What Phase Three Means for the Future of Watching Movies in Singapore
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions represented in this article are personal and belong solely to the author and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the author may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual.
Many of us are devoted fans of movies and love the cinematic experience in our nearest theatres. Whenever there’s a new anticipated box office movie releasing its first trailer, we always watched it till the end to feel the hype and looked forward to the release date. Similarly, we also looked forward to the end of the Circuit Breaker to resume back our normal lives by hanging out with our friends to watch movies in the cinemas but with safe distancing measures. That is not the case as we still have to look forward to Phase 3 (not Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 3), which is not coming anytime soon, of the three-phased approach which is going to happen right after the Circuit Breaker.
Even though most studios have announced the delay of their blockbuster movies’ release dates, these movies might not be able to reach Singapore’s shores because we have no idea when Phase 3 starts to kick in.
How would this change our lifestyle of watching movies in the future and affect Singapore’s box office gross revenue?
Still hyping for Marvel’s Black Widow or maybe not?
I — like many other Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans — have been anticipating for a Black Widow solo movie as the character has been a sidekick featuring in other major superheroes movies such as Iron Man 2, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier in the universe. In 2019, Marvel Studios finally revealed that the long-awaited standalone movie for Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow was in production and would be officially released in May 2020. It’s a film that will definitely bring us to understand the character’s background more, especially on what happened in Budapest which mentioned in The Avengers’ conversation between her and Hawkeye, an emotional context after her sacrifice for the cause in Avengers: Endgame, and the excitement to start the Phase 4 of the MCU.
However, due to COVID-19, Marvel Studios has to push the release date to November 2020. This was announced six to seven weeks before the announcement of the three-phased approach by the Singapore government.
Initially, rumour has it that Black Widow will premiere on Disney+ streaming service on the original release date instead of theatrical release. I was kind of expecting this to happen but this will be a big disadvantage to Singapore fans as Disney+ hasn’t scheduled to arrive in the Little Red Dot and its Asian counterparts in 2020. However, that is not the case as Black Widow had a massive budget of about US$150 million to US$200 million and is expected to do well in international markets that could earn from US$750 million to more than US$1 billion. With that, it is costly for Disney (Marvel Studios’ parent company) to stream the latter on its streaming platform rather than releasing it in the cinemas.
Technically, the majority of the moviegoers in Singapore are MCU fans. The top five all-time grossing movies as of 2019 are Avengers: Endgame (S$18.27 million), Avengers: Infinity War (S$15.26 million), The Avengers (S$12.92 million), Avengers: Age of Ultron (S$12.19 million), and Iron Man 3 (S$11.93 million).
During this time of uncertainty, Singapore has already closed its cinemas since end-March 2020 until Phase 3 kicks in. Looks like MCU fans in Singapore might not be able to catch Black Widow and other MCU movies in the cinemas based on the updated release dates slate. Similar to the rumour of Black Widow releasing on Disney+, this is a disappointment to Singapore’s MCU fans. Hence, this makes me wonder that since I have been waiting for these movies for so long to be released in the cinemas, what difference for me to wait again for the movies to be released on video on demand (VOD) services via Singtel TV or StarHub TV?
Detrimental Hit to Singapore’s Box Office
When cinemas were deemed as non-essential, Singapore’s cinemas have shut down since 27 March 2020. Singapore’s box office was down to US$5.8 million in the first three months of 2020, compared to about US$17 million in the first three months of 2019. With the introduction of the three-phased approach, the box office may remain the same until the end of 2020.
There might be possibilities where most studios may have to further, once again, delay their movie releases in order to reach Singapore’s cinema viewers in Phase 3 or they may not want to distribute their movies to Singapore’s box office market but, instead, may distribute to VOD platforms since they also have no idea when Phase 3 will take place.
Such outcomes would lead to a new norm where many movie fanatics in Singapore staying at home by having their personal home cinemas with their VOD or video streaming services on hand and waiting patiently for the movies to be released. In the end, the studios could only depend on releasing their movies through VOD or streaming services to the Singapore market where the studio could only generate revenue from VOD and make money through subscription fee of the streaming services respectively. Due to this, the studios are not able to earn revenue from Singapore’s box office market.
What’s next?
Only time will tell if I will be able to catch Black Widow at the cinema but I’ll be greatly disappointed if I miss out the cinematic experience of the film. What are the chances that this film comes at this unprecedented time? All I can say is that, not just in Singapore, we are welcoming a whole new world of watching movies.
As far as I am concern, most studios will still be distributing blockbuster movies to Singapore’s cinemas. Even though Singapore’s market is small, the Little Red Dot has one of the highest cinema admissions per capita in the world with 18.5 million attendees and 297 cinema screens as of 2019. Furthermore, these movies are high-budget movies which have spent on marketing and production. However, I feel that there would still be fewer people going to visit their nearest cinemas to watch their favourite movies when Phase 3 comes since health and safety are more important than anything else. Even when cinemas start re-opening in Phase 3, safe measures will definitely be imposed such as checking in and out the cinemas by using SafeEntry that helps the government’s contact tracing efforts, temperature taking, wearing of masks, and social distancing. When such measures in place, will the cost of screening the films for the viewers be higher which led to the increase in the price of the movie tickets? But then again, movie tickets price is based on demand and supply. Hence, many people would still prefer to stay at home and wait patiently for their favourite blockbusters to be released on streaming services or VOD and this might lead to studios losing Singapore’s market.
Many movies such as The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, which is an animated movie and perceived as a family movie, might be distributed by the studios on streaming services instead of sending them to the cinemas for the viewers. Even though the studios got the revenue through streaming services’ subscription fee, they will generate more revenue from the toy merchandises which are considered a high demand for the parents to buy for their kids. Without toy merchandises for animated movies, the studios will suffer losses in their revenue.
Lack of competition among the studios would arise. Ever since when the coronavirus has hit hard on the film industry, Disney has suspended global box office reporting for the time being. When one big Hollywood studio did that, it is highly likely other studios would follow as well. Even when cinemas start to re-open globally, different countries would re-open their cinemas in different time periods. Some might re-open this year, some might re-open next year. We really have no idea. Technically, the yearly global box office record is kind of redundant during the coronavirus times.
In the near future, we could see that the original content on streaming services will become more successful than the movies that are released in the theatres. When Extraction is available for streaming on Netflix during end-April, it’s become one of the most successful Netflix’s original movies. I feel that not only the likes of MCU’s The Russo Brothers — the producers — and MCU’s Chris Hemsworth — the actor, the success factor could be due to the worldwide closure of cinemas.
I predict that the snap of COVID-19 would result in half of the movies release in the cinemas and the other half distribute to streaming services. When Phase 3 arrives, we shall wait patiently and see whether the above possibilities could become realities. Meanwhile, stay safe and stay healthy. There’s no need to rush to the cinemas when Singapore enters Phase 3.
