One of public life’s first casualties in “The Great Lockdown” as the IMF have labelled it, was the closure of cinemas. No cinemas means no box office and thus no new releases. As such, dozens of tentpoles, including No Time to Die and Black Widow, were either delayed or indefinitely postponed as the pandemic’s social effects hit home. But it wasn’t just movies set for release in the spring that were in the firing line.
Summer blockbusters are also under pressure, as with no known end to the disruption in sight, studio execs are nervously juggling release dates like multi-million dollar hand grenades. Upcoming superhero sequel Wonder Woman 1984 has already been shunted from June 5th to August 14th, but it seems even making that date might be too much.
Wonder Woman star Connie Nielsen, who’ll reprise her role as Hippolyta in the upcoming movie, has voiced those fears in a new interview with ABC News, saying the following:
“I don’t know about the August deadline there. We can all cross fingers and I sure hope so. The invention of a remedy against this virus will certainly make everything a lot easier. Everyone is waiting to get back to work as well, we’re all waiting to get started on our next projects, so having access to either a vaccine or at least a remedy will be a good thing for us all.”
It’s the same uncertainty hanging over millions. Nobody knows when a viable vaccine or effective treatment for the virus will become readily available. And until it does, disruption to people’s lives is unlikely to abate. All rather pessimistic isn’t it? If you’re looking for some light at the end of the tunnel, I read an article a few days ago on a clinical trial being run by the University of Oxford. The team there hopes to have efficacy results by September, with Professor of Vaccinology Sarah Gilbert saying she’s 80% confident it’ll work. Those are pretty good odds. A viable vaccine in 5 months is a hell of a lot better than the 18 month predictions widely reported.
I’m not convinced we’ll see be seeing Wonder Woman 1984 in August, but it won’t necessarily be much later. Chin up, chaps.