The National Association of Theatre Ownerstrade organization, representing America's 35,00 suffering, nearly 100% dark movie screens mid-COVID-19 pandemic, is sending three little words to the U.S. Congress:
"Save Your Cinema."
Last week the trade organization NATO's #SaveYourCinema social media hashtag signified the launch of a political-action website, designed to gather signatures on e-petitions in support of the RESTART Act. The small-business relief package, proposed earlier this year by the U.S. House of Representatives, currently is being negotiated as part of a larger package (somewhere between $1 trillion and $3 trillion) supplanting the Payroll Protection Program. That relief package expired June 30.
"Without your help," reads the NATO petition, "we could lose our beloved cinemas and a cherished American pastime ... movie theaters had to shut down early on in the pandemic and will be among the last to recover. Over the past few months movie theaters have earned virtually no revenue amidst mounting fixed expenses. Even when theaters can reopen, the road for recovery will be long because of the very nature of movie theaters as public gathering places."
As of July 24 NATO collected 175,000 signatures, according to the trade group's vice president Patrick Corcoran. The cinema industry has an approximate two-week window to make their concerns known, he says.
The snag with movie theatres, Corcoran argues, is that "it doesn't make economic sense to reopen, even if we can. We're dependent on a national product pipeline." With the major studios postponing release dates of "Mulan," "Tenet" and other big-budget spectaculars for months, or well into 2021, theater owners see their revenue streams turning to dust.
And with the COVID-19 positivity rates on the rise, the audience willingness to return to theaters once they're open remains, itself, an open question.
Chicago's theaters run the gamut of ownership from international multiplex chains, such as AMC Theatres, to single-house historic landmarks, such as the Music Box Theatre. Late this week one of the independents, the Logan Theatre in the northwest Chicago Logan Square neighborhood, began circulatinig the #SaveYourCinema petition.
The email blast notes that "cinema revenues are down at least 90%, if not 100%, across the country and continue to be closed. (The RESTART Act) will help keep theatres afloat until we can fully reopen."
