Hollywood is suffering.
Movie theaters began to shut down late winter. Production gradually stopped for different films, pushing movies such as Mulan and Black Widow back nearly half a year. On top of that, news broke out that five-time Golden Globe winner Tom Hanks and his wife, actress and singer Rita Wilson, had contracted COVID-19 while in Australia. This was followed up by celebrities such as Idris Elba, Daniel Dae Kim, P!NK, and many others posting on their various social media that they too had had contracted COVID-19.
However, due to the widespread fear of venturing out into public areas, companies such as Netflix saw a spike in memberships. Netflix remains the most popular streaming service in America while being locked down in quarantine, which has its positives and negatives. While the streaming service saw an increase in members and it’s stock prices, production for upcoming movies and series such as The Witcher also stopped, leading to different concerns about the amount of content that can be released later this year and in 2021. But for the time being, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ are the beneficiaries of the current nationwide stay-at-home order
Broadway has also been hit, as all theaters have been shut down, including America's beloved Phantom of the Opera, which I was planning on attending. While Broadway producers promised to pay their hundreds of actors, musicians, stagehands, and other employees for the first few weeks of the shutdown, they initially planned to resume performances on April 13. It’s now expected to reopen sometime in May or June. It’s almost inevitable that hundred will lose their jobs as shows that were meant to debut on Broadway in 2020 such as Hangmen and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf are not expected to happen, come summer.
While 2020 has hit the film industry hard, there are high hopes for 2021, where a coronavirus-free world will be looking to produce the same magic, mystique, and music as it has in the past.
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