As we inch out of COVID lockdown, Hollywood is betting that it has just the cinema temptations to lure us off our couches and back into theaters.
What else but shameless showing off can get pandemic-weary audiences back to the multiplex? Since COVID-19 struck and multiplexes shut down in March 2020, the fearful, financially strapped studios mostly released smaller movies intended for streaming. The big-ticket items, especially those fromand DC Comics, were delayed until theater chains could fling open their doors again and welcome crowds starved for the in-person experience.
Streaming and video on-demand will still be available. But the future of the film industry depends on in-theater attendance, where box-office grosses can just maybe bring the movie business back from the brink of bankruptcy. The theory goes that if Hollywood builds summer blockbusters that will pop our eyes, drop our jaws and mess with our minds and hearts, audiences will come. It's up to us.Emily Blunt in"A Quiet Place Part II," 2021.
What would summer be without hearing from DC Comics? Not all of the death-row supervillains are back in this"Suicide Squad" followup that added a"The" to the title of the 2018 original. It also subtracted Will Smith as Deadshot, but added Idris Elba as Bloodsport and wisely brought back Margot Robbie as the deliciously demented Harley Quinn. The mission? Destroy a Nazi lab in South America. The point? Make a mint at the box office.