Australian cinemas target July restart, pin hopes on Christopher Nolan Tenet starring Robert Pattinson

According to The Sydney Morning Herald:

Cinemas in Australia are aiming to reopen in July, with exhibitors describing the scheduled worldwide release of Christopher Nolan’s big-budget film “Tenet” as a “totem” guiding them towards re-emergence from the coronavirus shutdown.

The National Association of Cinema Operators, which represents the major chains, issued a statement late on Tuesday that said it was “enthusiastic about the prospect of reopening and is hopeful of conditions enabling it to do so in July”.

However, the association said operators will not reopen until the government advises it is safe to do so, and are likely to do so with reduced seating capacity because of social distancing measures.

Although the industry body has not indicated a precise date for reopening, several senior figures within the sector have indicated a target of July 16, the date Warner Bros has slated for Nolan’s high-concept time-travel action thriller, starring Robert Pattinson and John David Washington, the son of Denzel Washington.

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If they do open in July, Australian cinemas will operate under very different conditions than pre-virus.

Precautionary measures to be introduced will include staggered session times and spaced seating, contactless and cashless transactions, sanitisation stations and increased frequency of cleaning cinemas.

Staff and customers will also be encouraged to download the COVIDSafe app.

Variety explains why Warner Bros is pushing for Tenet’s release on 17 July 2020:

So why are they opening? It’s likely that their respective studios have outlined a radically revamped model for profitability — one based not on the mythic blast-off of a record-setting opening weekend (which isn’t close to possible), but one that’s much longer term, based on the idea that the films will play on a platform release schedule over a slowly unfolding period, and will possibly collect a greater percentage of their revenue than usual from the ancillary markets (VOD, DVD, etc.).

Yet it’s not just about the money. According to reports, while Warner Bros. made the corporate decision to release “Tenet,” the company did so after the passionate lobbying of Nolan, who in recent years has become the film industry’s most dynamic public advocate for the movie-theater experience. In the war that’s now taking place between studios and exhibitors, Nolan has made himself the bard of theatrical. And since “Tenet,” a sci-fi thriller about a secret agent, played by John David Washington, who travels through time to prevent World War III, is the kind of movie that carries event status, its release on July 17 now symbolizes something. It says to the world: On that day, the dream of movies lives.