A breakdown of the rituals of pre-pandemic moviegoing can be as scary to think about as anything you might see onscreen. At least that is the case in a moment when the coronavirus is so easily spread that it has shut down the world. It isn’t lost on anyone that this Friday will be the anniversary of the release of Avengers: Endgame, the film that launched last summer’s season and which went on to become the top-grossing film of all time with $2.79 billion. Out of the gate, Endgame charted unprecedented and mind-blowing domestic ($357.1M), international ($859M) and global ($1.2 billion) opening-weekend numbers, all on account of exhibition working on all cylinders around the globe with hourly showtimes. Before The Lion King opened last July, Endgame was the widest release ever for a major motion picture in the U.S.: 4,662 theaters.
Nobody is thinking about breaking records this year, but rather to simply open and hang in with the hope that moviegoing will slowly return. When movie theaters do reopen, there will be an overhaul of rituals in order to respect social distancing and to eliminate physical contact, with others and with surfaces, as much as possible. An outbreak traced to a theater could invoke the classic Bill Paxton line from Aliens: “Game over, man!”