You know it’s bad when James Bond still can’t get out of the house.
“No Time to Die”, the 25th film in the Bond franchise, was postponed for the third time on Thursday, the surest sign that Hollywood does not believe the masses will be ready to return to theaters anytime soon. The $ 250 million film will now hit theaters on October 8, according to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The premiere was scheduled for last April. As the coronavirus continued to increase, that plan was abandoned for a November debut. More recently, the expected blockbuster was set for an April 2 landing.
Studios, concerned about the slow pace of vaccination efforts in the United States, were already postponing major films (again). Universal and Amblin Entertainment, for example, released “Bios”, starring Tom Hanks in a post-apocalyptic Earth, for August 13th from April 16th.
But the retreat from “No Time to Die” can cause other dominoes to fall. It was the first megafilm scheduled for the post-vaccine era. That honor now goes to Marvel’s prequel “Black Widow” (May 7), followed by the last installment of Universal “Fast & Furious” (May 28). The problem: no one is particularly eager to test the market by going first – especially not after what happened to Christopher Nolan’s “Principle”.
Warner Bros. tried to boost the trip to the cinema in September, launching “Tenet”, although many cinemas were still closed and others operating with limited capacity. The film grossed $ 363 million worldwide, a very respectable total under the circumstances, but it disappointed Hollywood nonetheless. (Nolan’s films typically earn more than double that amount.)
More recently, “Wonder Woman 1984” raised an anemic $ 143 million worldwide, with its instant online availability in the United States reducing ticket sales, along with fear of the virus’s resurgence.
Shortly after MGM announced the new date for “No Time to Die”, Sony Pictures changed its schedule, changing “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” to November 11 from June 11, and “Morbius”, starring Jared Leto as Marvel’s pseudo-vampire for January 21, 2022, starting October 8, where he would have competed with a certain British superspy.