It's a tragic farce that Hollywood studios are killing cinemas like Cineworld

It goes like this: blindly seeing only what’s going on outside their swanky homes in LA and New York, where cinemas are still closed, studio bosses are convinced the rest of the world is in the same state.

The truth is very different.

In the 80% of the box-office market outside the US, cinemas have been open for months. People would love to go, if there was anything worth watching.

But the studio bosses miss all that.

Fearing flops from empty theatres, they refuse to launch blockbusters anywhere. So, the cinemas they rely on to sell their product have to close.

You couldn’t make it up.

Perhaps it should be no surprise to see such myopia in these movie moguls — the rest of the world barely features beyond stereotypes in the films they make.

But you can’t help mourn their ignorant trampling of decent cinema businesses, nor despair at their depriving audiences of fun during these rather bleak times.

There are only so many times you can watch Tenet and Bill & Ted Face the Music. Believe me.

Some will tell you the studios don’t need cinemas now they can stream direct into people’s homes.

That’s just not true.

Cinema takings on a well-marketed movie massively outperform streaming revenues.

And, theatrical releases are the most impactful and memorable marketing yet invented, boosting revenues for years after films go to the streamers.

In normal times, Hollywood likes simultaneous global releases for good reasons: it gets more bang for its marketing buck and staves off piracy.

But these are not normal times.

Universal, Warner and the rest must stop being so US-centric and start releasing films in the majority of countries that are still open.

If not, when this crisis is over, they will have killed their prime route to market. A real comedy of errors.