With news that major summer blockbusters like F9 and Black Widow have been delayed, it's looking like there really won't be much of a summer movie season as far as blockbusters are concerned. Even the President, who previously tried to downplay the effect of coronavirus, admitted that our change in lifestyle could last until at least July or August. Assuming this optimistic outlook holds, that's pretty much the summer gone and studios like Universal are already pivoting to which titles they can release through VOD.

The thing about major blockbusters is that they rely on international box office. It's not enough for Disney to just shuffle a movie like Black Widow to Disney+ when the streaming service isn't in enough territories yet and the risk of piracy is too high to let such an expensive title out into the world. Furthermore, you need to think of all the ancillary revenue streams that are impacted by a pandemic and global recession. Black Widow doesn't just rely on box office. It relies on people buying Black Widow merchandise and driving people to Disney theme parks (which are currently closed). People are losing their jobs, tightening their spending, and staying at home. Even if you did release Black Widow on streaming, you're minimizing its potential revenue by missing out on the revenue streams a title like that typically generates.

Look across the summer movie landscape and you'll see titles that are in a similar situation: Artemis Fowl, Wonder Woman 1984, Soul, Top Gun: Maverick, In the Heights, Free Guy, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Tenet, Jungle Cruise, Morbius, Peter Rabbit 2, and Bill & Ted Face the Music are all movies that are arguably supposed to be viewed with an audience, on a big screen, and have some kind of franchise/merchandising potential. Do you really think Christopher Nolan is out here saying, "Yes, please, forget showing my movie in IMAX; just release it so that people's first experience of it can be on their iPhone."

Also, keep in mind that July/August is an optimistic outlook. Movie studios treat these pictures as international releases because the international box office is essential to how these pictures perform. It's not enough just to have a film perform well at the U.S. box office. You need to have it perform around the world, and every country that's in lockdown right now is a country where people aren't coming to see your movie. That's not to mention that in the United States you have different states dealing with coronavirus at different rates and with different methods. Some state governors are dealing with coronavirus as the serious public health concern that it is, and others are telling their constituents to dine at Bob Evans. But movie studios need moviegoers in California and West Virginia and every other state to come see their latest blockbuster because you're not just losing audience members; you're losing those ancillary revenue streams they generate when they don't see a movie.

With no vaccine on the horizon and the required testing and supply chains likely forcing a vaccine into 2021, the lack of theatrical distribution could extend into the next year. Movie studios will pick and choose which titles are worth VOD. Universal, for example, wisely decided that if parents are stuck at home with kids, they may as well release Trolls: World Tour to VOD on day-and-date, and I wouldn't be surprised if other studios followed suit with smaller titles like Greyhound, Scoob!, and Irresistible.

Ultimately, with theaters shut down for the foreseeable future, the machine that keeps blockbusters moving has been derailed and will need time to get back up and running. This means restarting marketing campaigns to get people on board with new release dates, and waiting for audience members worldwide to get comfortable with returning to theaters. That's not to mention that these tentpoles usually have VFX workers toiling away until the last possible moment, and if those VFX workers are stuck at home, these movies are incomplete. This is going to take months, not weeks to occur, and there's no reason to think it could be settled as soon as July or August. Obviously, we hope this situation will be resolved as quickly as possible so people can get back to work and back to their lives, but for now, when it comes to blockbuster movies, you're probably going to have to wait past this summer to see the latest adventures of Black Widow or the Minions.