By Dylan Murphy
As movie theaters shut down across the country in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, the future of film releases for 2020 is in jeopardy. Some of the largest movie theater chains like AMC and Regal have closed in all US locations, following the state and national guidelines meant to prevent the spread of the virus. To avoid a financial disaster, several production studios looked to alternatives to showing their films in theaters, such as on-demand, home release, or moving over to a streaming service. Universal Studios was one of the first to make this decision, starting the trend. Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon have all increased in popularity due to more people being stuck at home and bored. Even companies as large and influential as Pixar have followed this trend, with Disney’s newest animated film ‘Onward’ moving over to Disney Plus last March. As more studios become desperate, streaming services receive more money, more attention, and best of all, legitimization. Now, streaming is beginning to be seen as a close-to-equal option to traditional movie theaters. This was an outcome that many TV networks feared, that streaming would effectively replace traditional forms of media. While something as drastic as that is unlikely in the years to come, the influence of the pandemic has certainly advanced the process.
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