Despite Omicron, Film Studios Make a Risky Bet on Theaters
Potential blockbusters such as sequels Avatar 2 and Top Gun: Maverick will show whether Americans are ready to go out to the movies again.
Fans of action director Michael Bay’s movies will be able to get their fix in April, when Universal Pictures releases Ambulance, a bank-heist thriller with plenty of police helicopter chases, small-arms fire, and explosions. The film is slated to make its debut exclusively in theaters—a strategy many studios had eschewed during the pandemic. Yet even with omicron raging, Hollywood is tiptoeing back toward normal in 2022.
“Theaters have weathered many, many storms throughout history,” says Bradley Fischer, one of Ambulance’s producers. The extinction of cinemas, he adds, “has been predicted and proven false again and again.”