The Irish Times view on the future of cinema: grounds for optimism

Cinema has continued while cinemas have been closed. On March 3rd, the Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival will move online for its 19th edition. Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart's Wolfwalkers, fourth feature from Kilkenny's Cartoon Saloon, is available to stream, and, barring an extraordinary upset, will score an Oscar nomination for best animated feature on March 15th.

Moves have been made to support the exhibition and production sectors. Screen Ireland launched a Covid-19 Production Fund designed to partially offset costs associated with implementing safety guidelines. A Cinema Stimulus Support Fund aimed to assist exhibitors as they relaunch and reopen venues.

Nonetheless, the challenges remain daunting. The video-on-demand option has enabled films to play before housebound audiences, but there are fears that, even if cinemas open for normal business before the summer, the public may have cooled on theatrical exhibition. The news that Warner Brothers would, in the United States, release its entire 2021 slate – including potential blockbusters such as Dune and Matrix 4 – simultaneously in cinemas and on the HBO Max streaming service sent prominent film-makers (notably Christopher Nolan) into conniptions.

So will the combination of Covid and the streaming revolution succeed where television, VHS, video games and the first wave of the internet failed? Will that double whammy kill off the big screen for good? There are grounds for optimism. It is less than two years since Avengers: Endgame took $2.8 billion to become the highest grossing film of all time. That audience has not vanished. While smaller films have gone to the streamers, a significant backlog of big-budget releases, originally scheduled for 2020, is straining for theatrical release.

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Good news emerges from the east, where China’s exhibition market is already booming again. That suggests our cinemas can again thrive and confirms there is an international market hungry for big-screen movies. The medium is still alive.