Cineworld, the British company that owns the chain of Regal Cinemas in the U.S., has decided to suspend operations at all 536 of its Regal theaters as of this coming Thursday. There are Regal cinemas in New Rochelle, Fishkill, Nanuet, Poughkeepsie, Mohegan Lake and 39 other locations in New York state and in Branford, Waterbury, Waterford and Pawcatuck in Connecticut.
New York movie theaters have been closed by state order since the Covid-19 shutdown began. Connecticut cinemas were allowed to reopen with restrictions on June 17.
“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.,” said Mooky Greidinger, CEO of Cineworld. He pointed out that they put into place what he described as “robust health and safety measures.”
With movie production disrupted by the pandemic and studios occasionally streaming new films on video while being slow to release them to theaters, Cineworld said it has been unable to provide a lineup of strong commercial films to pull in audiences.
“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.”
About 40,000 employees will be impacted by the suspension of operations. Regal did not indicate when it might attempt to open other than saying it would depend on key markets receiving “more concrete guidance on their reopening status” and the film studios having major releases back in the pipeline.
When it was fully operational, the Regal chain had been showing movies on 7,076 screens in its theatres located in 42 states and the District of Columbia and Guam.
