FANDOM FEATURE JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM
The Row House Cinema marquee at the start of the pandemic-driven lockdowns | Source: David DiCello
The Impact of COVID-19 on the Movie Theater Experience
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n March 15, 2020, Row House Cinema in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania shared an image of its marquee on Instagram. But instead of advertising the Pittsburgh Japanese Film Festival that was set to kick off in just five days, the backlit sign featured a six-word message: “We will get through this Pittsburgh.” Along with the image, there was a caption informing the theater’s devoted fans that the venue would be closed for the foreseeable future, due to the worsening COVID-19 pandemic. The Japanese Film Festival would be canceled, but “we will reopen when things go back to normal,” the message promised.
by Madeleine Buckley, associate editor Row House Founder and Owner Brian Mendelssohn didn’t know it at the time, but “back to normal” wouldn’t arrive any time soon. A full year after that original post went live on Instagram, the theater’s doors remain closed — a reality shared by movie theaters across the country, from massive chains to independent icons. As it did with nearly every industry, the COVID-19 pandemic entirely disrupted movie theaters as — nearly overnight — sitting in a room full of strangers shifted from a normal happenstance to the most highly discouraged activity. A quick look at IMDb’s Box Office Mojo
puts the reality of this disruption in very clear terms: The domestic box office gross for last year clocked in at $2,085,855,696. About 86% of that total came from the first four months of the year, when theaters were almost entirely open. That means U.S. theaters pulled in just under $300 million throughout the remaining nine months of last year — that is less than Avengers: Endgame made in its opening weekend in 2019. As the pandemic arrived, marquees went dark, studios started pushing all major movie release dates, and theaters were forced to pivot with little-to-no notice. Now, as we head into our second year of pandemic life
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