E12 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022
leased, and those that were re-
leased haven’t qualified as must-
sees, or at least not must-see-
nows. (The most recent example,
Kenneth Branagh’s “Death on the
Nile,” grossed just under $13 mil-
lion in the United States during its
opening weekend, around half of
what Branagh’s “Murder on the
Orient Express” made in 2017.)
Meanwhile, it’s been left up to
individual theaters and chains to
decide how vocal to be about
safety measures.
Stephanie Silverman, execu-
tive director of Nashville’s Bel-
court Theatre, has made them a
key part of the theater’s market-
ing strategy, emphasizing mask
requirements and decreased seat-
ing capacity in local NPR ads, the
theater’s website and email blasts
that go out to as many as 50,000
patrons.
Because Belcourt’s policies are
stricter than state and local mea-
sures (which are virtually nonex-
istent), Silverman was initially
apologetic about them, she says.
“But then we ran through two
variants. We’ve talked about it
enough that people now know to
expect it, and are choosing to
come to the Belcourt because of it
instead of wanting to push back
against it. When we flipped the
switch and said, ‘This is a thing we
should be touting instead of apol-
ogizing for,’ that was really help-
ful.” (The Marcus Theatres chain,
which owns venues throughout
the Midwest, has also made safety
a marketing tool, with a “What to
expect” banner at the top of its
homepage. Larger chains, like
AMC and Regal, have not made
safety measures a primary focus
on their websites.)
Silverman’s experience points
to what might be an industry-
wide trend in coming months, as
society adjusts to a new phase of
covid. Wen notes that movie thea-
ters can be a relatively safe choice
when it comes to indoor activities
because people can choose to
wear a high-quality N95 or KN95
mask the entire time and not eat
or drink during a screening. In
fact, theaters could make it easier
for extremely cautious customers
by creating more alternatives, she
says. “Perhaps they could provide
an option for mask-on-the-entire-
time screenings, with no food or
drink allowed at all.”
Nuzzo would like to think such
accommodations are here to stay.
“There’s going to be a period of
time when we have to acknowl-
edge that we all have different
vulnerabilities to this virus,” she
says, adding that theaters might
consider making no-concession,
mask-only screenings perma-
nently available, just as they offer
special screenings for customers
who are hearing-impaired or are
on the neurological and sensory
spectrum.
“I would love to see more op-
tions for people, even if the num-
bers are dropping,” Nuzzo says.
Even when the virus recedes, she
observes, “there are still going to
be small numbers of people who
are not as well-protected as oth-
ers. Giving them options is impor-
tant too, rather than demanding
they drop their fears. One of the
risks is that we forget about those
people, and we confine them to
their homes, and they don’t get to
participate fully in life. I hope we
can find options so that people
can see movies and fully engage in
social activities with the level of
safety that they need.”movie once a week before the
coronavirus pandemic, Bailey ad-
mits that her habits have
changed. Although she still craves
the theatrical experience and ac-
knowledges the importance of
getting out of the house and so-
cializing, she appreciates the con-
venience of home viewing. “I like
that I have options,” she says,
somewhat apologetically.
Bailey personifies a debate rip-
pling through the movie business:
As American life begins to inch
back to normalcy, how best to
convince still-wary filmgoers that
it’s okay to go back to bricks-and-
mortar theaters?
Throughout the pandemic,
now entering its third year, cine-
mas have been engaged in a deli-
cate dance, trying to communi-
cate that they’re safe while re-
specting their customers’ reasons
for staying away. In the midst of
an unprecedented downturn,
many of them invested in expen-
sive HVAC improvements, slash-
ing their seating capacities up to
50 percent to accommodate dis-
tancing. Now, with more people
shedding masks and with states
and localities easing restrictions,
it could be even trickier to con-
vince the skeptical.
The challenge has consumed
Tom Bernard, co-president of
Sony Pictures Classics. He has a
vested interest in people ventur-
ing back out: His company —
which recently released Pedro
Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers,”
“Jockey” and “Compartment
No. 6” — has adamantly resisted
streaming during the pandemic,
embracing the theatrical experi-
ence instead. “The theater opens
up possibilities for the financial
windows that will last for the next
seven years,” he observes, adding
that Sony Classics’ library of
about 500 films has performed
well on streaming services pre-
cisely because their initial run in
theaters established them as sin-
gular, important events “as op-
posed to something that pops up
because of the algorithm.”
But Bernard’s concerns go be-
yond his own movies. “The sim-
plest thing the movie industry can
say is that it’s safer to go to a movie
theater than it is to go to a bar or a
restaurant,” Bernard says. “And
no one has said that. I cannot
believe the movie theater commu-
nity hasn’t delivered this mes-
sage.”
W
ith few exceptions, cau-
tion has reigned in the
exhibition community. In
a December interview with the
Boxoffice Podcast, Laemmle
Theaters president Greg Laem-
mle said, “It’s going to take some
time to acquire an audience, to
reacquaint them with moviego-
ing,” adding later, “Maybe we just
need to wait till it passes.”
The audience in question is a
specific one: older filmgoers, es-
pecially those over 45. Although
young people have largely em-
braced going back to see movies
in multiplexes — witness the over-
whelming success of “Spider-
Man: No Way Home,” as well as
“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the
Ten Rings” and “Venom: Let
There Be Carnage” — their elders
have been far less enthusiastic
about gathering indoors with
strangers for up to three hours.
According to a 2019 market study
by the Motion Picture Associa-
THEATERS FROM E1
moviesIs itokayto gosee amovienow?ed those measures, as well as
mask requirements, improve-
ments to their ventilation systems
and limiting seating capacity. The
question the industry faces is how
aggressively to promote those
policies. In 2020, the National
Association of Theatre Owners
(NATO) unveiled its CinemaSafe
program, designed to inform cus-
tomers about the precautions
their local venues had put in
place. With cases on the rise and
vaccines not yet available, the
campaign largely went unheard.Theater owners face a similar
cost-benefit quandary now.
“The question is whether a
big PR push and the expenditure
involved with that would actually
be effective when you’re in the
midst of people just being ner-
vous about things,” says NATO
vice president and chief commu-
nications officer Patrick Corcor-
an, who adds that a full-blown
communications effort also risks
backfiring by making an unwel-
come connection. “One [down-
side] would be to make people go,
‘Oh yeah, theaters and covid.’
You’d be making the association
explicit, even though our stron-
gest message is that there have
been no outbreaks traced to mov-
ie theaters.”
As important as messaging
around health and safety is, Cor-
coran insists, it’s the movies
themselves that determine who
comes back and why. “When we
have movies people are interested
in, and a regular cadence of mov-
ies coming into the theater with
marketing support, people will
feel more comfortable,” he says.
“Part of it is time, but the largest
part, frankly, is offering audiences
something they want to see. Peo-
ple don’t go to theaters to sit in
comfy chairs and eat concessions.
People go to watch movies.”
With the exception of such ti-
tles as “No Time to Die” and
Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Sto-
ry,” precious few movies aimed at
adult filmgoers have been re-theater in December and felt “re-
ally comfortable.” But when they
considered seeing “Sing 2” in
theaters with her 75-year-old
mother in Atlanta, they decided to
skip it. “In Chicago and some
other large Democratic cities that
have indoor vaccine mandates, I’d
feel really comfortable doing
those things,” Carnethon says.
“Less so in Georgia, where the
rates of vaccination are a whole
lot lower and there are scant pol-
icies and enforcement of them in
place.”
For Leana Wen, a physician and
public health professor at George
Washington University, the deci-
sion of whether to go back to
theaters comes down to three fac-
tors: individual medical circum-
stances, risk tolerance and how
highly one values going out to see
a movie. “For some people, going
to the movies was not something
they particularly enjoyed, and
therefore it’s something they
don’t miss,” she says. “On the
other hand, there are some indi-
viduals for whom it may be close
to an essential activity, it’s such an
important part of life.”
It’s the population in the mid-
dle — mostly middle-aged people
who liked going to movies before
the pandemic but haven’t rushed
back to theaters — that are essen-
tial for theaters to survive. Ac-
cording to a study conducted last
fall by the research and marketing
firms the Quorum, Cultique and
Fanthropology, one-third of the
participants (mostly young men)
had already enthusiastically gone
back to seeing movies in theaters.
Thirteen percent, called the “lost
forevers,” were likely to never
come back. That left more than
half of the respondents fitting the
description of “infrequent,” “re-
luctant” or “hopeful” — a group
that can be lured back to in-per-
son moviegoing with the right
combination of pricing, theater
upgrades and safety measures,
including vaccination mandates.
Of course, many theaters
around the country have institut-tion, viewers above age 40 ac-
counted for about 40 percent of
frequent filmgoers in pre-pan-
demic times; getting them back is
crucial for the industry’s survival.
It’s not difficult to explain why
that cohort has been more hesi-
tant: Parents don’t want to risk
transmitting the virus to their
young, unvaccinated children
and grandchildren. Elderly film-
goers are also more likely to have
health issues that make them vul-
nerable to serious illness and
long-haul symptoms, or they live
with or take care of someone who
is similarly compromised. They
might understandably prioritize
other activities — such as medical
appointments, grocery shopping
or going to the gym — when it
comes to their exposure budget.
The questions are just as ger-
mane to the experts most people
look to for advice. “Do we want to
see ‘Spider-Man’ on the big screen
or a kids’ movie at home? We have
conversations like this all the time
in our house,” says Jennifer Nuz-
zo, an epidemiologist at the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health and the mother of
two young children. “With most
of the things we see, which tend to
be Disney movies, it’s more com-
fortable to see them at home. We
don’t need the big screen experi-
ence, and we can pause it to go to
the bathroom.”
According to Nuzzo, for people
who are fully vaccinated, watch-
ing a movie in a theater while
keeping a tightfitting N95 mask
on the entire time (i.e. no sipping
soda or nibbling popcorn) is
among the safest group indoor
activities they can have. “The
question is, do they feel like doing
that, or would they rather see
something at home?” she says.
Mercedes Carnethon, vice
chair of preventive medicine at
Northwestern University, experi-
enced that debate firsthand over
the Martin Luther King Jr. holi-
day weekend. She had taken her
vaccinated 7- and 9-year-old chil-
dren to see “Encanto” in a ChicagoISTOCK/WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATIONAMANDA ANDRADE-RHOADES FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTBELOW: D.C.’s Avalon
Theater. Throughout the
pandemic, cinemas have
been engaged in a
delicate dance, trying to
communicate that
they’re safe while
respecting their
customers’ reasons for
staying away.