Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella has postponed it’s opening in London due to Coronavirus concerns. Webber released a statement from the production company about the “current global circumstances.” The production was supposed to debut at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London’s West End and run until October. Until now, there had been no theater closings like this with a large-scale event attached. But, across entertainment, the realities are shifting by the day. Movie theaters have closed in Italy, sporting events are being played with no one in the stands, and movie studios are outright moving release dates. It remains to be seen how long it will take for the world to get a timetable together for combatting this virus on a large scale.
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“The show will go on sale next week as planned, but in the current global circumstances the creative team and I feel that this later opening date is wise,” Lloyd Webber explained. “Full scale pre-rehearsals of Cinderella will take place with our leading actors, as planned, throughout this month.”
Numerous decisions have popped up in different locations in recent days. Paramount decided to postpone their schedule for Mission: Impossible 7 in Venice. James Bond’s latest adventure, No Time to Die, has been moved all the way to November because the stakes are so high. AMC Theaters decided to shutter its operations in Italy last week in response to concerns about the Coronavirus. CBS decided to put a pin in their filming of this season’s The Amazing Race due to travel issues as well.
AMC Theaters executive Adam Aron spoke to the situation in Milan last week, “entities in Milan have reopened to the public, and there’s an increasing view in Milan that there might have been an overreaction. We decided to close for a week; that’s what all the local government and medical authorities thought was the right thing to do. Milan and its environment aren’t on a quarantine or lock down. We did it to cooperate with local government as a precaution.”
Former Disney CEO Bob Iger offered his thoughts on the developing situation as well.
“All of the movie companies that are expecting to distribute movies coming up in China, obviously are impacted by this,” he told CNBC. “Again, it is hard to tell. We have a release coming out in March, Mulan, which obviously would have been of great interest to China. It will eventually get into China, at this point, we’re not sure when. Obviously, the big issue on everybody’s mind and everyone’s concern is what’s going on with this virus. And how far will it go in terms of its impact on people.”
