Viral threat switches plot of silver screen debuts

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/03/2020 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Monday night, Cineplex announced it would be closing all its theatres and entertainment venues (including the newly opened Rec Room on Sterling Lyon Parkway) until April 2 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Landmark Cinemas, which operates the Grant Park and Towne cinemas in Winnipeg, likewise closed its doors as of last night via an announcement on the company’s website, with no reopening date given.

The closures will have immediate repercussions for a couple of Winnipeg talents. Writer-director Sean Garrity was anticipating the première of his romantic comedy I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight on Friday at the Cineplex venue Cinema City Northgate.

And Jonas Chernick, Garrity’s frequent collaborator on Winnipeg-lensed films such as My Awkward Sexual Adventure and Lucid, was set to debut James vs. His Future Self, a sci-fi comedy in which he stars but also co-wrote and produced.

That film, in which Chernick’s younger self receives a warning from his older, time-travelling iteration (played by Daniel Stern) could still be released, as it is scheduled to open across the country April 3. Chernick had been scheduled to fly into Winnipeg from his current Toronto base to attend the première.

“As of this very moment, everything remains as it was,” Chernick said. “We haven’t yet made any decisions to officially postpone or cancel the theatrical release or my visit to Winnipeg.

“Of course, every day brings new decisions and tough choices, so this could very well still change, but for now, we’re moving ahead as planned.”

The film, which also stars Frances Conroy (Joker, Six Feet Under), won Stern a best supporting actor award at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival in October. “And he’s currently nominated in the same category at the Canadian Screen Awards,” Chernick says. The film was nominated in three other categories: best original score, best original song and best original screenplay for Chernick and director Jeremy LaLonde.

“Not bad for a sci-fi comedy,” Chernick says.

“We don’t know what’s gonna happen, obviously. We were really excited about the movie opening in eight cities across Canada. That’s a wide release for a tiny, modestly budgeted Canadian film. Certainly it’s a bigger release than I’ve ever experienced in my career as a filmmaker.

“It will be disappointing if that doesn’t happen, but I have faith that everything will be rescheduled and hopefully people will get to see this in theatres as it was intended,” Chernick says. “If not, the movie is going to play on Crave in the near future, and it will have a digital release. It will find its way out to people, no matter what.”

For Garrity, Cineplex’s decision to shut down ended some emotional turmoil about premièring the film in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In the last two weeks, it got very difficult for me emotionally to try and convince people to come out to a screening when we’re not supposed to go out and do that stuff,” he says. “We were just kind of paralyzed, because it didn’t feel like morally the right thing to do but Cineplex was playing it, so where does that leave us?”

Unlike Chernick’s film, I Propose, a rom-com about a Mennonite boy and a Filipina girl, was never slated for a wide release. It was always intended to play one city at a time, with a special push towards the Filipino communities of each city.

“Starting in Winnipeg was a smart way of going about it,” Garrity says. “There was a market-by-market release plan. If we had been planning to release in numerous markets simultaneously, that would’ve been a little more trouble bringing that back to life.

Garrity already knows there is interest in the film. When he was doing a test screening at the McPhillips Street multiplex, a theatre employee checked to see how many tickets had been purchased.

“He said he had never seen advance ticket sales that high,” Garrity says. “And we got, like, 40,000 hits from the trailer. I think certain members of Winnipeg are eager to see the film. Hopefully if we can make a big enough noise when we bring it back out, everyone will know that it’s playing.”

If cinemas take a little longer than expected to open back up, Garrity and Chernick have a contingency plan, apparently.

“Jonas was telling me this sounds like a perfect time to talk about a script for the next one, seeing as how we’re all locked in our houses,” Garrity says.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing