It’s kind of hard to feel sorry for the most recent James Bond movie, No Time to Die, since the press tour can’t continue thanks to the continued threat of the coronavirus. Seriously? We’re supposed to equate a disease that’s actually killed people with the ‘importance’ of a movie premiere? It’s great that movies are able to reach across the world and into different countries as has been happening for a while, but the continued need to quarantine various locations happens to be a TAD more important than worrying whether China is going to get to see James Bond and if the stars are going to get the exposure they want. It’s likely that Natalie Hunter of Screenrant might agree with the sentiment but staying quiet about it in the face of complaining that Hollywood isn’t going to get its money or exposure from China until this virus is successfully contained is a bit hard to stomach really since in a few ways it implies that the almighty dollar is a little too powerful when it comes to the safety and welfare of those that have already been affected. It might sound a bit melodramatic at the moment but human life is easily more important than a press tour, and until the virus is handled then Hollywood might have to suck it up and accept that they won’t be doing much business in China. Even better, if they could somehow find a way to say “Hey, is there anything we can do to help?” instead of “Damn, there goes all that money we’d be getting from China.” See how that sounds? It might not be accurate, but with so many articles being spent on how this will impact Hollywood it’s become kind of apparent where the thoughts of many executives really are, and it’s a bit sickening at the moment.
There’s a lot more to it to be fair since Hollywood and China tend to do business together in many different ways and yes, the coronavirus is having a tremendous impact on working relations and on travel that is at time a necessity, but a press tour, seriously? At this time the virus is still serious enough that travel to China has been put on an as-needed basis, meaning that every trip that needs to be taken will be assessed as far as importance and will be scheduled and likely planned out in every possible detail to maintain the kind of quarantine that’s been in effect for a short while now. It is a bit infuriating to think that a movie and its failure to be shown in so many theaters within has gained even a small measure of focus when those that are truly impacted thanks to their work and the current inability to come and go from China could be looking at a growing difficulty that has no foreseeable end at this point. Thankfully there are those that can conduct their business through other means online, but those that absolutely have to be there in person are those that need to take the greatest caution at this time. Matt Donnelly of Variety has more on this subject.
This also means a lot of lost revenue for China, as it was apparent that they were looking to top the USA as the number 1 film market. While it might seem like a break for America in this regard however Hollywood is about to take a pretty big hit since a good deal of their business is going to be severely impacted by this virus. Keep that in mind, China is taking a much bigger hit in more ways than the USA currently is, so when Hollywood thinks about their bottom line they might want to be thankful that an outbreak hasn’t occurred in southern California just yet, as they’re well within range and could feel the pinch just as easily as Wuhan if the luck that the US has experienced thus far doesn’t hold. As of now there is bound to be a ton of money lost, which might make some people wonder just how Hollywood is going to recover, but might make the rest of us say ‘huh?’. If anyone’s thinking that Hollywood won’t recover from this then they haven’t been paying attention as of late since like it or not, Hollywood would recover from just about any crash so long as there are movie stars that are willing to stand in front of the camera and do their thing. So long as people are willing to take a pay cut and continue to work things will go on as they’ve been, and as ‘bad’ as Hollywood might have it, China is still doing much worse. Virus? Outbreak? People actually dying from being infected? Yeah, Hollywood isn’t that bad off, so chill.
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