Covid-19, which is far more transmissible than past strains of the virus, and is far deadlier to those more susceptible to the virus.  Another cause of rising cases is a deluge of anti-vaccine misinformation that has been spread across social media, which in turn has caused vaccine hesitancy in many of the population.  Initially, many indoor businesses, like movie theaters, were going by a “honor system” with regards to welcoming patrons; leaving the question of vaccine status to a level of mutual trust.  Sadly, the honor system has not worked, and businesses are now finding themselves in the unfortunate situation of enforcing safety guidelines again that they had hoped wouldn’t be necessary.  This includes mandating the wearing of masks indoors, and in more drastic cases, demanding proof of vaccination.  This has further complicated matters, as it is affecting many businesses that are depending on a return to pre-pandemic levels of business, like the movie theaters.

With an audience base still wary about heading out to their local theater in response to the still not under full control pandemic, it has put the industry in a bind that they had hoped was behind them.  One big difference is that for now the threat of movie theater closures is behind us.  There are enough safeguards in place to help keep the movie theaters open for business even in the worst case scenarios.  Couple this with the fact that the largest markets are also benefitting from the highest levels of vaccination in the country also helps to ensure that movie theaters will remain open.  The problem now for them is that they are not able to fill up the multiplexes like they used to, and that is hurting their reputation within the movie industry in general.  Despite having enough movies available now to fill up their many screens, the audiences are still showing hesitancy.  Some are worried that the safety protocols are not strong enough, or that the guidelines are too restrictive and not worth going out to the movies for.  That’s why we are seeing a soft summer movie season right now, with only a handful of big projects actually making a dent at the box office, and only just.  Sure, little business is better than no business, but the movie theaters are having to deal with the pressure of delivering for a movie industry that is increasingly seeing their business as obsolete.  The closure of the movie theaters over the last year also coincided with the rapid rise of streaming services, and more and more it looks like the movie studios are willing to cut out the middle man that they have had to share a fraction of the profits with.  The movies coming out this summer are holdovers from 2020 that would have been huge tentpoles that would’ve benefitted both sides if business continued as normal.  But, with expensive tentpoles performing only modest to disappointing box office under the conditions that we have now, the movie studios are losing their confidence more and more with the once booming theater industry.

Perhaps now is even more of a crossroads moment for the future of the movie theater industry than what we saw during the height of the pandemic.  Movies have the ability to play on the big screen again, but the audiences are not returning like we had hoped that they would.  And even though external factors are part of the reason why, movie theaters continue to struggle to compete in a market where streaming has a stronger foothold than ever.  What could happen in the future is anyone’s guess.  The movie theaters could end up riding out the storm and see business pick up again once the pandemic has finally dissipated in the next year, with audience hesitancy no longer being an issue.  Or, this soft box office year could end up being indicative of a new normal for the movie theater industry as they descend into an overall decline.  One thing that 2021 will tell us is just how much value the movie theater industry on the whole will mean to the future of Hollywood.  This year, we are witnessing the studios using the unique circumstance of the pandemic to experiment with a hybrid day and date release model for both theaters and streaming.  Late last year, Warner Brothers announced that their entire 2021 slate would premiere both in theaters and on their streaming platform HBO Max, and they have not reversed course on that path.  Likewise, Disney announced the co-release of their movies this summer on the big screen and on Disney+ for an extra fee.  From this move, we have our best indication yet of what the studios might do with the release of their movies in the future; whether there are better profits to be made with one or the other.  And thus far, the results are inconclusive, at least to the lay man.  While movie theaters and studios must publicly declare their box office grosses for every week, internal streaming numbers are still held close to the chest, meaning only the studios themselves knows how they are performing.

Some places have tried to make sense of how these experiments are performing, but thus far, the studios have been wildly inconsistent.  For a moment, it looked like HBO Max’s experiment might have worked, with one of their big early tentpoles, Godzilla vs. Kong performing better than expected in the midst of a still stifled pandemic market, becoming the first film since the beginning of the lockdown last year to cross the $100 million benchmark, but just barely.  From that vantage point, it seemed like the streaming competition didn’t affect the movie’s box office appeal, but as Warner Brothers headed into the lucrative summer season, that rosy outlook changed.  In the Heights, a musical movie with a lot of promising crossover appeal, fizzled out quickly, making it a costly failure that couldn’t recoup it’s own budget despite rave reviews.  And more recently, The Suicide Squad, an expensive reboot of a franchise based on the popular DC comics also performed poorly against expectations, leaving many to wonder if Warner Brothers left a lot of money on the table betting on this day and date release plan.  One big problem for Warner Brothers is that they made their movies available at no extra charge, meaning they were going to need the money made off the new sign ups for HBO Max to compensate for the lower amount of tickets sold in theaters.  Disney on the other hand, charged it’s customers $30 for the same privilege on top of their subscription price.  Now, Disney touted that they made such and such money on select movies during opening weekends in the hopes that it would be taken into account in conjunction with the box office in theaters.  But, since the opening weekend grosses, they’ve remained silent about their streaming numbers, which has led many to speculate whether or not the movie is actually doing as well as they say.  Adding to the confusion, Disney has announce that they were not going to do the same with the upcoming Shang-Chi from Marvel, as an “experiment,” which has led many to believe that the studio is not getting the desired results that they were hoping for.

The problem with the studios choosing now to be experimental is that they are disrupting the progress they need to make a return to normal necessary.  For one thing, Disney has found itself in hot water because choosing their hybrid release model for some movies was in violation with contracts made with the talent at their studio.  Scarlett Johansson in particular opened up the floodgates when she filed a lawsuit against her former employer, stating that shifting the movie to partial streaming prevented the movie from reaching higher box office numbers, which she would’ve benefitted from as part of the percentage clause in her contract.  With Disney segmenting part of the overall gross of Black Widow into streaming, the lawsuit claims that they intentionally did this as a way of keeping Mrs. Johansson’s slice of the profits low, so they wouldn’t have to pay her fair share.  Her claim also states that because the contract specifically calls for an exclusive theatrical window, Disney violated their terms by leaving her out of the decision to move it partially to streaming, which would’ve required a separate contract.  In this case, HBO Max actually did the ethical thing, by granting it’s talent like Gal Gadot of Wonder Woman a separate bonus to offset the low grosses as a way to still honor their contract.  Disney on the other hand acted unilaterally and without covering all their bases, and in turn has alienated themselves from some of the biggest names in the industry, all so they could reap the benefits of a downtrodden market.  Such a costly oversight in turn could prevent these studios from actually investing in the movies needed to help bring the movie industry back to normal.  Disney is very dependent on it’s pool of talent, and when they start to distrust you because you chased after money, it’s going to hurt you in the long run.

Perhaps as a response to their touchy situation after mishandling the Scarlett Johansson lawsuit, or perhaps the premium access option is not panning out as well as they hoped, Disney is abandoning their day and date model for now, with their next couple films being theatrical exclusives, with some conditions still attached.  Movie theaters must now get the most they can out of the first 45 days of a movie’s release, because the new normal has shortened the theatrical window with pretty much every studio.  Warner Brothers and the nation’s largest chain, AMC, inked a deal that allowed for that exactly, and beginning in 2022, movies from WB will now see a theatrical release first before making it to streaming.  Universal, Disney, Paramount, and Sony also likewise have set similar deals, which at least gives the theatrical industry the benefit of first runs again.  However, with the shortened theatrical windows, we’ll see less of those long tail success stories of underdog movies.  In the past, some movies enjoyed word of mouth promotion that helped to carry their modest early numbers to enormous success over a long term run.  Think There’s Something About Mary (1997) or The Sixth Sense (1999), Slumdog Millionaire (2008) or more recently The Greatest Showman (2017), movies that started small but grew to huge successes because audiences just kept returning week after week.  Sometimes, there were movies that were still actively playing in theaters almost a full year after their initial release.  Those days might be gone now after the pandemic has forced theaters to renegotiate that broader window with the studios.  The pressure is now on movies to make the most they can upfront and that favors the big studios more and becomes a major problem for the independents.  The sleeper hit may become a thing of the past as a result, and it would create a more homogenized market at the movie theaters, which in turn would lead to far less interesting movies to draw audiences back in.  Thus, we are now faced with a decision as to what makes a movie a success anymore, because the metrics of the box office are likely forever changed.

It’s a crossroads point for the movie theater industry.  They are faced with the prospect of losing their foothold in this ever changing business of cinema which has been at the forefront of the artform for over a century.  Meanwhile, the movie studios are facing the problem of trying to get back to normal in a marketplace that still isn’t ready to be there yet.  Movie theaters are thankfully back and operating again, but the ongoing pandemic is making it too hard right now to bounce the industry back to normal.  And with the Delta Variant complicating things, we are likely to see box office suffer for the near future, which is going to be devastating for many of these highly anticipated movies that we’ve been waiting the better part of a year to see, and in some cases even longer.  A few movies have already jumped ship, with Sony’s Venom sequel moving back 3 weeks and Paramount’s Clifford falling off the calendar completely.  All of a sudden, a September that looked full of upcoming movies has suddenly turned empty, and it leaves a lot of doubt over what will happen with the big titles releasing in October, which includes MGM’s next 007 entry, No Time to Die, and Warner Brother’s epic Dune.  We can try our best to offset the uncertainty of the Fall season by quickly getting this Delta Variant under control with mask mandates and rapid vaccination increases, but it’s a tall order with so much hesitancy still hanging in the air.  It’s like trying to have a barbeque in a park surrounded by a forest fire.  The box office is no where near back to normal and it’s on all of us to do the responsible thing in order to preserve the theatrical experience.  Movie theaters have made many sacrifices and compromises to ensure their survival.  Their continued success into the future is going to depend on how Hollywood views their worth, and thus far, this year is still not giving us any conclusive sign of how things might go.  My hope is that we will soon turn that corner and see the pandemic recede and audiences finally feel comfortable returning to the theaters again.  The crossroads to the future of cinema is an uncertain path to see clearly, but we’ve underestimated the power of cinema before and lets hope the rough road ends up being the right one in the end.