Cinema

How Did 2020 Reshape World and Arab Cinema?

From Parasite’s Oscar triumph to shuttered cinemas, broken release windows and disrupted Arab festivals, 2020 transformed the film industry and strengthened streaming.

Husam Sam Asi 28 December 2020

Gal Gadot as Diana Prince in Wonder Woman 1984, facing a wall of television screens. — Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman 1984. Publicity still: Warner Bros. Pictures / HBO Max.

In the first two months of 2020, an Asian film, South Korea’s Parasite, dominated major Hollywood awards, including the Golden Globes, the Writers Guild of America and the Art Directors Guild. It won four Oscars: original screenplay, directing for Bong Joon Ho, international feature film, and best picture. It became the first non-English-language film to win best picture since the awards began in 1929.

Within weeks, Hollywood had almost forgotten Parasite as another intruder arrived, this time a real virus: the novel coronavirus, first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The Chinese authorities isolated the city and imposed a lockdown lasting months, while restrictions spread across other regions and brought ordinary life and economic activity to a halt.

At first, Hollywood paid little attention, as if the crisis belonged to another world. Award ceremonies, conferences, events and film festivals continued. Ironically, one of the last parties held in Hollywood celebrated Parasite’s success. It was crowded with guests, including visitors from China and South Korea, and I was among those invited.

A few days later, I developed flu-like symptoms that kept me in bed for several days. I still do not know whether I had COVID-19 or simply influenza.

Hollywood began feeling the effects even before the virus reached its doors. The collapse of the Chinese market caused enormous losses. China was the world’s second-largest box-office market after the United States, taking $9 billion in 2019, and had been expected to overtake America this year.

Releases of major Hollywood productions and Oscar-winning films were cancelled, and Chinese box-office receipts fell by approximately $2 billion compared with the same period last year.

As coronavirus spread around the world, authorities closed cinemas and suspended everyday activities as part of social-distancing measures. Hollywood studios had to shut their doors, halt production and postpone or cancel releases. Losses ran into tens of billions of dollars, while worldwide theatrical income effectively disappeared in April.

Streaming breaks the release window

As the physical world stopped, people moved into the virtual world, looking for an alternative to cinema. They found it on streaming platforms, led by Netflix, the enemy of exhibitors. Its subscriber base surged and its shares reached record levels.

Unlike Netflix, the studios were tied to the release-window agreement, which required them to wait three months after a film’s theatrical debut before making it available on other platforms.

The scale of their losses became an existential crisis. To survive, they had little choice but to break that agreement. Some sold films to streaming services: Paramount placed The Lovebirds on Netflix, while Universal released Trolls World Tour through premium video on demand. Sony Pictures sold the Second World War film Greyhound, starring Tom Hanks, to Apple TV+ for $120 million.

Disney brought Artemis Fowl and the animated Onward to Disney+, while The Call of the Wild became available for home viewing. After repeated postponements, it abandoned theatrical plans for Hamilton and the American release of Mulan and offered them on its platform.

Disney+ recorded a sharp rise in subscribers and became a strong Netflix competitor. Universal and Warner Bros. also launched their streaming platforms, Peacock and HBO Max respectively.

Unlike the studios, cinemas had no alternative revenue source to protect them from economic devastation. Christopher Nolan tried to come to their rescue by releasing Tenet theatrically, but the attempt fell short. The film took only $350 million worldwide, roughly a third of expectations.

Its studio, Warner Bros., responded with a radical decision in early December: its major 2021 releases would debut on HBO Max at the same time as in American cinemas. Wonder Woman 1984 inaugurated that approach over Christmas. It, too, disappointed at the box office as many American viewers chose streaming over the risk of going to a cinema.

As 2020 draws to a close, American box-office revenue has fallen to its lowest level since the late 1970s, around $2.3 billion. For the first time, China has overtaken it. Chinese cinemas reopened in the summer, and their takings have reached approximately $2.9 billion this year.

Donald Trump and racism

At the beginning of 2020, people of colour and their films and television series collected prominent Hollywood awards. Hollywood promoted racial diversity and moral integrity in its campaign against President Donald Trump as he fought for re-election.

But protests and the intensifying debate about racism in the United States and elsewhere after the police killing of George Floyd placed Hollywood itself under scrutiny. They exposed racist ideas in celebrated and commercially successful classics such as Gone with the Wind, which received ten Academy honours, including honorary awards. Some studios revised the presentation of such films or temporarily removed them from their platforms.

As anti-racism demonstrations spread, Hollywood seized the moment to campaign against Trump through films warning against giving him a second term. Among the most prominent were Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and The Trial of the Chicago 7, alongside television productions such as The Comey Rule.

His supporters dismissed these works as conspiracies and fake news. The election results revealed the limits of Hollywood’s influence. Although Trump lost, his total vote increased compared with 2016, including gains among some voters of colour.

Festivals and independent and Arab cinema

Coronavirus challenged Hollywood, but it devastated independent and Arab cinema. With festivals and film events cancelled, filmmakers lost vital platforms for promotion, marketing and entry into international markets.

One of the first shocks for Arab cinema was the cancellation of the inaugural Saudi Red Sea International Film Festival. It was intended to launch Saudi cinema and provide important support for Arab filmmakers. Its cancellation suspended opportunities for projects selected for workshops and competitions offering production or completion grants.

Some festivals moved online, but many directors rejected virtual participation and postponed submitting their films until next year. They feared the fate of the selections announced by Cannes after its physical edition was cancelled: films that did not receive the attention that would normally help propel them towards the Oscars. Those selections included three Arab films from Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia.

Arab films that participated in Venice in September, one of the first major festivals held in person after the outbreak, won valuable prizes in several sections. They later collected more awards at El Gouna and Cairo, both of which held smaller physical editions this year.

Coronavirus has imposed fundamental changes whose long-term effects remain uncertain. The future of cinemas is unknown, studio activity remains disrupted, and festivals continue to take place virtually.

But the pandemic has not been a curse for everyone. For some, it has been a blessing. Streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon have taken control of film viewing and are expected to dominate the coming Oscar season.