Even if by some miracle coronavirus vanishes in the next month, we’ll still be feeling the ripple effects it is having on the film and television industry. The new James Bond film won’t be out until November, Mulan is currently waiting for a new release date and the box office figures for dozens of films still coming out at this time are expected to be incredibly low.
Now, Netflix and Disney have announced that they are halting production as a precautionary measure. Work on the live action version of The Little Mermaid has been paused. Stranger Things, Grace and Frankie and Ryan Murphy’s The Prom may all be impacted by a two week break. The big budget Lord of the Rings television show has also halted production, with no clear answers as to when they will get back to work. It’s not clear what effect this will have on release dates, but for now those in self isolation will have to rely on re-watching Friends yet again.
Will streaming services get more subscribers in quarantine?
With so many people now choosing to self isolate and practice social distancing to help stop the spread of the virus, streaming services are booming. While experts have said that in the US, the market is already nearing saturation for Netflix subscribers, in the UK the number of paying customers has been steadily rising over the past five years. Disney+ has had to cancel its European media events as a precaution, but it is still due to launch on 24 March, providing welcome relief not only to the UK, but countries such as Italy and Spain which are facing enforced lockdowns.
Pity the PAs forced to lockdown with their celebrity employers to film Covid-19 TikToks
The virus has been great for TikTok content, and celebrities are getting in on the action. Gloria Gaynor’s TikTok of her singing I Will Survive while washing her hands was making the rounds on social media. Kristen Chenoweth, known for her ability to belt out high notes, is using her TikTok almost exclusively for showing off her voice. In one video, she is going round her house, disinfecting handles and taps while disturbing every dog in her neighborhood. Spare a thought for her poor assistant who has had to film it all.
Steam has a record-breaking day as users look for activities to do while social distancing
Self isolation is the perfect time to complete those games that have been sitting in your Steam account for ages, and users know it. For the first time in the history of the platform, the number of active users went above 20 million, with just under 6.4m in-game. Steam often breaks these kinds of records, especially when new games are released, but this peak in users happened incredibly quickly without anything new of note.
Players generally stuck to their old favourites – Counter-Strike was the most popular game of the weekend as for the first time it had over 1m users playing at once. Other top games included Dota 2 with 701k users, PUBG with 515k users, and Grand Theft Auto V with 174k users. With Covid-19 showing no signs of stopping its spread across the world, it’s likely we’ll see yet more record-breaking figures, especially if the UK decides to implement lockdown procedures soon.
The over-75s will be getting free TV licences for a little longer
With elderly people set to be limited to their homes for the near future, there is a sliver of good news. Free TV licences for the over-75s were due to be scrapped on June 1, but the government has decided to push this back to August 1 in light of the coronavirus situation. Earlier this month Age UK asked for this to happen so older people wouldn’t be cut off from the world if they couldn’t afford to pay the £157.70 fee. The BBC and the government said they don’t want people to be worried about any potential change – one thing less on top of everything else that’s going on.
Maria Mellor is a writer for WIRED. She tweets from @Maria_mellor
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
