There are so many things in our world today that have been delayed, due to the global pandemic that has plagued us since the beginning of 2020 last year. The Blue and White have covered a variety of topics this year when it comes to Arts and Entertainment, but we have yet to solely focus on the delays of movies and games. These two entertainment industries have taken a big hit ever since the beginning of this pandemic, although gaming was able to still survive because the majority of people being able to have access to the internet while being glued to their homes for three months. However, the movie industry took the biggest hit of all with the shutdown of movie theaters and delay in actually filming the movies due to people having to be in close contact with each other.

First, let us take a look at the movie industry’s challenges that they have had to face since the beginning of last year. Movie theaters generate a lot of money for movies, but money is not the only thing that is tracked when people go to the theaters. The movie gurus keep track of ticket sales of each movie, how popular it is, how people rank the movie, and ultimately if an individual movie sells out for a certain amount of weeks. So when theaters were taken away from people worldwide, it took the anticipation of people running to the theaters to see the newest movie knowing they could comfortably watch it at home. The Blue and White heard from Devin Garcia, on how he feels about the delay of certain movie release dates due to the pandemic. He explains, “I think that it really sucks, everything we are so used to going to do has been taken away from us. Especially going to the movie theaters which is the easiest way to make plans with your friends or family when you cannot decide on other plans.” Although the theaters are still technically closed to the public coming anytime they want seven days a week, they now have it set up where you can rent out a theater for $95 to $100 so that you can bring a whole bunch of your friends or family to the theater to enjoy a movie that is new or from the past just to keep business running. Devin ended by saying, “I’ve been to one of the movie rent outs with my friends, and it just isn’t the same feeling you get from the past when you are sitting in a packed movie theater surrounded by strangers that you awkwardly connect with through a movie you both came to see.”

Next, we will look at the movies that have been delayed back from their original release date because of COVID-19. America’s favorite anticipated movie Coming 2 America featuring Eddie Murphy, has been delayed since December 18th, 2020 with the new release date being March 5th, 2021. The arrival of his return back to America since the 1980’s has been 30 years in the making, so ultimately a year push back isn’t so bad after all. The second of America’s top three anticipated movies is Godzilla vs. Kong, which had already moved its original release date November 20th, 2020 even before the pandemic. The new release date is March 26th, 2021.  Warner Bros. will stream the movie on HBO Max on the date of release. The final movie Black Widow,  featuring Scarlett Johansson,  which was pushed back one year and six days from May 1, 2020 to May 7th, 2021 . This was necessary to keep the Marvel World on track so that Captain Marvel, Thor, and Doctor Strange could follow suit in the next couple of years. 

Lastly, we hear from Adrian Myers regarding the struggles of the movie and gaming industry amid this pandemic. When asked if he thinks both industries will survive he said, “Honestly, I think that this is just a low phase for both industries, although gaming is doing significantly better due to the availability of internet and console systems all throughout the world. You have to look at it this way too, gamers like me would just love a reason to stay in the house and play video games all day and not have to worry about going out all the time in a normal world; Which is why video game creators worked so hard to push out new games and consoles during the pandemic.” Some games that have been pushed back this year are: The Outer Worlds for Nintendo Switch from March 6 to June 5, 2020, Someday You’ll Return from April 14 to May 5, 2020, Minecraft Dungeons from April to May 26, 2020 and Rackmania from May 5 to July 1, 2020. Devin expressed his thoughts on these games and he said, “I am not really a big fan of these games myself but I would occasionally play Minecraft when it does release. Though I will say that the biggest game that is anticipated to be affected greatly by the pandemic is GTA 6.”