A few thoughts on this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/18/tenet-box-office-hollywood-future/

1. Yes! The whole business of studios just creating massive tentpole movies and nothing else is unsustainable, particularly when Disney has cornered that market. They need to be diversifying and going back to the 80s / 90s model of mid-range movies in a wide field of genres.

2. It's a little unfair of the article to pick on Tenet when arguably any film would fail in the current climate. I imagine Tenet will get a big re-release post-Covid and rake in reasonable profit, if not quite the one it was aiming for pre-Covid.

3. This poor box office situation won't improve until we get a handle on Covid, most likely with a vaccine. It seems that a fairly large proportion of cinema audiences have decided that it's simply not worth the risk of going to the movies right now.

4. If the studios are smart they should be eyeing up their catalogues for small scale VOD releases they can put out to keep audiences engaged in the meantime. Bill and Ted is a good example. I'm surprised that Candyman hasn't also been lined up like this.

5. Then they should be scheduling for a post-covid bonanza year of releasing (and re-releasing) the big projects they've held back, alongside any new films they've managed to complete. A year in which they remind people why they love going to the movies.

6. I suppose the question for most of the studios is how long can they wait for this potential gold rush?

7. More to the point, how long can the exhibitors wait the drought out? They're likely shouldering the burden of Covid far more than the studios.

8. Now that the Paramount Decree has been annulled, a possible scenario that could be very bad indeed for everyone is that a major exhibitor goes under and a studio like Disney buys out all of its cinemas, turning them into Disney-only screens.

9. I'd like to say that things aren't too late - that studios diversifying their output is a reasonable way to take a stand against Disney's near-monopolisation of the market with a near constant flood of tentpole movies.

10. Certainly small indie production / distribution houses like a24 have found ways to carve their own successful niches around monolithic tent pole release schedules.

11. But the horrible truth is that right now we're perilously close to the future Cloud Atlas predicted where all movies become known as Disneys.

12. It goes without saying that this is all just conjecture on my part. Afaik we might be about to be invaded by tiny ant aliens with human faces.