Stop the presses! By which we mean: Stop pressing Daniel Craig’s red-carpet tuxedo. According to the official James Bond Twitter account (@007, naturally) the upcoming Bond film, No Time to Die, will be postponed until November 2020, a double-oh-seven-month push back from its planned April 10 release. The tweet reads that “MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of NO TIME TO DIE will be postponed until November 2020.”
Of course, this begs the question: What will Billie Eilish do with this newfound vacation time from the endless press cycle that is her life? It also begs the question: What are the factors of the “global theatrical marketplace” that prompted this thorough evaluation? Well, as James Bond famously says, let’s take a look at the clues, my dear Watson.
One prime suspect for this delay is fears about coronavirus affecting ticket sales. Variety reported that the global film market has reportedly already faced nearly 2 billion dollars in losses over the past two months due to plummeting ticket sales amid the outbreak, citing box-office data company Comscore and a report from China’s Ent Group. According to The Hollywood Reporter, film officials and distributors in the Asian market predict that this trend will get worse in the coming months, as more cases are reported and people eschew going to public, crowded places like movie theaters. In North America, meanwhile, many major exhibitors and attendees alike are pulling out of entertainment festivals. Does this mean MGM and Universal expect this trend to abate by November? What does Barbara Broccoli know about the coronavirus vaccine that we don’t know?
The only other reason that comes to mind is that the No Time to Die team feels threatened by its direct April 2020 box-office competition: Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway and Trolls World Tour.
Hmm. Which one of these two reasons could it be?
