Curtain Call: Regal Cinemas Closing

by Olivia Edinger

On Thursday, October 8 all regal cinemas closed. 536 theaters and 7,076 screens had shut their theaters in the United States for the second time during the covid 19 pandemic.

Cineworld , Regal cinemas parent company is closing 127 theaters in the UK as well. Over 45,000 people will be losing their jobs and there is no timeline for reopening. However, AMC and Cinemark will not be following the lead of Regal cinemas. It’s been confirmed around 80% of their theaters will be staying open despite Regals decision. AMC lost $2.7 billion and Cinemark lost $230 million.

Some reasons the companies lost money were the waste of food when closed, and the rent. Some theaters bought supplies to stock up concessions and never reopened so the new stock of food they bought was just sitting in the theaters and went to waste. Rent was also a big problem during the pandemic since the companies were not making money. Most companies did not own the buildings they showed the movies in so rent was a big part. The companies were hopeful of reopening so they held onto the rent payments, which kept adding up while the theaters were not mailing any money.

Film studios also stopped the release of movies because of the fear of not making revenue.So as more and more movies were pushing back dates of release more theatres started to fall under. The movie Tenet was released and made money but not enough to cover everything for theaters to be somewhat financially stable again. Warner Brothers decided not to release Wonder Woman and pushed the release date Christmas but now that date is unsure.

The film industry is struggling and if new movies are not released more companies and theaters are expected to go under. If a vaccine isn’t made near in the future than more people are not going to go to the theaters. So for film's sake a vaccine will hopefully be made.