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| image courtesy Lucasfilm/Disney |
As the global health crisis continues to wreak havoc around the globe, it appears that theaters are beginning to open slowly in numerous places. One of those places happens to be the United Kingdom. And while most major theatrical releases have been put on hold to see where we're headed as a global community, classic movies are finding a new way to generate revenue for their respective rights holders. It's been announced that a 4K remaster of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back will make its way back to cinemas in July as they begin to reopen in the U.K.. The current plan is to see their movie theaters re-open to the public with limited seating on the fourth and one of the first movies they're getting is the best entry in the Star Wars catalog. This is the first time one of the catalog movies has been released in the format and will hopefully spawn a global re-release if it does well across the pond.
This is quickly becoming common place. Movie theaters that have no new movies to show until Tenet and Mulan finally see a solid release date are using older and popular franchise films to help them get over the hump of the financial disaster they're facing. Whether or not people flock to the theaters still remains to be seen. With most capacities looking to be limited to just 25 percent, it's gonna be hard for them to stay afloat, much less pay exorbitant licensing fees.
Domestic drive-ins and theaters that have actually been open have been playing second run movies, independent horror flicks, and have gone back to the well with films like Back to the Future and E.T.. There's nothing wrong with that!
-CG