Everything is up in the air and no one knows exactly when things will resume as normal. Or as normal as they can be granted the situation. Now thanks to conditions set forth by the White House we are seeing that movie theaters may not open back up for quite some time.
According to their site theaters may not be able to reopen until Phase two of their plan which will only be rolled out when all the criteria of phase one has happened without an increase in cases of coronavirus. Phase one outlines that individuals remain isolated if they are higher risk and avoid groups of ten or more. It encourages businesses to continue teleconferencing and working from home. Only after those requirements have been met will they role out Phase 2.
Phase 2 states that individuals should maximize physical distance from others. Social settings of more than 50 people, where appropriate distancing may not be practical, should be avoided unless precautionary measures are observed. So even at best theaters would have to reopen with very minimal capacity.
It’s likely that theaters will not be able to reopen until Phase 3 when they say that large venues including movie theaters can reopen with moderate physical distancing. Before the shut down theaters had put in place a 50% capacity rule so that people could comfortably sit further from each other. If they did reopen in Phase 3 this would likely be the case again.
We’re all hoping that this goes away sooner than later and a lot of us are worried about the future of cinema. While we wait for theaters to reopen many studios have opted to postpone the release of films. This is in an effort to help bolster theaters once they do reopen.
Source: White House
