By Shermain Bique-Charles
After failing to make it on the international big screen due to the Covid-19 pandemic when 20th Century Fox closed their box office, residents will be given an opportunity to watch the film, Wendy, possibly free of charge.
The fantasy big-screen offering, ‘Wendy’ – starring Antiguan youngster, Yashua Mack, as the main character, Peter Pan, was expected to hit theatres in New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC, throughout March 2020, but the pandemic put the brakes on the showing.
“The problem was we had this big red-carpet event on March 14 2020 at the Hodges Bay Club, and on March 15, the box office closed because of the pandemic and that really messed us up big time. Twentieth Century Fox just dropped us like a hot potato because they realised that with the pandemic in sight, they had no way of making back their money,” Film Commissioner Bert Kirchner told Observer.
Kirchner, one of the producers of Wendy, said that Fox was not willing to invest an additional dollar in Wendy, ending the international prospects for the film.
“Once you don’t hit the cinemas of the world, you are not doing well. That train has already left the station. That’s it for Wendy,” Kirchner said
Wendy has been available on Amazon prime and has been showing on airlines like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, but not substantial enough, according to Kirshner
“We were not the only ones affected by the pandemic. The new James Bond they realised right away, earlier than we did, and they did the right thing by waiting…,” he said.
Plans are currently underway to get the movie to be played at local cinemas for those who have not yet seen it.
“I was asked to bring the movie to Antigua, and I hope soon it will arrive here and we can show it for anybody and everybody, not necessarily to make a profit, but to show it to the public. We had a lot of Antiguan people working on the movie,” he added.
The plot centers on Wendy and her brothers who hail from a working family and have an itch for adventure. After long nights watching trains rattle by their bedroom window, the kids are whisked away by a mysterious boy named Peter, played by Yashua Mark, who lived in the Rastafarian camp in Antigua and Barbuda.
On Peter’s Island, they discover a wild new world, one without grown-ups and suspended in time.