As Coronavirus Shuts Down Hollywood, What Happens Now?
As of yesterday, Hollywood is basically closed for business, as productions shut down taking precautions to stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Most dramas and comedies currently filming have stopped. Live shows, such as ‘Ellen’, ‘Real Time’, ‘Last Week Tonight’, and the network late-night chat shows, such as ‘Jimmy Fallon’ and ‘James Corden’, had originally planned on moving ahead without audiences but now will suspend production entirely. The question is, what happens now?
Not that there is ever a good time for a pandemic, but the timing of this is particularly bad for the US networks. March/April is the period when most networks are in the process of shooting pilots for the May Upfronts. If you have been following this site for a while, you will know this is the point where the US broadcasters announce all the renewals, cancellations, and new series coming to our tv screens over the next 12 months. With production suspected across the board, they are now having to re-think their approach.
Firstly, the big Upfront announcements, which are usually big glitzy theatre events, are all being shifted online. Exact details of how this will work vary from network to network, but the question does remain about what they will actually be able to show if they haven’t been able to film anything…
The next issue is the pilots themselves. There are 55 pilots currently ordered for this season, and currently, only 1 has completed filming – the Chuck Lorre comedy ‘B Positive’ starring ‘Silicon Valley’s’ Thomas Middleditch. The other 54 were all at various stages of either filming or pre-production. Out of those, only 2 – Fox comedy ‘This Country’ starring Seann William Scott, and ‘The Lost Boys‘ pilot for The CW – intend to continue their shoots. For the remaining 52 shows, there are a few possibilities.
The best outcome for a potential new show is that the network forgoes the pilot and hands it a straight-to-series order based on the scripts and production done so far. The second possible outcome is that they push the projects until the pilots can be films… but at the moment, we don’t know when that will be. Depending on how long the shutdown lasts, we could see some shows either getting shorter orders or being bumped into the next development cycle. The third and most drastic option is some pilots are dropped entirely, although that is only likely to happen if the shutdown lasts for a few months.
For shows which had already been given straight-to-series orders, such as The CW’s ‘Superman & Lois‘, the Jared Padalecki fronted ‘Walker‘, David E. Kelley’s ‘The Big Sky’ (ABC) and ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ (CBS), and Mayim Bailik’s ‘Call Me Kat‘ (FOX) based on UK’s ‘Miranda’, they would usually have filmed their pilot episode during this period, followed by a break before moving into full production. Most of these will now just run into full production when filming begins again.
But what about drama and comedy series which are currently on the air? This is could be a massive headache for the networks. You may not realise it, but many of these dramas currently broadcasting in the US are still filming. For example, ‘Supernatural’, which is not only coming to a season end, but a series end, has not yet completed filming on the finale… This delay could mean the very final episode ends up airing much later than the rest of the season. The same goes for the Arrowverse shows and ‘Riverdale’, all of which have shut down production. We could be in for either the seasons ending earlier than intended or shows airing with large gaps between the broadcasts and returning at odd times. Again, this all depends on the length of the shutdown.
One positive to come out of all this is for the “bubble” shows – i.e. shows struggling in the ratings which had a 50/50 chance of getting renewed. With all the issues getting new pilots on air, we could see shows which would previously have been axed by the networks stick around for a bit longer. It’s going to be much easier and faster to get out new episodes of series which are already up and running to continue than to set up a new show from scratch.
On the film side of things, a number of movies have had their release postponed, such as ‘Fast and Furious 9’, ‘A Quiet Place II’, and the (seemingly cursed) ‘New Mutants’. For those of you stuck at home and needing to entertain the kids, there is some good news. Disney has shifted the streaming release of ‘Frozen II’ forward by 3 months to Tuesday, 17th March 2020, meaning it will be available on Disney+ when the service launches on the 24th March 2020 in the UK (see the full launch line up here).
Whatever happens, we’re in for an… interesting… few months when it comes to tv news. Moving forward, expect possible big gaps in broadcasts, or shows ending without finales. As always, we’ll keep you updated as we hear more.
