Cinemas in Europe_map

The European film industry has not been spared either. The over 9 000 cinema sites across the EU (see Figure 1 below) started shutting down in mid-March, only to augment the shockwaves rippling across the entire value chain as a result of the travel bans and multiple film and TV shoot postponements. Recently suspended shoots in Europe include the BBC series ‘Peaky Blinders’, ‘The Crown’ (filming in Andorra), ‘Mission Impossible 7’ (shooting in Italy), ‘The Last Duel’ (rolling in Ireland), ‘Envole-moi’, Coda’ and ‘Les Tuches’ in France, ‘La Caza,’ ‘El Internado,’ and ‘La que se avecina’ (in Spain). For now, the fate of cinema’s most profitable months remains unknown, given the box office damage the pandemic has caused. In Italy alone, one of the hardest hit EU countries, box office revenue dropped by over 1 100 % between January and March. If the coronavirus impact stretches over more months (as many reports now suggest), it could work its way up the value chain to the production of content. Should this happen, it would arguably take many months to return to the pre-crisis situation.