Regal Suspends Operations Temporarily Across All 536 Theatres Including in LA

Screens go dark across the company's network starting Thursday, Oct. 8.

Cineworld, the parent company of Regal, Monday announced that it will be temporarily suspending operations at all of its 536 Regal theatres in the U.S., as of Thursday, October 8, 2020, in response to an “increasingly challenging theatrical landscape and sustained key market closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Sign up now to get our Daily Breaking News Alerts

Opt out at anytime

“This is not a decision we made lightly, and we did everything in our power to support a safe and sustainable reopening in the U.S. — from putting in place robust health and safety measures at our theatres to joining our industry in making a collective commitment to the CinemaSafe protocols to reaching out to state and local officials to educate them on these initiatives,” Mooky Greidinger, CEO of Cineworld, said in a prepared statement. “We are especially grateful for and proud of the hard work our employees put in to adapt our theatres to the new protocols and cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was.”

As major U.S. markets, mainly New York, remained closed and without guidance on reopening timing, studios have been reluctant to release its pipeline of new films, according to Monday’s press release. In turn, without these new releases, Cineworld “cannot provide customers in both the U.S. and U.K. — the company’s primary markets — with the breadth of strong commercial films necessary for them to consider coming back to theaters against the backdrop of COVID-19.” These closures will impact approximately 40,000 employees across the U.S.

“Despite our work, positive feedback from our customers and the fact that there has been no evidence to date linking any COVID cases with cinemas, we have not been given a route to reopen in New York, although other indoor activities — like indoor dining, bowling and casinos were already allowed,” Greidinger said. The prolonged closures have had a detrimental impact on the release slate for the rest of the year, and, in turn, our ability to supply our customers with the lineup of blockbusters they’ve come to expect from us. As such, it is simply impossible to continue operations in our primary markets.”

A reopening timeline has not yet been set but Regal will “continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate any future plans to resume operations at the appropriate time, when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen.”

Caleb J. Spivak

Caleb J. Spivak

Caleb J. Spivak

Caleb J. Spivak

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
trackback
1 year ago

… [Trackback]

[…] Information to that Topic: whatnowlosangeles.com/regal-suspends-operations-temporarily-across-all-536-theatres-including-in-la/ […]

trackback

… [Trackback]

[…] Read More on to that Topic: whatnowlosangeles.com/regal-suspends-operations-temporarily-across-all-536-theatres-including-in-la/ […]

Related Posts

Pin It on Pinterest