As Coronavirus continues to spread at a rapid pace, it’s starting to have a huge impact on the movie business, with the Chinese box office basically brought to a standstill now and reports indicating that billions might be lost if things don’t turn around soon. Hollywood has already started making moves, too, with Disney pushing back the release of Mulan in China and the latest Bond flick, No Time to Die, being delayed by a full seven months.
But it’s not only the films themselves that are being affected by the virus, as Deadline brings word tonight that both Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson have now tested positive for Coronavirus. They were down in Australia working on Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley movie for Warner Bros. when they contacted the disease.
Hanks confirmed the unfortunate news on Instagram earlier today, writing:
Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.
Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks’ will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no? We’ll keep the world posted and updated.
Take care of yourselves! Hanx!
As Hanks says, there’s not much he and his wife can do right now but take things one day at a time, but this is certainly concerning to hear and we imagine it’s only a matter of time before we learn of other Hollywood talent becoming infected on film and TV sets. Hence why so many are being closed down right now.
Indeed, the COVID-19 Coronavirus is causing a global panic as it continues to spread. In fact, the virus was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization this week and has now killed over 4,000 people. And with no vaccine to speak of and no signs of things slowing down, it unfortunately looks like we’re still a long way away from moving past this.
Circling back to Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, though, and we’ll be sure to update you as soon as we hear more on their status. And in the meantime, we wish them a speedy recovery.
