Analyst Says Theaters Won’t Fully Open Until Mid-2021

The Hollywood Reporter analyst Doug Cruetz recently stated during an adjustment of his Disney stock predictions due to the impact of COVID that theaters won’t fully open until Mid-2021. The primary reason for this is because major studios are not willing to release blockbuster titles into an unstable theater system.

“With the spread of COVID-19 having accelerated in the U.S., we expect a prolonged impact. We now expect domestic theaters to be largely closed until mid-2021, in part because we don’t think studios will be interested in releasing their largest movies into a capacity-constrained footprint.”

• Doug Cruetz in THR article

We’ve seen this already with the continued delay of completed blockbusters like Black Widow, New Mutants, and Mulan. He continues to explain that the rest of this year’s slate will be underwhelming and low-budget films. Currently, the movies are all planned to release thins year. Black Widow set for November 6 and The New Mutants for August 28, but Cruetz expects all these to be further delayed.

What should studios do? Should they continue to delay or plan for a home release like Trolls 2: World Tour? We will discuss this on the new episode of the podcast.