Ouch...

More seriously, the delay to release Bond is (paradoxically and in a slightly backhanded way) a vote of confidence in the cinema industry.

Here's why... https://twitter.com/haveigotnews/status/1313074226300030976

Clearly it's not great for UK cinemas right now, many of which are now closing their doors until next year.

However the alternative is that the title could have been shifted to a premium VoD release, debuting sooner and skipping cinemas entirely

By delaying release of titles, rather than shifting to a VoD model, studios are saying that they don't think that other release strategies are adequate substitutes, and are willing to delay release substantially to ensure cinema release still happens

Our modelling (broadly) concurs that this is currently the right approach for large releases (esp. internationally) - a windowed PVoD model struggles to match studio returns for big titles, even compared to a depressed theatrical market (which we're expecting next year)

So the good news for the cinema industry, even in these dark times, is that providing they can hibernate through the long winter, they'll emerge to find studios waiting on the other side.