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Coronavirus's impact on the worldwide box office
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For those looking for facial protection while also wanting to donate to a cause to help pandemic protective actions.

Disney Launches Protective Cloth Face Masks Featuring Your Favorite Characters

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As we continue to practice social distancing during the coronavirus crisis, the CDC has recommended that cloth face masks be worn in public. As our time in quarantine stretches on, several companies have started to release masks with a little flair, and you can now count Disney among them. They've just released a line of reusable cloth face masks featuring themes based on our favorite Disney, Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar characters.

 

disneyfacemask.PNG.e84234ab15fc3e8cba542e52eadc486c.PNG

 

What's more, Disney will donating all of the profits from the masks to Medshare (up to $1 million) until September 30th. They are also donating one million cloth face masks for Medshare to distribute to "children and families in underserved and vulnerable communities across the U.S.".

 

Pre-orders of the masks are available now through shopDisney in 4-packs for $19.99 in small, medium, and large sizes. Designs include Baby Yoda, R2-D2, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Disney Princesses, Toy Story, The Hulk, and more.

 

Disney’s Cloth Face Masks order link

 

Note that the masks aren't expected to arrive until June, which is a bit disappointing, but it seems as though we will be dealing with this COVID-19 business for quite some time to come.

 

“Disney’s donations will make a tremendous impact in the communities we serve,” Charles Redding, CEO and president of MedShare, said in the statement. “Their contribution of one million Disney cloth face masks will be provided to families in underserved communities and organizations working to limit the spread of COVID-19, while their monetary donation will be used to support the medical community’s ongoing efforts to provide lifesaving care to those who need it most.”

 

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I just paid $20 so my daughter could watch the second trolls movie, at home, aa rental (think it’s a 24hr window). 

I get all the reasons behind the price, with releasing it while movie theaters are closed and all...but dang, still feels like a rip (anyone who has kids knows it’s more like extortion haha).

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Disney managed to muscle out a fiscal second quarter with total revenue of $18 billion edging Wall Street estimates, but adjusted earnings per share fell far short of the bar, showing the toll of COVID-19.

 

Adjusting for items, earnings came in at 60 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting 88 cents a share and revenue of $17.81 billion, according to Refinitiv.

 

Disney has been among the hardest-hit entertainment companies during the pandemic. Its lucrative theme parks, cruise lines and hotels all shut down, theatrical movie releases from its industry-leading studio have been halted and its sports powerhouse ESPN has been unable to broadcast any games. Beyond those obvious impairments, many Wall Street analysts are predicting additional vulnerability from an expected rise in cord-cutting and softness in TV advertising.

 

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more actual #'s

China movie theater
Andy Wong/AP

Chinese authorities will allow further leisure venues, including cinemas, to gradually re-open now that the coronavirus pandemic has largely been controlled in the country, the top administrative body said on Friday. This comes after movie theaters were shuttered nationwide in January, ultimately dealing a $2.5B+ loss to the box office in just the first quarter.

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In the meantime, Disney is constantly losing revenue because of these closures and will likely continue to with a slow reopening process. Disneyland and Walt Disney World already had to offer refunds to annual pass holders because of park closures. That being said, the economic hit could be bigger than originally anticipated. 

 

According to the Orange County Register: 

 

“Disney theme parks face a potential $21 billion revenue loss through 2022 due to the ongoing coronavirus closures of its resorts around the globe along with the economic recession projected to follow.”

 

Referencing an analyst report from the research firm MoffettNathanson, parks around the world have a rough future ahead for the next few years. The Parks will not only be losing money from the closures as well as the slow reopening process, but the economic recession and hesitancy to gather in large crowds as well. 

 

“We believe that investors are underestimating the lagging recovery nature of Disney’s theme parks,” states the MoffettNathanson report. 

 

Not only are the parks themselves closed, but the resort hotels and the shopping centers like Florida’s Disney Springs and California’s Downtown Disney. These like the parks will take a while to reopen and it will be a process with changes made to accommodate the new normal of the pandemic.

 

The pandemic will not only have an immediate financial impact, but also a longer lasting one. The economic recessions that follows will mean that the Parks will take years to get back to original capacity. The MoffetNathanson analyst report estimates that the next three years park revenue could be $21.7 billion less than the 2019 fiscal year. To put that into perspective, “that’s enough to pay for Shanghai Disneyland four times over.”

 

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The new coronavirus pandemic has brought back something unseen in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution: a drive-in movie theater.

 

Once decried by revolutionaries for allowing too much privacy for unmarried young couples, a drive-in theater now operates from a parking lot right under Tehran’s iconic Milad tower, showing a film in line with the views of hard-liners.

 

Workers spray disinfectants on cars that line up each night here after buying tickets online for what is called the “Cinema Machine” in Farsi. They tune into the film’s audio via an FM station on their car radios.

 

With stadiums shut and movie theaters closed, this parking-lot screening is the only film being shown in a communal setting amid the virus outbreak in Iran, one of the world’s worst. Iran has reported more than 98,600 cases with over 6,200 deaths, though international and local experts acknowledge Iran’s toll is likely far higher.

 

“It was very fascinating, this is the first time this is happening, at least for people my age,” said Behrouz Pournezam, 36, who watched the film along with his wife. “We are here mostly for the excitement to be honest, the movie itself didn’t matter that much. I didn’t care what movie it is or by whom or which genre.”

 

The film being shown, however, is “Exodus,” produced by a firm affiliated with Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard. The film by director Ebrahim Hatamikia focuses on cotton farmers whose fields die from salt water brought by local dams. The farmers, led by an actor who appears to be the Islamic Republic’s answer to American cowboy stand-in Sam Elliott, drive their tractors to Tehran to protest the government.

 

There is precedent for this anger. Iran had built dams across the country since the revolution — especially under hard-line former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — that environmentalists blame for damaging waterways and farmland. But this film instead involves “a peasant protest against the local authority that symbolically resembles President Hassan Rouhani’s government,” the state-owned Tehran Times said.

 

Rouhani, a relative moderate in Iran’s Shiite theocracy, has increasingly faced hard-line criticism amid the collapse of his nuclear deal with world powers. Those allied with his administration have criticized the film.

 

Moviegoer Atefeh Soheili, however, was glad just to enjoy entertainment outside of her home.

 

“Now I’m sitting here with clean hands and if I want to eat something or relax I don’t need to worry about distancing from other people,” she said.

 

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AMC shares soar 50 percent on report of buyout talks with Amazon

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Shares of AMC Entertainment soared more than 50 percent on Monday after a report claimed that Amazon had expressed interest in acquiring the beleaguered movie chain.

 

Amazon, headed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, held prospective buyout talks with top brass at AMC, the nation’s largest movie theater chain, according to an unconfirmed report by The Daily Mail. It is not clear whether discussions are still active or if they will lead to a deal.

 

Neither AMC nor Amazon returned requests seeking comment.

 

After surging as much as 56 percent in early Monday trades, the shares were recent up 30 percent at $5.33 as skepticism mounted, with Deadline Hollywood reporting that Amazon and AMC were not in talks, citing unnamed sources.

 

Such a deal would see Amazon taking a page from its video-streaming rival Netflix. The latter, headed by founder Reed Hastings, has slowly been buying up movie theaters in order to have its films qualify for the Academy Awards.  Last November, Netflix bought The Paris Theater in New York, and has been in negotiations to buy The Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles.

 

Netflix hasn’t made any moves toward mainstream theater ownership, nor has it shown much interest to date. But the pandemic has brought to life some interesting opportunities.

 

Crushed under coronavirus-related shutdowns across the globe, AMC has has been in talks to hire law firm Weil Gotshal to explore moves including a possible bankruptcy amid the economic fallout. In order to buy some time, AMC said it raised $500 million in debt last month.

 

Buying a cinema chain would allow Amazon, which owns streaming service Amazon Prime Video, to control the screening of films, giving it greater dominance of the industry. In 2018, it looked into buying American art house chain, Landmark Theaters, but lost out to the eventual buyer Cohen Media Group.

 

A takeover of AMC would be much larger in scale, as Landmark had only 250 screens, and AMC has about 10,000 screens around the world.

 

Edited by Bosco685
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On 5/9/2020 at 8:46 AM, paperheart said:

more actual #'s

China movie theater
Andy Wong/AP

Chinese authorities will allow further leisure venues, including cinemas, to gradually re-open now that the coronavirus pandemic has largely been controlled in the country, the top administrative body said on Friday. This comes after movie theaters were shuttered nationwide in January, ultimately dealing a $2.5B+ loss to the box office in just the first quarter.

Forget the virus. Those seats look *really* uncomfortable.

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For those looking to entertain the kids in a fantastic way, a video reading of Coraline by Neil Gaiman and others this week sponsored by the New York Public Library.

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It's the latest Disney experience: waivers of Covid-19 liability for one and all! The novel coronavirus "is an extremely contagious disease that can lead to severe illness and death," Disney, while also reassuring that they have adopted "enhanced health and safety measures" now warns its potential customers: "By visiting Walt Disney World Resort, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure." A phased reopening of the shopping and dining area at Disney World is scheduled to begin May 20 and continue May 27.

 

Disney will hardly be alone in issuing such a warning and advising customers that they assume the risk of entering. It's time to get used to seeing this kind of legal jargon frequently in your life, as businesses reopen across the country and try to find ways to shield themselves against potential lawsuits from patrons who might contract the novel coronavirus on their property.


Whether you knew it or not, this isn't all that new. As a consumer, you already waive -- or simply put, give away -- your legal rights all the time. If you've ever joined a gym, gone skiing or taken an indoor rock climbing class, you've almost certainly signed a waiver stating that you know the activity is dangerous and you won't sue if you get hurt. Those "permission slips" you sign for a child's little league team or a school field trip are often just another form of liability waiver. In today's litigious world, you'll find waivers are common not only for dangerous physical activity, but also for mundane activities -- especially for any likely to involve children.

 

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EXCLUSIVE: In a real shocker, the WWII battleship drama Greyhound that Tom Hanks wrote and stars in has abruptly changed course and will berth at Apple. Originally on the Sony Pictures theatrical calendar for Father’s Day weekend, the film will instead become the biggest feature film commitment made by Apple to premiere on Apple TV +. It is the latest in a growing indication that Apple is making its move, and becoming as aggressive as any streamer or studio in auctions for the acquisition of films and TV projects.

 

Hanks will test the waters in putting out one of his star vehicle films direct to a streamer for the first time with a premiere in over 100 countries, and it is all because of the coronavirus pandemic and how it has wrecked studio theatrical release calendars this year. Hanks had already been indelibly linked to the pandemic when, on the set of the Baz Luhrmann-directed Elvis Presley movie for Warner Bros in Australia, he became the first major movie star to test positive. He and wife Rita Wilson were quarantined and luckily overcame the affliction. When Deadline broke that Hanks had tested positive, it nearly crashed the website. How his WWII movie will fare will hopefully be a far more pleasant experience as the industry reboots itself. Apple has not set a date to release yet, but the expectation is it will be soon.

 

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horrifying for the theater chains if accurate

 

Hollywood could be facing a serious uphill battle to fill seats in movie theaters, even after coronavirus restrictions lift.

According to a recent survey from Sports and events analytics firm Performance Research and Full Circle Research, 70% of respondents would rather watch a first-run movie on-demand rather than the local cinema. The firms surveyed over 1,000 U.S. consumers between May 11- May 14.

In fact, a slim 13% said they’d choose the theater over their couch — a bleak and staggering figure for an industry relying on big tentpoles like Disney’s “Mulan” (DIS) and Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” to deliver strong box office results come July, when most COVID-19 restrictions are expected to be lifted.

(Courtesy: Performance Research, Full Circle Research Co.)(Courtesy: Performance Research, Full Circle Research Co.)
 

Yet July might be too soon for some Americans to venture back into crowds — even with social distancing guidelines in place like capped capacity and buffer seating.

Of those that do plan to return to the movies, the data found that 37% said they expect to attend less often than before — with 10% revealing they may never go again.

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I am surprised they have done this well before covid. Sure movies set all time records as far as gross but tickets cost a lot more. Way more people used to go to the movies. They really need the Asian market. Need theaters full too.

Impressive how many people go to movies still. People want to see something soon as it comes out and dont want to pirate. They are already paying for Netflix HBO etc so I would rather just wait 4 to 6 months and see it for free with just as good sound, better picture, more comfortable chair, and cheaper food drink. People gotta see it right away though so if they dont go out of business po people will go back to theaters once safe to do so. A lot of people aren't going to want to wear a mask for 2 hours.

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