AMC Theaters’ response to the COVID-19 crisis continues to evolve this week, as the theater chain has moved from bullshitting about re-opening movie theaters in late July, to bullshitting about re-opening movie theaters some time around the middle or end of August. This several-week shift in the bullshit date the chain thinks people might buy as a possible re-opening target comes shortly after both Tenet and Mulan—the most expensive lures in the company’s strictly hypothetical tackle box—got yanked off the film release schedule.
Per THR, the company is letting Hollywood set the pace on its non-re-openings; although the firm has re-opened its doors in places like Europe and the Middle East, its U.S. re-launch will be dictated by whether there’s actually any damn movies for it to show. (Somehow, there seems to be some doubt that Russell Crowe’s road rage, in the form of Unhinged, is powerful enough to lift the entire industry up single-handed.)
All of which carries with it the unspoken understanding that all of this is based, not on anything to do with box office projections or film deals, but with the unpredictable spike rates of the coronavirus. Which means that this is all just guesswork, no matter how many positive platitudes the chain’s executives offer up, or how cheerfully they punt their target dates a few weeks every single time one draws near.