When normal is off the table
COVID-19 is going to be with us for the long haul, so it's time to pivot.
In the immortal words of Tropic Thunder’s Tugg Speedman: “Here we go again...again.”
This week, Paramount announced that Top Gun: Maverick was feeling the need...the need to flee its release date. The studio pushed the belated sequel to May 27, 2022. This is just the latest delay for the film, which was originally scheduled to be released in June 2019 but changed to the following summer to complete filming. Of course, Paramount had no idea that the new date would put it smack in the middle of the pandemic’s first wave, and the film has bounced around since. If Top Gun 2 does release next Memorial Day weekend, it will be almost exactly four years since filming began and nearly three years after its initial release date.
Paramount actually cleared out its remaining 2021 slate with the announcement, pushing Jackass Forever to February and then further pushing the next Mission: Impossible to November 22. So far, other studios seem to be sticking to their theatrical release schedule, which means we’re still slated to see three more Marvels (including this week’s Shang-Chi), a Venom and a Ghostbusters sequel before the end of the year, but I wouldn’t pre-order your tickets just yet.
I’ve written about this a lot, and I know I should probably just give it a rest. But of all the industries impacted by the pandemic, the film industry is the one that has been most intriguing to watch. The movie world is so schedule-driven. For my entire life, I could clock the seasons by what movies were out. Summer blockbusters felt different from winter ones. In the fall, the brisk weather told me it was indie season. Spring tends to be when you get intriguing genre releases. January is when you stay away altogether. In a world where every studio has franchises meticulously planned years in advance, that dependence on a schedule is even more important.
It’s no surprise that a global pandemic put a huge dent in a global industry. And what’s been interesting has been seeing the friction that occurs as Hollywood tries to address it.
There was initially hesitancy to putting any movies available on streaming services or video on demand if they hadn’t had a theatrical release. When the pandemic started, it was huge news that Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker were coming to Disney+ earlier than the usual six-month window. These films had already had lucrative box office runs, and it was huge news that they were coming home earlier. When Disney then moved Onward, which had been in theaters for only a week when the majority of the shutdowns began, to Disney+, it was a signifier that movies were going to be rocked by this. When Universal announced that Trolls World Tour and several other releases would go straight to on demand, the genie was out of the bottle.
But it’s been a clumsy and patchwork approach. Warner Brothers, for instance, decided to make its entire slate of theatrical releases available concurrently on HBO Max. Smaller studios and indies have largely done a mix of video on demand, straight to streaming, or an extremely small theatrical window (they’ve largely made a smoother pivot because smaller films have been opening on VOD and in theaters simultaneously for several years). Paramount can’t seem to decide what to do. It needs to feed content to its struggling streaming service, which is likely why Paw Patrol ended up there and in theaters. But they also need to keep Tom Cruise, their biggest star and the head of their only two successful current franchises, happy. And Cruise is an outspoken defender of the theatrical experience. Disney, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to know what its approach is. Some of its offerings (including Shang-Chi) have opened only in theaters. Some, such as every Pixar release since Soul, have gone straight to Disney+ as just another offering. Others get the theatrical combined with Disney+ Premiere Access approach. And there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind what gets different treatment.
It shows the way the film industry is in a period of immense transformation, something I’ve stated before was a long time coming. As soon as studios got into the streaming game, they were going to have to feed the beast and entice subscribers. It was only a matter of time before new releases went straight to streaming as an added draw. COVID, as I’ve said, just expedited the inevitable. And I’d imagine the reason it’s all so sloppy right now is because studios are winging it, trying to figure out not only which offerings to put on streaming, but also which ones they can. Remember, HBO Max was hammered by several of its biggest collaborators when WB announced its titles were headed to the streamer. And Scarlett Johansson is currently suing Disney for pivoting Marvel’s Black Widow to Premiere Access. Streaming rights were notoriously confusing even before the pandemic; I imagine the task of shifting a film intended for theaters to home services is even thornier.
But at the same time, the studios also need to play nice with exhibitors. The theatrical model has been, for many, the prefered way to see a movie for more than a century. It may be shifting, but there’s still a cachet that comes from having your film debut on the big screen as opposed to a streamer. It’s easy to get lost in the deluge of releases from Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon and the rest. And so studios have to navigate these conflicts of pleasing the talent, feeding the streaming beasts, releasing films to keep a revenue stream coming, and playing nice with exhibitors for if and when people come back en masse to the theaters.
And the exhibitors? They seem to be treading water, waiting for this to blow over, and anticipating a return to normal.
But here’s the bad news: This summer is proving that normal is not returning. And we need to pay attention to what’s going on in the film industry because it’s just a microcosm of what is going to happen to every other industry and area of our lives.
In March 2020, when Universal moved F9 almost a year past its May 2020 release date, I raised an eyebrow and thought “well, that seems like an overreaction.” Other studios were either moving their releases from spring to fall or, at worst, early winter. We really believed in the early days of the pandemic that we would hunker down, take shelter for a few weeks, and this whole thing would blow over.
Obviously, Universal’s move was prescient, and F9 was one of the few theatrical releases to make some decent money this summer. And then the delta variant set in, and studios are pivoting again. I don’t know that we’ll see the widespread delays we saw earlier in the pandemic, and I doubt we’ll see the wholescale shutdown of the nation’s theaters again, but normal never arrived, and I don’t know that it’s going to.
We had the chance to get back to normal earlier this year. Vaccines had been available since January, and were widely available to all adults by the spring. We had the chance to get our shot and bring an end to this. Instead, people resisted. They made it political. They clung to their rights instead of doing right by their neighbor. And the virus spread, exacerbated by the fact that not only would that vocal contingent not get vaccinated, they wouldn’t even wear masks to protect others. And that was enough time for the virus to mutate into a more contagious, dangerous variant. And the summer of our return became a shitshow.
In late spring in Michigan, our daily number of COVID cases was under 100. We had days where no deaths were reported. It looked like we were back to normal. For the first time, we could congregate with others, go to the stores without face masks and get back to the routines we’d missed. I’ve gone back to the movies, concerts and amusement parks. We’ve gone to museums, parks and restaurants. I’ve been back in my office a few times. When I sang unmasked for the first time at church in more than a year, it was a deeply moving, powerful experience.
It’s not all off the table. My wife and I are vaccinated, and we aren’t too worried about contracting it. We’ve enjoyed the return to normal-ish. But as Michigan cases now go back to more than 1,000 per day, and our kids remain unvaccinated, we’re starting to clamp down again. We wear masks to the stores, to restaurants and to church. We’re a little bit more cautious about where we go if it’s not going to be outdoors. And we’re likely going to start having difficult talks with unvaccinated family and friends about whether we’re going to let them be around us or our children as the kids head back to school next week. We had the chance to bring this to an end; instead, we’re back where we were.
And I don’t know that any return to normal is in sight. Many experts believe COVID is endemic; it will be with us for good. It will eventually become less of a severe threat, hopefully, but it will not likely go away. We’re going to deal with flare-ups, outbreaks and booster shots for a long while. And I’m not too worried about that, so long as the virus remains able to be mitigated by vaccines. But I’m am worried about the fact that I can no longer trust my fellow citizens to do what’s right for their neighbor.
There’s been a fundamental belief embedded in Americans that when the going gets rough, we’ll come together. And I don’t know if that’s been the case. Sure, when we initially realize we’re all suffering through the same experience, there’s a time of unity and encouragement. We saw that in the weeks following 9/11. And we saw it in the first weeks of the pandemic. For a bit, we were coming together and trying to make everyone’s experience a bit easier.
But that doesn’t last. The unity of our post-9/11 days gave way to divisive rhetoric and politics that have only grown worse in the last five years. And the “let’s not let COVID-19 divide us” (hopefully figuratively) stance early in the pandemic turned into more political fighting and division as misinformation spread, racial injustice further enraged us and an ugly election stoked the fires. And out of all of this, we clung to caring about our rights and isolating ourselves from things we were afraid of, and the result is a pandemic that now continues to rage and won’t be going away.
It’s probably time we realized normal is not coming back. We’re going to have to wear masks for the foreseeable future. Schools and offices need to have pivot plans in place in order to accommodate sudden shifts to remote work due to outbreaks. Annual COVID vaccinations will likely be just as common as flu shots. And we’re going to have to learn to take sick days and stay home from things for just a cough or fever, something we’re not really prone to do in American culture. The time for getting back to normal has passed; it’s time to pivot to a world where COVID is never leaving.
Of course, that’s what many were saying since the beginning of this. There was a lot of talk that we shouldn’t ever focus on returning to normal because the ‘normal’ of pre-COVID was killing us and our families. We should plan for something better. And maybe that will still evolve from this. Many of us are learning new ways to work and learning a bit more about what matters as a result of going through this. And if anything good comes of it, maybe it’s that COVID refocuses our priorities. But a few things are certain: We’re not nearly done with this, and we won’t look the same afterward.
A programming note
As I wrote a few weeks back, this summer took it out of me, writing-wise. I haven’t posted at Jesus Junkyard in about two months and you all know how sporadic this newsletter has been. I feel like every week I have an apology for how things haven’t gone to plan, and I think this will be the last apology. Things, as this whole newsletter has attested, aren’t normal. And that’s put a crimp in my writing. I’ll do my best and get stuff out, but I’m going to pull back on sticking to a strict deadline. I’ll get stuff out as I can. Sometimes, it will be weekly. Sometimes, it will be more than weekly. And sometimes, I’m sure there will be a lag.
It’s hard for me to get into that mindset. I came from newspapers, where deadlines were sacrosanct. And in my daily work, I try to either meet deadlines or be early. But let’s be honest: when I’m doing a blog or newsletter that doesn’t bring in much (or any) extra income, sometimes it’s going to have to be put on the back burner. And that’s fine; I don’t do this to get rich. I do it because I like it. And so we’ll keep going with the expectation that output will likely wax and wane as life goes back and forth.
The good news is that I feel the writing juices flowing again after about two months of very serious blockage, due not only to some paid writing assignments but also to the stressors of life and adjusting to some medications. The Jesus Junkyard is going to get some new posts in the coming weeks. This newsletter will keep going. And I’m already at work on jumping back into my Sundays with Spielberg column, which will hit either this week or next.
Next week is actually the one-year anniversary of the start of this newsletter. And it’s been one of the most fun and fulfilling bits of regular writing I’ve done in a long time. I’m thankful for each and every one of you who take the time to read and subscribe. And I think as we enter the second year, we’re just getting started. So, stay tuned!
The Digest
Where you can find me online this week
We’re Watching Here -- “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the Novel”: Perry and I took a brief break from our 1970s revisit to talk about Quentin Tarantino’s novel adaptation of his 2019 film. We talk about what works and areas where I had some issues. We also somehow got into a conversation about which Scott brother, Tony or Ridley, had the better directorial career. It’s a detour from our regular approach, but it’s a fun one.
Chrisicisms
The pop culture I’m consuming
Terminator 2: Judgment Day: I had the house to myself last weekend, and decided to spend a lazy Saturday night catching up with James Cameron’s 1991 blockbuster, which was streaming on Netflix. I hadn’t seen T2 in probably about 20 years, but the movie hasn’t lost a beat. It’s still one of the great pieces of sci-fi action and adventure, anchored by iconic turns from Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarznegger. Sure, some of the CGI is showing its age. But the practical stunts and effects are still thrilling. I’d also forgotten how since this movie is; for all its shootouts, chases and explosions, it’s a blockbuster about a kid finding a father figure and a mother trying to save the world. I probably still prefer the first film, but it’s just a subjective thing. The Terminator feels like a young punk band playing a screaming show in some scuzzy basement, every song melting the audience’s face off. T2 is like the greatest rock band in the world playing a polished arena show. Sure, it’s going broad; but you can’t deny they nail every single song.
The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow: This is the second book I’ve read from Winslow, the first being The Force earlier this year. Frankie Machine, an earlier novel, is missing that novel’s epic scope and gritty poetry. But this tale of an aging hitman musing over his life while trying to figure out who’s trying to kill him is still a thrilling, fun bit of pulp. The titular character is a likable, a smart bait shop owner in San Diego hiding a dark past. The book is fast paced and has a few introspective moments, even if Winslow barrels into a few too many twists in the final pages. I would have actually liked it to slow down a little bit; the threads are there for something a bit more somber and reflective, but Winslow is more interested in a fast-paced thriller. And it’s a good one. This was actually the novel that Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese were planning to adapt a few years back, and it hits on many of the same ideas as The Irishman (although I think adapting I Heard You Paint Houses was the better choice, as that book’s suggestions of haunting and guilt are more fitting with Scorsese’s output).