Mediapro, the studio behind Official
Competition, felt it best to pull the
plug. In the UK, meanwhile, Universal
and Warner Bros paused production
on Jurassic World: Dominion and
Ma^y;ZmfZg respectively.Long-Term Effects
It will be months, years even, before the
fall-out from those decisions will be felt in
cinemas. Of rather more pressing concern
is the havoc coronavirus is wreaking on
the current release schedule, which has
been thrown into disarray. After a
“thorough evaluation of the global
theatrical marketplace”, Eon and
Universal could see the Writing On
The Wall and announced they were
postponing No Time To Die, Daniel
Craig’s final Bond outing, until
November 2020. Sony was the next
company to blink, pushing Peter Rabbit
+3yMa^KngZpZr from March to August.
Covid-19, it appeared, had somehow
managed to do what myxomatosis
couldn’t – silence James Corden.halted, as it was on the seventh Mission:
Impossible picture once it became evident
Venice was in no fit state to
accommodate a three-week visit from
Tom Cruise and co. The cameras were
also switched off on Shang-Chi And The
Legend Of The Ten Rings after director
Destin Daniel Cretton, a new father,
was advised by his doctors to self-
isolate. Idris Elba also revealed that
he had tested positive for the virus.
Shang-Chi wasn’t the only production
affected at Disney, which would soon
bring down the shutters on its live-
action The Little Mermaid, its contentious
Home Alone makeover, Peter Pan And
P^g]r and Guillermo del Toro’s
Gb`amfZk^:ee^r. Sir Ridley Scott’s
historical epic The Last Duel was another
project put on ice, while Ahg^r%BLakngd
The Kids reboot Lakngd was temporarily
downsized. Sony followed suit by
clipping the wings of The Nightingale,
Dakota and Elle Fanning’s World War
2-set sister act. Over in Spain, Antonio
Banderas and Penelope Cruz were
among those sent home whens the world embarked upon a new decade
in January, movie lovers had every
reason to feel optimistic. With a bumper
crop of major releases headed their way,
full of popular characters and familiar
faces, 2020 seemed a year bulging with
promise. In just a few months, however,
the film industry was in turmoil,
knocked for six by the impact of the
coronavirus pandemic. From production
and promotion to distribution and
exhibition, no corner of the business
was left unscathed by the disease that
no one saw coming.
Which is weird really, given how
many films released over the last
quarter-century have used viral
transmission as a pulse-quickening plot
device. Thanks to Cabin Fever, Hnm[k^Zd,
+1=ZrlEZm^k and the likes, we have all
been virtually inoculated to the real-
world menace of deadly super-bugs – so
much so we could titter knowingly when
Gwyneth Paltrow referenced her 2011
thriller Contagion as she posted a photo
of herself sporting a face mask on board
a plane bound for Paris. “I’ve already
been in this movie,” she wrote on
Instagram in February, urging her
followers to “stay safe, don’t shake
hands [and] wash hands frequently.”
That her accessory of choice (an Airinum
+ Nemen Urban Air Mask 2.0, RRP $99)
instantly sold out almost felt like some
respiratory meta-gag.
Nobody was laughing, though, when
Tom Hanks revealed in March that he
and his wife Rita Wilson had tested
positive for Covid-19 while working on
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic in Australia.
(Hanks, ever genial, referenced one of
his own movies – :E^Z`n^H_Ma^bkHpg
from 1992 – by reminding his fans
“there is no crying in baseball.”) If Uncle
Tom could get it we reasoned, anybody
could – a sobering thought that made all
of us scrub our palms just that little bit
more diligently. Production on
Luhrmann’s project was immediatelyDISNEYDELAY
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