Coronavirus Prompts CBS to Bring Back Sunday Night Movies
It’s not just movies that were due out in the theaters that are now closed that are affected by coronavirus; the pandemic has had a huge impact on upcoming productions in both film and television. Many shows were still shooting the final episodes of their current seasons when the virus began shutting down sets all over the world. A lot of these shows never got to finish out those last couple of episodes, leaving networks with holes in their schedule that need filling.
TVLine reports that one of those networks, CBS, will return to an old TV tradition to cover those gaps: Sunday night movies. While the concept is basically nonexistent today — there’s typically little need thanks to cable, home video, and streaming — when Olds like me were Youngs Sunday night movies were a weekly routine on many channels. (I particularly remember watching a lot on ABC, where they were shown under the banner of The Wonderful World of Disney.)
CBS’ lineup has some very big titles — including one that was recently featured in our new column about quarantine viewing. Here’s what’s been announced so far, via TV Line:
- May 3: Raiders of the Lost Ark
- May 10: Forrest Gump
- May 17: Mission: Impossible
- May 24: Titanic
- May 31: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
This lineup will cover the unceremonious end of CBS’s typical Sunday night lineup’s 2019-2020 season, including God Friended, NCIS: Los Angeles, and NCIS: New Orleans. But the longer the pandemic drags on, the longer these movies could presumably go — and the more other networks may join in on the trend. (ESPN has already been showing sports movies due to their lack of live sports.) We’re missing new movies right now, but it’s kind of nice to see the classics getting renewed attention.
Gallery — Great Movies That Became Horrible Franchises: