By Eliza Peddi

When Covid-19 shut down the world in 2020 everyone assumed that things would be back to normal in a few weeks. Now it’s 2022 and we know that wasn’t the case. Covid-19 disrupted many things, like jobs, schools, and even our personal lives. One of the more unknown things was how the movie industry was affected. Today I will be discussing how it affected release dates and overall productions. 

One of the most prevalent effects on the movie industry was change in the way movies were released. After Covid-19 made most countries go into lockdown, many movie producers needed to find a way to release what they’ve put millions of dollars into. With this task producers got creative and reached out to streaming services, most notably Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max. One of the first movies to do this was Trolls: World Tour (2020) on VOD (video on demand) and Raya and The Last Dragon (2021) on Disney+.  

But Covid-19 didn’t just change where people could see movies, it also postponed entire productions. Most productions were put on hold during filming, so no progress could be made during the Covid-19 lockdown. Some productions that faced this situation were The Prom (2020), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Rings (2021), Red Notice (2021), Luca (2021), Elvis (2022), and Uncharted (2022). 

There were more effects than what was discussed above, like how some movies were completely scrapped after losing funding. But many movies persevered and they made it through the curse of covid, giving the audience new movies and fandoms to love. While the movie industry is still in recovery almost two years later, it is bound to come back to its full glory eventually.