It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I think this is the most realistic / likely option looking at events at the moment.
It looks to me that the USA may very well go into a national lockdown....
The situation is on the verge of spiralling out of control. In which case, I think the USA will be out of play till at least September/October and won't recover till a vaccine.
Despite Europe doing a pretty great job in minimising the threat of this virus, the simple truth is that without the domestic box office franchise movies will need to delay. The USA is still the biggest moviegoing population.
For these reasons, I believe it highly likely that NTTD will drop in 2021. Even my suggestion of Valentine's Day 2021 is probably too optimistic.....we may end up having to wait till May/June 2021.
Exactly. I find it hard to comprehend why February 2021 is much safer than November 2020.
https://deadline.com/2020/06/china-movie-theaters-reopening-beijing-coronavirus-shanghai-film-festival-1202973697/
The US are a federal state; they can't go in nation-wide lockdown (unless all 50 states take the same decision).
November is when normal flu season starts anyway. Imagine how that might compound corona.
I’m starting to think along these lines too. They may decide to release the film, and use the cinema run with its associated reviews, news packages etc just as a big advert for a home media release a couple of weeks later.
The box office returns will look terrible, but then again everyone in the future will say “that was 2020, that was the year of the lockdown wasn’t it?” so they have a readymade excuse for poor box office for the rest of time
It’s possible, just possible, that we will be in exactly the same situation in 2021 that we are in today. Countries or cities going into lockdowns, the USA in a mess, cinemas reduced to only a quarter or a third of people in any given showing, a public unwilling to risk its health by sitting in a darkened room with complete strangers for 2 or 3 hours, and a vaccine still years away.
I realise that that is a pessimistic view, but it is not impossible. Airlines certainly seem to think so, because they seem to be planning for low revenues for years to come.
At some point, this year or next year or the year after, Eon just has to dump the film in theatres and take whatever the financial punch is. It is sitting on a product (NTTD) and it needs that product to earn revenue.
A film released during lockdown in 2020 might only make 10% of its projected box office. A film that is not released, however, makes no money at all.
There is only one financial justification for not releasing NTTD this year, and that is because the accountants’ sums would say that if it’s delayed until 2021 then it might more money. But if 2021 starts to look as bad as 2020, then those sums will change.
Anyway to be clear, I do see your argument, and I would love to see NTTD delayed enough to win a huge box office, but Eon does not listen to me, it listens to its accountants.
Some old movies are being re-released (such as The Force Awakens, Empire Strikes Back and many others), they might re-release Spectre a month before No Time To Die.
A few days before EON announced the 2019 release date back in July 2017 I told to myself that no Bond movie would come out until the sixtieth anniversary (Craig was unsure whether to return, EON were moving onto other projects or even aiming to sell etc.), then I was fortunately proved wrong when the November 2019 date was announced. How ironic if all the shenanigans eventually postponed the movie until 2022.
https://deadline.com/2020/06/conjuring-3-eyes-2021-release-movie-theaters-box-office-coronavirus-1202974467/
I spent the whole of SP thinking Madeleine was an underdeveloped character, so anyone in the audience of NTTD struggling to remember her will be in the same boat as me.
Also....
It seems that we are on the verge of another major delay this weekend with California due to announce new lockdown procedures.
Cinema re-opening now looks poised to occur in September. Which is dangerously close to November. I'm moving firmly into the 'move NTTD into 2021' camp. Who's with me?
Highly unlikely to happen. Based on the current US trajectory, we won't see another attempt at re-opening theaters until October/November. By then it is possible Europe and Asia will be experiencing a second wave of the pandemic, which would make a USA-less worldwide release for NTTD practically impossible.
When articles in the media keep saying 'second wave' repeatedly, how would it be classified? I suppose it would be if it's a long spell of no new reported infections? If not, then it's just continual, it's not a wave.
Been mentioned many times already but piracy would be an issue and U.S release is crucial to a big budget movies box office.Also,plot spoilers would spread faster than Covid-19!
Not possible. The film would be out on Blu Ray before it opens in the USA. Terrible business for everyone involved. NTTD cannot be released until the USA can release the film within 1/2 weeks after European markets. As of right now it is looking unlikely that this can be achieved, so the odds of NTTD being delayed to 2021 increases each day.
The main problem being: is a global pandemic the correct time to try releasing a Bond film without the US market? You not only take out Bond's biggest single market, but all the other territories it releases in won't be running at full steam. Some may even still be closed, similar to the US.
From a moral standpoint I agree with you. But in a practical sense it would never happen.
Good point - I hadn't thought about that!
I know that the US is the biggest single market for any blockbuster film these days, but for Bond it really should be the UK ideally?
Of the last 4 films:
CR: $167 million in the US, $110 million in the UK.
QOS: $168 million in the US, $80 million in the UK
SF: $304 million in the US, $161 million in the UK.
SP: $200 million in the US, $124 million in the UK.
I know that national pride for a British character is what drives this ideal but unfortunately, that's just not the case. I don't think Britain is even the second biggest market for Bond these days.
That's logistically impossible. The 328.2 million live in the US, while 66.65 million live in the UK.
That said, Bond IS the biggest hit franchise in the UK. The only movie that tops Skyfall in the all time UK box office is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Whereas in the all time US list it's sitting at #86 .
Whilst Bond makes most of its money in international grosses, it is an undeniable fact that the biggest single market for each of the above films is the USA. Therefore, there is a 0% chance of them delaying or postponing the USA release and moving forward with a release in Europe and Asia. If they did so, they'd be leaving up to 20-30% of their overall box office takings on the table.
This is the exact same logic that Eon used to justify delaying in April. The irony is that Eon delayed NTTD from April as the Asia box office was cold, now they'll have to move from November because of the USA.
The USA situation is even more curious as MGM are distributing with Annapurna. These are two fledging studios who have put their hopes and dreams on a big domestic take. The future of both those studios is on the line here.
MGM and Annapurna need a big theatrical showing in the USA otherwise they are in rocky waters. They simply can't risk a PVOD or streaming release. The simple answer for them is to delay until the market is viable. It's also the most sensible considering the global health situation.
"Earth is what, now?"