Because Of Covid-19, Studios Should Release Movies Online

The last few months have been especially hard on the movie business and fans. Cinemas are shut and release dates have been continuously nudged back. If it weren’t for the nasty c-word, we would have already seen Black Widow, Top Gun: Maverick, and Tenet. What a bummer.

- Kenny Yeo

Watching a movie in a cinema is not the same as watching it at home. I get that. The screen in your living room is a lot smaller, it probably isn’t a projector, you don’t have real surround sound, and I’m guessing most of you don’t have a popcorn machine. But it doesn’t look like the virus is going away anytime soon and pushing release dates every time infection charts turn red isn’t the solution.

And even if cinemas were open, like they are here in Singapore, I’m not looking forward to spending two hours in a room with other people where the air is being recirculated and everyone has their masks off to munch on popcorn and sip on drinks. It doesn’t matter if there’s a 50-people limit, that the aircon has HEPA filters, and cinema-goers are being spaced apart. It doesn’t feel like a risk worth taking. I feel sorry for cinemas operators but the pragmatic and, arguably, responsible thing for studios to do is to release these films online.