Not in a theater near you

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected pretty much every aspect of daily life, but few industries have been disrupted as much as the film industry.

Basically everything is on hold right now as studios delay their theatrical releases due to not having any theaters to release in.

This has resulted in some drastic steps to recoup some of those theatrical losses.

Disney is bypassing the traditional waiting period between theatrical release and home viewing by accelerating making recent movies available to purchase digitally or download on Disney+.

Warner Bros. and Paramount have done the same. "Birds of Prey" and "Sonic the Hedgehog," the last two movies I saw in a theater, will be available online by the time this column sees print.

Meanwhile, Universal Pictures has taken things a step further. Under normal circumstances, "The Hunt," "The Invisible Man," and "Emma" should still be available in theaters. Instead, Universal has released them digitally for rental so that viewers can watch the new films from the comfort of their home.

This seems to be how Universal Pictures will be handling things for the immediate future. "Trolls World Tour" had a theatrical release date of April 10. Instead of delaying the movie, it will be bypassing theaters completely and going straight to on-demand rental.

It's a calculation you can bet other studios are making as it becomes less clear when theaters will be back open for business.

"Wonder Woman 1984," "Black Widow," "A Quiet Place Part 2," "Mulan," "The New Mutants," "No Time to Die," "Fast 9," and more have all been pushed back.

If these movies hold firm and wait for theaters to open back up, it's going to cause a ripple effect down the line. After all, you can't just dump three months' worth of theatrical releases into theaters without it affecting the movies that were already scheduled.

If Marvel Studios waits too long to release "Black Widow," then they're going to bump into "The Eternals." If "The Eternals" is delayed, that will probably push back "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," which will bump into "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."

It's going to get to the point where it no longer makes sense to wait for theaters to open back up.

Instead, the movie industry as a whole may have to come up with a wholly new business model on the fly. Not a small undertaking for a multi-billion dollar industry that has remained largely the same for decades.

Until now, premiering your movie anywhere but a theater was nearly unheard of. Direct-to-home releases have long been the domain of small B-movies and Disney's animated cashgrab sequels.

Netflix has made some headway in removing the direct-to-home stigma, but their non-theatrical offerings have so far been the exception to the rule. This coronavirus situation may change that.

Changing the viewing habits of the movie going populous is no small feat. Going to the theater is essentially a ritual. You get your ticket, order your popcorn, find your seat, and wait for the previews. Rituals make for great business because they are very hard to change. Movie studios absolutely do not want to disrupt this winning formula.

But now they might not have a choice.

If major studios start releasing their films for $20 rentals, it could cement new viewing habits. Ones that persist even after the theaters open back up.

It's hard to say what happens after that. Maybe things will go back to normal, but it's entirely possible that they won't.

Movie theaters have long enjoyed supremacy at the top of the cinematic food chain. While increasingly large televisions and higher definition movies to play on them have reduced their appeal, their place in the hierarchy has never been threatened like it is right now.

What happens when the movie industry goes to all the effort to create a profitable distribution system that bypasses cinemas? Will they abandon it so easily?

Will we?

Travis Fischer is a newswriter for Mid-America Publishing and hopes to sit in a movie theater again soon.