Cinemas face a double whammy: they’re closed areas and would-be blockbusters have been postponed
By Theo Panayides
George Papageorgiou owns the Pantheon in Nicosia, the only single-screen commercial cinema in Cyprus. On September 17, along with the island’s other theatres, he decided to re-open after six months of coronavirus-induced darkness and silence.
His comeback film was Heist of the Century, a light-hearted Argentinean heist movie which had been a surprise hit in Greece over the summer. The Pantheon specialises in world cinema, appealing to an older crowd – closer to the ‘vulnerable groups’ – than the teens who typically flock to the multiplex. That may have been the deciding factor, or perhaps the unseasonably warm temperatures kept people outdoors; in any case, “the numbers were tragic. Zero, two, four. On my best night, I had six people!”.
The cinema has a capacity of 380, and needs about 300-400 tickets a week to break even – a number it usually achieved, pre-corona. (Papageorgiou recalls selling over 2,000 tickets for Parasite earlier this year.) Heist of the Century played out its two-week run to minuscule audiences, then Papageorgiou folded his hand. The Pantheon has once again closed, he says – ominously adding, “indefinitely”.
Re-opening a cinema was always going to be a challenge, even before the recent surge in Covid cases. There are two major problems. The first is that a cinema isn’t an optimum place to be in a pandemic. You’re sitting in a closed space with strangers, breathing and expelling the same air, not to mention sitting in a chair which was probably occupied by someone else a few minutes earlier. (The virus, as we know, clings to surfaces.)
The second problem has to do with the films on offer. Almost all of the year’s would-be blockbusters – the new Fast & Furious, the new James Bond film, Marvel’s latest superhero epic Black Widow – have been shifted to the second quarter of 2021, leaving local cinemas without big titles to tempt back their audience. In the end, the lure of Netflix and other home-viewing options is as big a hurdle as coronavirus.
Despite all that, the island’s multiplexes – the K-Cineplex in all four major cities, plus the Rio in Limassol (which also includes the Rio Premier in Nicosia Mall) – continue to screen movies, though everyone admits that audiences are significantly down.
“Right now, we’re bleeding. Heavily,” says Marios Herodotou, who owns the Rio. He estimates that the numbers from September 17 to mid-October were about 35 per cent of what he’d normally expect at this time of year, and about 20 per cent of his usual monthly average (which is pushed up by other, busier months).
Andri Constantinou, head of distribution at K-Cineplex, is more upbeat. “People have started to come back,” she says cautiously – though admittedly it remains to be seen if that tendency can survive the Covid surge. Even kids’ cartoons are doing well, she adds, showing that parents view the cinema as a safe environment for their children.
To be fair, safety measures are impressive. Constantinou confirms that the K-Cineplex takes viewers’ temperatures before allowing them in, and wearing a mask is mandatory except if you are actively eating or drinking. All local cinemas use a so-called ‘chessboard’ pattern, with every second seat cordoned off, as well as fresh-air ventilation systems that don’t just recycle the same air over and over. Doors are also opened after each performance, and a cleaning crew comes in – says Constantinou – to disinfect not just the auditorium, but every seat individually.
Assuming these measures are adhered to, it sounds like cinemas are as safe as one could reasonably make them – especially now, with smaller audiences meaning more social distancing. Besides, says Papageorgiou, “it’s also about individual responsibility”; the theatre does its part, but it’s also assumed that punters will wash their hands, not cough in other people’s face and so on. He himself hopes to re-open the Pantheon soon – but is also not especially surprised by the low turnout.
“Ever since March,” he notes glumly, “our only subject has been coronavirus. The measures, how many deaths, the surges, oh-my-God this, oh-my-God that. Conspiracy theories, people being bombarded every day by fake news, real news, you can’t even tell the difference anymore. Imagine, after so much psychological pressure – what’s going to happen?… How are people going to come to the cinema, do they even feel well enough to come?”
An entirely random straw poll outside the K-Cineplex in the Mall of Cyprus – on the opening night of The War with Grandpa, an hour after 104 cases of Covid had been announced – seems to bear this out. Generally speaking, a love of cinema didn’t seem to be the main driver for the people we spoke to (some were even unsure of the title of the film they were about to watch), so much as a relaxed attitude towards the virus in general.
“I’m not afraid of it. If I catch it, then I’ll be afraid of it,” joked 18-year-old Demetris. Andreas and Roxolana, 40 and 30 respectively, weren’t just blasé but actively sceptical. “No, because we know it’s a scam,” replied Andreas when asked if they’d been reluctant to venture out. “Put down ‘herd immunity’,” he added, pointing to my notebook, “and that we’re all going to die one day. Anyone who thinks they’re not going to die is sadly mistaken.”
“Stress only brings your immune system down,” said Roxolana.
The crowd behaved much like any multiplex audience, toting drinks and boxes of popcorn on their way to a relaxing night out. It was, however, a small crowd – no more than a dozen people, admittedly on a weekday – and didn’t seem to be made up of regular filmgoers. Everyone we spoke to was going to the cinema for the first time since the re-opening, indeed Demetris and his friend Maria (also 18) weren’t really planning to go at all, they were just at the mall and decided to see what was showing. They usually preferred watching films at home, he explained – though they wouldn’t have a problem with communal viewing, had they found something that appealed to them.
That ‘something’ is presumably the big films coming next year – unless cases keep going up, unless cinemas in the US stay closed, unless a dozen other variables get in the way; and meanwhile, says Herodotou, you still have to pay staff and “get an electricity bill for €12,000 a month”.
Can they survive – at least till March, when the blockbusters might arrive? Or is the Rio likely to close again, like the Pantheon did?
“Eh…” he replies, with a laugh, as if to say ‘Who knows?’.
“We have to try and make it somehow, but I don’t know,” he shrugs. “We live daily. We live day by day.” Hopefully, the story will have a Hollywood ending.