عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Entertainment

Theaters Look to Bond and Black Widow to Spark 2021 Moviegoing

FILE PHOTO: Shoppers walk past an advertisement for the upcoming James Bond film "NO TIME TO DIE" whose release has been delayed due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at the Christiana Mall in Newark, Delaware US November 19, 2020. REUTERS/Mark Makela
FILE PHOTO: Shoppers walk past an advertisement for the upcoming James Bond film "NO TIME TO DIE" whose release has been delayed due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at the Christiana Mall in Newark, Delaware US November 19, 2020. REUTERS/Mark Makela
TT
20
TT

Theaters Look to Bond and Black Widow to Spark 2021 Moviegoing

FILE PHOTO: Shoppers walk past an advertisement for the upcoming James Bond film "NO TIME TO DIE" whose release has been delayed due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at the Christiana Mall in Newark, Delaware US November 19, 2020. REUTERS/Mark Makela
FILE PHOTO: Shoppers walk past an advertisement for the upcoming James Bond film "NO TIME TO DIE" whose release has been delayed due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at the Christiana Mall in Newark, Delaware US November 19, 2020. REUTERS/Mark Makela

Movie theater operators, after a year of dismal ticket sales during the pandemic, are hoping a lineup of superheroes, fighter pilots and cinema’s most famous spy will help them stage a comeback in 2021.

Roughly two-thirds of theaters remain shut in the United States and Canada, normally the world’s largest film market. Box office receipts in 2020 plunged 80% from a year earlier.

But theater owners and industry analysts see reason for optimism as COVID-19 vaccines roll out and James Bond, Black Widow and other heroes star in new blockbusters set to begin lighting up screens in the spring.

“I think we’ll see a lot of improvements throughout 2021, but I do think it will take some time to get there,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst with BoxOfficePro.com. “It won’t be an overnight return to normal by any means.”

The timing of any rebound is uncertain, as debut dates could change. Hollywood executives have repeatedly shuffled their schedules as they try to judge when the pandemic will fade. Initial excitement over vaccines has been tempered by slow distribution. And audiences will have more choices to stream at home, Reuters reported.

Currently, studios plan to send theaters a heavy lineup of big-budget movies that were yanked from the 2020 schedule.

James Bond thriller “No Time to Die,” from MGM and Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures, is scheduled for April. “Black Widow,” from Walt Disney Co’s Marvel Studios, and Universal’s new “Fast & Furious” installment are set for May.

Anticipated summer movies include “Top Gun: Maverick” from ViacomCBS Inc’s Paramount Pictures, Universal’s animated “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” and Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”

The theater business was buoyed by the turnout for “Wonder Woman 1984” over the Christmas holiday. While far short of a normal action movie debut, ticket sales for the movie from AT&T Inc’s Warner Bros. came in higher than expected, even though US audiences could stream the film at home on HBO Max.

Warner Bros. plans the same dual-release strategy in 2021 for 17 films, including a “Dune” remake and “Godzilla vs. Kong.”

The performance of “Wonder Woman 1984” demonstrated an appetite for the big screen, B. Riley analyst Eric Wold said in a research note.

“This helps support the thesis that when consumers are allowed back to theaters with attractive content, they will once again become moviegoers,” said Wold, who follows major chains including AMC Entertainment and Cinemark.

B&B Theaters, which operates in nine states, sold out some of its “Wonder Woman 1984” showtimes on Christmas Day, executives said. But they offered only 25% to 50% of seats, depending on the state, to ensure social distancing.

“We’re seeing week after week our attendance go up,” said executive vice president Bobbie Bagby Ford. But she added she did not expect the industry to hit “any semblance of normal” until vaccinations expand and attendance limits can be lifted.

“It’s probably going to be the holidays of 2021 before I see us back to full swing,” she said.

Most Viewed

 
Entertainment

Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
TT
20
TT

Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ... a purple and orange shape-shifting chemical compound?

Writer-director James Gunn’s “Superman” was always going to be a strange chemistry of filmmaker and material. Gunn, the mind behind “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad,” has reliably drifted toward a B-movie superhero realm populated (usually over-populated) with the lesser-known freaks, oddities and grotesquerie of back-issue comics.

But you don’t get more mainstream than Superman. And let’s face it, unless Christopher Reeve is in the suit, the rock-jawed Man of Steel can be a bit of a bore. Much of the fun and frustration of Gunn’s movie is seeing how he stretches and strains to make Superman, you know, interesting.

In the latest revamp for the archetypal superhero, Gunn does a lot to give Superman (played with an easy charm by David Corenswet) a lift. He scraps the origin story. He gives Superman a dog. And he ropes in not just expected regulars like Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) but some less conventional choices — none more so than that colorful jumble of elements, Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan).

Metamorpho, a melancholy, mutilated man whose powers were born out of tragedy, is just one of many side shows in “Superman.” But he’s the most representative of what Gunn is going for. Gunn might favor a traditional-looking hero at the center, like Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord in “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And Corenswet, complete with hair curl, looks the part, too. But Gunn’s heart is with the weirdos who soldier on.

The heavy lift of “Superman” is making the case that the perfect superhuman being with “S” on his chest is strange, too. He’s a do-gooder at a time when no one does good anymore.

Not everything works in “Superman.” For those who like their Superman classically drawn, Gunn’s film will probably seem too irreverent and messy. But for anyone who found Zack Snyder’s previous administration painfully ponderous, this “Superman,” at least, has a pulse.

It would be hard to find a more drastic 180 in franchise stewardship. Where Snyder’s films were super-serious mythical clashes of colossuses, Gunn’s “Superman” is lightly earthbound, quirky and sentimental. When this Superman flies, he even keeps his arms back, like an Olympic skeleton rider.

We begin not on Krypton or Kansas but in Antarctica, near the Fortress of Solitude. The opening titles set-up the medias res beginning. Three centuries ago, metahumans first appeared on Earth. Three minutes ago, Superman lost a battle for the first time. Lying bloodied in the snow, he whistles and his faithful super dog, Krypto, comes running.

Like some of Gunn’s other novelty gags (I’m looking at you Groot), Krypto is both a highlight and overused gag throughout. Superman is in the midst of a battle by proxy with Luthor. From atop his Luthor Corp. skyscraper headquarters, Luther gives instructions to a team sitting before computer screens while, on a headset, barking out coded battle directions to drone-assisted henchmen. “13-B!” he shouts, like a Bingo caller.

Whether this is an ideal localizing of main characters in conflict is a debate that recedes a bit when, back in Metropolis, Clark Kent returns to the Daily Planet. There’s Wendell Pierce as the editor-in-chief, Perry White, and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen. But the character of real interest here is, of course, Lois.

She and Kent are already an item in “Superman.” When alone, Lois chides him over the journalistic ethics of interviewing himself after some daring do, and questions his flying into countries without their leaders’ approval. Brosnahan slides so comfortably into the role that I wonder if “Superman” ought to have been “Lois,” instead. Her scenes with Corenswet are the best in the film, and the movie loses its snap when she’s not around.

That’s unfortunately for a substantial amount of time. Luthor traps Superman in a pocket universe (enter Metamorpho, among others) and the eccentric members of the Justice Gang — Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl — are called upon to lend a hand. They come begrudgingly. But if there’s anyone else that comes close to stealing the movie, it’s Gathegi, who meets increasingly absurd cataclysm with wry deadpan.

The fate of the world, naturally, again turns iffy. There’s a rift in the universe, not to mention some vaguely defined trouble in Boravia and Jarhanpur. In such scenes, Gunn's juggling act is especially uneasy and you can feel the movie lurching from one thing to another. Usually, that's Krypto's cue to fly back into the movie and run amok.

Gunn, who now presides over DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, is better with internal strife than he is international politics. Superman is often called “the Kryptonian” or “the alien" by humans, and Gunn leans into his outsider status. Not for the first time, Superman’s opponents try to paint him as an untrustworthy foreigner. With a modicum of timeliness, “Superman” is an immigrant story.

Mileage will inevitably vary when it comes to Gunn’s idiosyncratic touch. He can be outlandish and sweet, often at once. In a conversation between metahumans, he will insert a donut into the scene for no real reason, and cut from a body falling through the air to an Alka-Seltzer tablet dropping into a glass. Some might call such moments glib, a not-unfair label for Gunn. But I’d say they make this pleasantly imperfect “Superman” something quite rare in the assembly line-style of superhero moviemaking today: human.