This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 2, 2020 - November 8, 2020

THE Covid-19 pandemic disrupted content production at Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd but its group CEO Henry Tan says there is “no concern” of it running out of content for “at least one to two years” given that content purchases increased “substantially” before the pandemic-induced widespread lockdowns across the globe.

Production work has also largely resumed at Astro, he adds, with the necessary standard operating procedures in place. Global video streaming giant Netflix also recently downplayed concerns over its pipeline of original content running dry amid the pandemic, assuring investors that its content pipeline remains “healthy” despite the delays in Hollywood and that its production work in South Korea and isolated sets in Iceland never really stopped. Some analysts also saw a window for Netflix to acquire films that do not get theatrical releases.

Like their peers in many parts of the world, people in the Malaysian creative content scene are among those hardest hit by the need for social distancing to curb the ongoing pandemic.

During these tough times, though, the Astro First pay-per-view channel offers an alternative monetisation avenue for local filmmakers who are able to keep production costs down, Tan says, noting that Astro First has seen a “sizeable” jump in the screening of local movies this year.

A local production costing “below RM1 million” to produce has a good chance of recouping its investment and even making substantial profit, going by what was seen during movement restrictions, Tan says. “It’s perhaps not for big projects, but an avenue for local filmmakers to generate some income during this time to sustain themselves until the industry sees better days.”

Jebat, Syif Malam Raya, Manap Karaoke and Keluarga Iskandar The Movie were among local productions that were broadcasted directly to homes — bypassing theatrical releases — as cinemas were shuttered and more people chose to avoid crowds.

Tan, who declined to reveal how The Garden of Evening Mists — Malaysia’s most expensive local production to date (believed to be RM20 million), which Astro co-funded with HBO Asia and received filming rebate  from Finas (National Film Development Corporation Malaysia) — did at the box office, would only say Astro continues to support the local content production as well as the creative content community. “It was a project for which we can fly the Malaysian flag with pride,” Tan says, referring to the production quality of the film adapted from a critically acclaimed novel written by Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng.

When speaking of the need for people in the local content industry to harness new platforms, the Astro First platform was specifically mentioned by Nizam Abd Razak, CEO and co-founder of Cyberjaya-based Animonsta Studios Sdn Bhd, which produced the BoBoiBoy superhero animated adventure series. He told participants at an online forum on Oct 26 that he had “wondered if [Animonsta] should keep producing movies” given that many cinemas are struggling due to the pandemic.

With some movies that bypass the theatre to premier on Astro First being able to “get RM1 million to RM4 million within as little as four days … I see hope”, Nizam said during the online forum — broadcasted over Facebook Live — which was co-organised by the United Nations, Ministry of Communications and Multimedia and MyCreative Ventures to mark Malaysia’s adoption of the UN’s International Year on Creative Economy For Sustainable Development 2021. BoBoiBoy: The Movie 2, which was co-produced by Animonsta with Astro Shaw, reportedly grossed over RM27.7 million in local theatres in just 26 days in 2019.

There is also an alternative in the Astro Best channels for international movies, but making as much returns without a theatrical release is harder given that the production cost for overseas movies are a lot higher than that of local production, Tan says, noting that many large Hollywood studios have chosen to postpone major film releases to next year.

The makers of the 25th James Bond film and the last starring Daniel Craig as Secret Agent 007 decided it was No Time to Die and postponed yet again the theatrical release of what is reportedly the most expensive James Bond film made to date, at £200 million (RM1.08 billion), from November 2020 to April 2021 — at the earliest.

Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan’s time-travelling sci-fi movie Tenet, which hit the cinemas in late August after months of delay and deliberation, reportedly only grossed more than £235 million after six weeks — barely 50% above the film’s budget of £154 million, a number that some see as not bad given the pandemic while others reckon it “thoroughly spooked the industry that no studio is ready to risk offering up one of its prize properties as a safer bet”, according to a report in The Guardian in early October.

US theatre market leader, AMC Theaters, which is owned by China’s Wanda Cinemas — the world’s largest cinema chain — warned investors in October that it could run out of cash by year-end. The same month, Cineworld, the world’s second-largest cinema chain, said it was suspending operations at all its US and UK theatres.

In Malaysia, local cinema operators — which had to shut in mid-March when the Movement Control Order (MCO) was imposed and were only allowed to re-open at half capacity on July 1 — are also seeing red. The industry suffered a 55% drop in sales in the first three months of the Covid-19 outbreak and zero sales in the following three months owing to the MCO, according to a Bernama report dated Aug 7 that quoted MBO Cinemas chief operating officer Cheah Chun Wai.

Malaysia’s third-largest cinema chain operator, MBO Cinemas or MCAT Box Office Sdn Bhd, which only had four out of its 27 locations nationwide open, had opted for voluntary liquidation on Oct 14.

Incidentally, on the same day, cinemas in the Klang Valley had to stop screening again following the reinstatement of the Conditional MCO (CMCO), which currently runs up to Nov 9, if not extended again. That will further deepen losses, with Klang Valley cinemas accounting for about 60% of box office receipts and cinema footprint, according to a report in The Sun dated Oct 20, which cited TGV sales and marketing general manager Mohit Bhargava.

Calling 2020 and 2021 a disaster, the Malaysian Film Producers Association (MFPA) president Pansha Charam told The Sun in the same report that local movie producers should “change their strategy to survive” until there is a vaccine, implying that they should “look towards television channels where viewership has picked up and over-the-top [streaming] platforms” for potential monetisation.

Even before the CMCO, analysts at UOB Kay Hian Research had told clients in a June report that they did not expect Golden Screen Cinemas Sdn Bhd (GSC) — PPB Group Bhd’s film arm and Malaysia’s largest film exhibitor and distributor — to return to the black until at least the fourth quarter of this year.

Noting that cinema admissions had plunged 90% year-on-year, the Malaysian Association of Film Exhibitors (MAFE) said in a statement dated Oct 30 that its members had decided to progressively suspend movie screenings and cinema operations nationwide from November until the pandemic situation improves.

“The Malaysian cinema industry is larger than MAFE. It includes all the actors, the film crews, the promoters, and everyone who had a hand in making the movies possible. The success of homegrown movies such as Munafik, Hantu Kak Limah, Ejen Ali: The Movie and BoBoiBoy The Movie 2, would not have been possible without Malaysian cinemas as a platform,” the statement read, noting that cinema operators had appealed for government assistance and rental support as the industry grapples with the ongoing crisis.

“If cinema businesses fail, it stands to destabilise the entire entertainment ecosystem. Cinemas will have to rely on the support and goodwill of the Malaysian government, landlords, film studios and the cinema-going-public to pull through these difficult times. The coming months will be critical to the continuance of the Malaysian cinema industry. However, the industry remains optimistic that post-Covid-19, cinema attendances will rebound stronger than ever as movie-going will remain a top entertainment choice for Malaysians,” the statement read.    

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