At last we approach the Great Undelaying. Cinemas are finally reopening (17 May in the UK) and, after a year of perpetual postponement, studios are committing to putting some films in them. It has been a long wait. In some cases, too long. Most movies have a shelf life, even if their makers don’t realise it. Some will play pretty much the same even after being mothballed for more than a year, but with others it might feel as if they’ve missed their moment.
We have already had that feeling with Wonder Woman 1984. With its themes of truth and deception, and its villain being a sleazy, megalomaniac TV personality who makes undeliverable promises, it felt like a story hatched in the fever of the Trump era. The film was intended to come out last June, ahead of the US presidential election. When it was released in December, its message felt redundant.
Other fims are suffering from what we might call “unforeseen toxicity”. Had Kenneth Branagh’s all-star Death on the Nile come out last October, as originally intended, Armie Hammer would have been just another name on the poster. Six months later, things are very different. After allegations of rape and sexual assault (which he denies), he has removed himself from several projects. But it’s too late to do anything with Death on the Nile, except maybe let it die a quiet death on Disney+.
On the flipside, some movies could accidentally benefit from having held off. Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho would doubtless have been as well-received last September as it will be (hopefully) this October. In the interim, though, Anya Taylor-Joy has become a huge star thanks to The Queen’s Gambit, which can’t hurt. (Taylor-Joy’s much-delayed superhero flick The New Mutants, which finally limped out late last year, must be kicking itself). Likewise, interest in Marvel’s The Eternals (now due November) could be that bit broader now Nomadland has put its director, Chloé Zhao, on the map.
What of other long-anticipated movies? Will it matter in No Time to Die that the state-of-the-art Bond gadgetry is last year’s model? Have In the Heights and West Side Story missed the post-Hamilton wave they might have been hoping to catch? Will it be weird seeing a 16-year-old Finn Wolfhard in Ghostbusters: Afterlife when he’s pushing 19 in real life? In the broader sense, will any of these delayed movies feel truly “fresh”?
It will be a sobering realisation if the films that benefit most from the delay are the ones with the least to say about their times, but it’s still too early to predict or elect winners. Still, the enforced interruption might at least refocus the industry’s attention on whether it wants to make a quick buck or something more enduring. A hit movie can be a flash in the pan; a great movie lasts for ever.
