When Will Hollywood Return To Normal? ‘A Quiet Place 2’ And ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Now Have New Dates

No one knows when our current situation will come to an end — and experts have emphasized that the timeline will be set not by the government, but by the virus — but at some point, the economy has to reopen. As Dr. Anthony Fauci has stated, there is a tipping point on lockdown measures in the United States.

Hollywood studios probably do not know any better than anyone else when moviegoers will be able to return to normal, but we are now seeing where they are placing their bets. AMC theaters are hoping to re-open by mid-June, while studios are starting to reschedule some of their tentpoles for late summer in anticipation of a return to normal, or at least normal enough to return to movie theaters.

Paramount Studios for its part is gambling that families will be ready to get out of their homes and return to theaters by July 31st, 2020, which is when the studio has rescheduled The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. The studio, however, is being more conservative with Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, which originally had a June release date. It’s being pushed all the way to December 23rd, knocking out an untitled Chris Pratt film, which has yet to reschedule its date.

However, I really like what Paramount is doing with A Quiet Place Part 2 by scheduling it for Labor Day weekend on September 4th. Typically, Labor Day is one of the slowest weekends of the year at the box office, but Paramount is betting that audiences will be itching to get into theaters that weekend ahead of what we all hope will be a return to school for students.

It’s worth noting that a couple of studios have not yet abandoned their earlier summer dates. Disney’s Soul is still on the docket for June 19th, while Ryan Reynolds’ still has a the 4th of July premiere date set for Free Guy. Hopefully, we will all feel free enough to get back into theaters by Independence Day. The Wonder Woman sequel, meanwhile, has been reset from June to. August 14th, as Warner Brothers also anticipates an all-clear by August.