With COVID-19 continuing to spread across the United States, more drastic measures have been taken to combat the virus. Now, one state key to new movies being released in the coming months has had to re-implement some drastic lockdown measures due to cases still being on the rise.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued an order to close businesses, including restaurants and movie theaters. "We are moving back into a 'modification mode' of our original stay-at-home order," he said during a press conference yesterday. "This is a new statewide action, effective today."
This covers 30 counties, including San Diego and the home of many worldwide movie premieres, Los Angeles. This comes after 8,358 new cases were reported in a 24-hour period, while a surge in hospitalisations also played a factor in Newsom's decision. There's no word on when these restrictions will lift.
A handful of theaters had started to re-open (or at least put plans in place to do so), but this is going to stop the likes of AMC Theaters and Regal Cinemas returning to business as normal.
It's been said from the start that if theaters in Los Angeles and New York City remain closed, studios will not release new movies, and this once again puts those August re-opening dates in doubt; the prevailing theory is that Tenet will be pushed back (again) and theaters will now aim for September instead.
Unfortunately, we're just going to have to wait and see what happens.