Hollywood is slowly returning to work after the pandemic devastated film and TV production this year, the New York Post reported. According to FilmLA, a nonprofit group that tracks production in Tinseltown, more sitcoms, reality shows and movies were shooting in Hollywood in October than in previous months. The group said over the last 20 weeks, it has received roughly 2,500 film permit applications for nearly 2,000 movie and TV projects. Monthly applications to shoot rose 24 percent in October to 880 permits. Overall, shooting is still under 47 percent of what analysts would expect under normal filming conditions. Still, the rise marks a stabilization in filming activity. The group also called out feature films that are shooting locally. FilmLA president Paul Audley touted the slow return of shooting in Hollywood, adding that safety is paramount in continuing to make improvements. “To push past our current production plateau with full community support, we need to continue to focus on keeping our workplaces safe,” he said.
When COVID-19 shut down economies around the world last spring, it also stopped all those trips business executives make to customers, suppliers, conventions, trade shows, and their company offices, according to commentary published by Forbes. Almost overnight, millions of people globally began working from home and using video-conferencing technology to transport themselves to meetings and negotiate deals. Eight months later, the situation hasn’t changed dramatically when it comes to business travel. And, there’s mounting evidence that the category — the most profitable for airlines and other hospitality companies — may never fully reconstitute itself. At the very least, business travel is anticipated to remain depressed through 2023. The biggest disruption is expected in the internal travel category that makes up 40 percent of business travel. This includes trips between offices within a company or to conventions and trade shows. Long-term contraction may amount to as much as 10% in business travel overall as employers and employees become increasingly comfortable with doing business over video-conferencing apps. Another factor holding down business travel is the reluctance to fly internationally and recent lockdowns in major cities in Europe. In Oliver Wyman’s second Traveler Sentiment Survey, 43 percent of the more than 2,500 business travelers questioned said they expected to travel less for business even after COVID subsides. That response was 16 percentage points higher than the 27 percent who told the survey in May they expected to travel less — a clearly troubling increase from the point of view of anyone who depends on that revenue. Respondents cited two reasons for the anticipated change in behavior: 34 percent had safety and health concerns, and 31 percent said teleconferencing and remote working arrangements were as effective as being in the office and traveling. While health anxieties over travel would presumably dissipate with the development and dissemination of a vaccine, the respondents’ desire to work from home and use video conferencing suggest that a downturn in business travel may persist long after COVID is conquered.
Beverage companies are being hit hard by a national aluminum can shortage — and that's not the only reason why the beer scene in the U.S. may soon be impacted by shortages of popular brands, Eat This, Not That reported. In a blow to stateside beer enthusiasts, Shelton Brothers, a company considered to be one of America's most influential beer importers, announced that it will be permanently shutting down. The importer of European beer is being "forced into liquidation" amid insurmountable debt and will likely have all of its assets seized by Berkshire Bank. The Massachusetts-based company, which was founded by three brothers in 1996, imported beers from more than 150 of the world's best breweries. Its portfolio includes distinguished Belgian beer brands, plus hundreds of other reputable names across the globe. The company was also a distribution partner of American breweries, cideries and meaderies. This is devastating news for American craft beer drinkers, who have relied on Shelton Brothers to introduce them to some of the best beers Europe has to offer, as well as South America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. The company's authority on the beer scene was undeniable. Its annual event known as "The Festival" was routinely attended by some of the biggest breweries and beer connoisseurs in the world.
Shogo Takemoto’s family has tilled the rice fields of eastern Japan for more than 200 years. They stash their savings in an agricultural cooperative and borrow from it to help finance the farm’s day-to-day operations. But with interest rates near zero, the return on the loans is too little to keep the cooperative going. So it deposits Takemoto’s savings with Japan’s bank for farmers and fishermen, which sends the money overseas to earn a better yield. That’s how Takemoto became an indirect investor in car rental company Hertz Global Holdings Inc. before it declared bankruptcy in May, the Wall Street Journal reported. Among the owners of Hertz’s debt was Norinchukin Bank, which owned bonds backed by pieces of loans to struggling companies like Hertz. Later that month, the bank — founded nearly 100 years ago to serve the people who feed Japan — disclosed a staggering $3.7 billion unrealized loss on such bonds and said it would pause further investments. The loss, which has mostly been recouped as markets rebounded, was shocking for its size, and also because Norinchukin invested exclusively in triple-A rated bonds, which are supposed to be among the safest securities anywhere. The stumble disrupted one of Wall Street’s most lucrative trade routes — a steady flow of capital from yield-starved investors in Asia who turned to the U.S. to avoid the sting of zero interest rates at home. In doing so, they channeled their customers’ savings into a boom for loans to some of America’s riskiest corporate borrowers.
The cruise industry will extend its suspension of U.S. cruise operations through Dec. 31, an industry group that represents 95 percent of global ocean-going cruise capacity said yesterday, Reuters reported. The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) said its members will use the remainder of the year to prepare for the implementation of measures to address COVID-19 safety issues. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued a framework for a phased resumption of cruise ship operations after a no-sail order issued in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic was to expire on Saturday. Extending the suspension “will provide additional time to align the industry’s extensive preparation of health protocols with the implementation requirements under the CDC’s Framework for Conditional Sailing and Initial Phase COVID-19 Testing Requirements for Protection of Crew,” CLIA said.
Independent producers behind some of the country’s most popular movies and TV shows are turning to K Street for the first time as the coronavirus pandemic threatens to reshape the entertainment industry, <em>The Hill</em> reported. Smaller production companies like MRC Entertainment, which was behind the blockbuster film “Knives Out” and the Netflix series “Ozark,” have banded together to form the American Coalition for Independent Content Producers (ACICP). They’re seeking financial relief from Congress like the kind extended to other major industries. While the pandemic has delayed production for both big and small studios, independent companies say they desperately need Congress to pass a coronavirus relief package that has been stalled for months.
Studio Movie Grill Holdings (SMG), the theater chain where film-goers can order Sriracha chicken sliders and a Cruzan mango mojito right in the middle of the latest blockbuster, filed for bankruptcy on Friday after the Covid-19 pandemic kept audiences away, Bloomberg News reported. “We plan to use this filing to strengthen our business by reducing liabilities and reposition SMG to emerge a stronger organization built for the future as we recover from the unparalleled impact of COVID-19,” Chairman Brian Schultz said in a letter on the company’s website. The outbreak forced SMG to temporarily close all its locations earlier this year. About a third of the company’s 33 theaters are still closed, according to its website; the rest are open for business as usual, it said. Secured lenders to the Dallas-based company agreed to provide a new loan to support its restructuring, according to the letter. Studio Movie Grill has assets between $50 million and $100 million and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million, according to its chapter 11 petition.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the world’s largest cinema chain, agreed to sell as many as 15 million shares of its stock while warning investors that it may need to file for bankruptcy, leaving its equity worthless, Bloomberg News reported. AMC, contending with a liquidity crisis that threatens its ability to remain a going concern, said that the equity distribution plan might not be enough. With $417.9 million in cash on hand, the company still needs a material amount of new funding by the end of the year to stay in business, it said in a filing yesterday. If AMC is unable to raise enough cash to meet its obligations, the company said that it would file for bankruptcy or seek an out-of-court restructuring of its debts. In the event of a liquidation or bankruptcy, AMC’s shareholders would likely suffer a total loss of their investment, the company said. The company “remains in a precarious cash position with a burn rate of about $100 million per month,” Eric Handler, an analyst at MKM Partners, wrote in a note yesterday. AMC and other movie-theater owners have been trapped in a tough situation since the coronavirus pandemic forced auditoriums to close in the spring. While many locations have reopened, capacity restrictions and audience skittishness have deeply hurt revenue.
