After the release of its first feature film at the beginning of March, things were looking rosy for new studio Bad Blood Films and co-founder Mark Kenna.

But the coronavirus outbreak meant debut horror release Sacrilege – which enjoyed a red-carpet premiere in Leicester Square – didn’t get its full run in the cinema.

Despite the disappointment Mark, who lives in North Swindon, and sidekick David Creed are trying to focus on the positives.

Cineworld allowed the studio to break its 16-week window – the length of time agreed by a cinema where a film has to wait before being released elsewhere.

Mark said: “The movie was never going to be a box-office smash, it was really just a proof of concept, but we aimed for cinema because that’s where independent films should be.

“Major studios have been pulling their films from cinemas and making them available on demand and it was tempting for us but we didn’t want to ruin our relationship with Cineworld and break that 16-week agreement.

“But Cineworld were understanding and they were happy to make the exception. It’s amazing, we have this opportunity now to get the movie out there.

“We have a fighting chance to continue and work on other projects.”

The studio is hoping the film will be available on demand soon and Mark is already in discussions with distributors.

“It was good news from Cineworld,” he added. “It allows us to move forward with this movie. The wait would have been detrimental.

“We want to make the most of this first film. We now have a product and 15 more in development."

Mark said the pandemic had put future plans on hold but offered the chance for reflection.

He said: "We would like to shoot our next film, Ripper’s Ghost, by the end of the summer but that depends on the coronavirus, there could still be strict measures in place then.

“We now have a reasonable time to raise the finances for that but it’s not really business as usual.

“We do have time to reflect and analyse what we did well and what we did poorly on Sacrilege and we’re looking at how we want to move forward.

“There’s not really any downtime but there is that breathing space to make sure we learn.”