The great controversies and problems of the cinema in 2020: from the coronavirus to judicial disputes.
What a year to forget! We review the great controversies and problems of cinema in 2020: from the coronavirus to the judicial disputes. Waiting for 2021 to bring light.
If a year ago they had told us what we would be talking about when end 2020, most likely we will not believe it. The premieres of January and February, last of normality, it seems to us that they reached the billboards in another life … as if from March we had traveled through a dystopian alternative reality, closer to science fiction than to any possibility plausible.
But here we are, already ending the month of December of this annus horribilis 2020 that deserves a review of some of the most bitter controversies that have assaulted the audiovisual world, especially in his version of entertainment and show business, which is the one that has been most affected by coronavirus pandemic that has first forced various movie theater closings and later to a kind of “disconnection” of the audience, due to the lack of initiative of many distributors (not all, fortunately) and the lack of aid from the institutions.
Platforms have suffered as well, despite having been very well positioned to absorb their attention. captive audience. On the one hand, there have been two that have gone down the drain, such as Quibi and Sky Spain. On the other, the strategies to get ahead have had to be proposed on the fly, with successes and mistakes. The most criticized (the joke on social networks has been remarkable), the one followed for the premiere of Mulan, with premium access three months in advance for the exorbitant sum of 22 euros. It seems that Disney + It is clear since this is not the way and his next powerful releases, such as Soul, will arrive at no additional cost.
The other major media earthquake related to platforms has been the announcement that HBO Max will arrive in Spain in 2021 and that many premieres will take place simultaneously on said platform and movie theaters with the consequent rebound of filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan or Denis Villeneuve who see the world that they love above all else in danger. As shown, the stubbornness of the first to launch Tenet to reactivate the industry and his bitter criticisms of this positioning and the statements of the second claiming that they have killed his version of Dune.
What is clear is that the distribution windows have been blown up in 2020. We have had direct premieres on platforms, first on platforms and later in theaters (like the new Fesser, Lamentable Stories), first in theaters and then on platforms (most of the major Netflix movies like Mank or Midnight Sky) and, above all, waterfalls of cancellations and delays that have seen most blockbusters jump to 2021 leaving all the space in the rooms to titles that implied less risk. The positive note is that those who are very faithful to the cinema experience have had the opportunity to discover titles that otherwise would have gone unnoticed, but unfortunately it has also led to a massive abandonment of the public who demanded film-show.
To this day, we have our hopes set on next year, especially since the mass vaccinations in Europe, Asia and the United States, in principle, predict a very different summer from the last one we have experienced, but the future of the exhibition is caught with tweezers. Even Almodóvar is writing a dystopia in which there are no more movie theaters (I don’t know if this makes us more scared or sad).
Already in a much more mundane field, we have had controversial sounded like the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard duel, the controversy over the advertising of certain films like Guapis on Netflix or the one derived from the diversity requirements to converge to the Oscars. In short, controversies of all colors, but that today are in the background considering the one that is falling in the sector.
We humbly ask you to do not stop going to the movies: that the rooms are protected and if you are careful, as in the rest of your daily tasks, it is tremendously difficult to get infected there. And that you give opportunities to a different cinema.
It is true that many distributors have been excessively conservative, releasing only productions from past years and taking the opportunity to take few risks, but it is also true that there are good opportunities to enjoy movies that are worth our time. Every week we make recommendations about it. So we do not roll more and we wish you a final year of cinema!
