Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal breaks down how the $2 trillion stimulus bill will help aid struggling theater owners as the global box office suffers amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

- Meantime, a lot of questions being asked about how that $2 trillion stimulus bill will be helping the hardest-hit sectors as more and more people stay home. One of those sectors is, of course, the theater industry, seeing sales decline as people do not want to be watching movies right now. For more on that in our "Fame and Fortune" segment, we bring in Alexandra Canal. And Allie, what are we seeing in terms of the way that this could help out hard-hit theaters?

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah. So this $2 trillion stimulus package is going to greatly help out these theaters. If we take a look at what is included in this, there is a $454-billion loan guarantee fund. And this is going to help struggling businesses pay their fixed costs at a time when no revenue is coming in. They have also expanded small business administration programs. And they consider a small business any corporation that has 500 employees or less, and that's the majority of theaters and cinemas throughout the United States.

So they will have access to this loan guarantee fund in addition to being eligible for loan forgiveness. And we know how much of a relief that will be for these bigger corporations. And then if you look on the employee side, they've rapidly been expanding unemployment benefits. And that includes loosening restrictions when it comes to part-time employees. Now, this is crucial for Hollywood and the entertainment sector because a majority of their workers are part-time, are freelance. Currently, over 150,000 theater workers have been laid off or furloughed as a result of this pandemic.

And just to illustrate how deep this goes, AMC is one of the largest theater chains in the United States, and they have actually had to furlough their CEO. So it's certainly not a good time in the industry right now. But the National Association of Theater Owners did come out and say this bill is a great step forward, and it's going to instill that confidence for these owners that when their cinemas do reopen eventually, they will be fully functional and operational.

- Yeah, it's kind of a-- I don't know-- just a random move. And it's something that-- I mean, it just shows what kind of times we're in right now. Furloughing the CEO a pretty bold move there. But Allie, when we look at the numbers in China-- because we've been talking about the rebound and what could happen on the other side of this-- what have you seen there? Because they kind of kicked everything off. We saw the delay in the new Bond movie, that getting pushed back here in the US. But it did get released in China, right? And how are we seeing the rebound?

ALEXANDRA CANAL: So China-- things are starting to slowly return to normal. Businesses are opening. Citizens are starting to travel again, and they are reopening some theaters. About 600 to 700 theaters are going to reopen. And in the coming days and weeks, they have a plan on how they're going to try and get people to leave their homes and go to the theater.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, they are going to rely on blockbusters from the past. And they will be rereleasing all four "Avengers" titles along with "Avatar," "Inception," "Interstellar." These are all movies that did very well in China. And they're hoping that this is going to convince people to leave their homes and participate in the economy again.

But it's interesting to look at China and the struggles and the problems that they're facing because it sort of foreshadows what the US is going to have to deal with when the time comes. Because right now, there's a big question about whether or not people really want to be going to the movies right now. There's still this fear and unknown as the pandemic continues to rage throughout the world.

So if people aren't going to the theaters, these big production houses, they're not going to want to release their blockbuster film. So what China is experiencing is this bottleneck issue. And that's certainly something that the US and other markets are going to have to deal with moving forward. But right now, the focus is just on the stimulus bill and just hoping that these businesses can survive and that when we come out on the other side of this, we'll have a sense of normalcy, although I do think the industry could be changed forever because of this.

- Yeah, that's just the crazy thing too. I mean, when we did see "No Time to Die," the 007 premiere canceled in China, a lot of people were thinking that it would be just a problem over there. But now, as we've seen it here, as we highlighted last week, Foursquare updating their numbers in terms of visits to theaters, down 55% nationally over the last months. I mean, that's a serious hit.

And as we've discussed, Allie, it's not the fact that you're going to see people come back and say, oh, I didn't go to a movie in March, so now I need to go to three movies in April if they actually do get reopened, because that's not necessarily how consumers work.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Exactly. And I think we're seeing Hollywood starting to have to embrace the changes that have been coming in the coming-- in the past few years, and that includes on-demand offerings. That includes streaming.

We've seen a lot of these movies just go directly on demand, sometimes even bypassing that theatrical release date, as well as others just really shortening that theatrical run in order to just try and provide some entertainment to these consumers and to get some revenue out of it. But these are unprecedented times, and things are certainly going to have to change in Hollywood. But it's a creative industry, and all these industries are having to adapt to this pandemic.

- All right. Alexandra Canal bringing us the latest on the entertainment front there.