Last Friday at around 7pm in London, the chief executives of the world’s largest cinema operators received a phone call they had dreaded for months.
All year exhibitors had been in a game of chicken with Hollywood studios as they postponed their biggest blockbusters due to the coronavirus pandemic. One by one, movies that would typically make $1bn at the box office — Marvel’s Black Widow and the latest instalments of Wonder Woman and Batman — had drifted further down the once-airtight calendar.
James Bond was different. MGM, the beleaguered studio behind the franchise, had promised cinemas that a worldwide release would go ahead in November. As recently as Wednesday last week, MGM reassured cinema chains that there would be no further delay, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
But two days later MGM folded.