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The lack of major theatrical film releases in the United States, brought upon by most of the studios delaying their films due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, has taken an alarming toll on the movie theater industry. While Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” was hoped to be a sign that people were ready to come back to theaters in big numbers, its underwhelming domestic box office has proven otherwise, and studios have chosen not to risk a similar fate for their other big-budget productions. With little to drive revenue, yet still so much in terms of expenses, many have wondered whether theaters were better off staying closed until there was enough confidence that they could safely be open, and just recently, one major theater chain decided that being open for the time being was not worth the effort.
On Monday October 5th, Cineworld Group, the world’s second largest movie theater company, announced a temporary closure of the hundreds of theaters it currently owns, including the Regal theaters located throughout the United States. This decision comes after it was announced by MGM that its upcoming James Bond movie “No Time to Die” would be pushed back from its previous November 2020 release to April 2021, a full year after the film’s original April 2020 date. With this delay, the only major studio films waiting to be released in the year are two animated family films, Disney/Pixar’s “Soul” and Universal/DreamWorks’ “The Croods: A New Age”. Both are currently set for a late November release, although given the ongoing pandemic (as well as the delays of the studios’ other films), it wouldn’t be too surprising to see either of these films be pushed back as well.
Interestingly, Cineworld CEO Mookie Greidinger does not put the blame of his company’s mass theater closures on the studios, but on the state of New York and its governor Andre Cuomo. In an interview with Deadline, Greidinger claims that Cuomo’s “inflexibility” in letting theaters in the state open has been a major influence in Hollywood hesitating to put its movies into theaters at this time. “The Governor allows in-restaurant dining, bowling alleys, casinos and others, but he will not allow cinemas”, Greidinger states, criticizing the New York governor for allowing other businesses to open but not theaters, despite the numerous public health measures that Cineworld and other theater owners have put into place in order to reduce spread of the Coronavirus. As Greidinger explains, “cinemas have taken huge steps and made a big investment in creating ‘CinemaSafe’ protocols and we can clearly say after operating the cinemas for over two months, that we are offering a safe environment for our customers,” although it seems even these steps are not enough to sway Cuomo into letting theaters reopen.
With such a large percentage of the movie theater industry shutting its doors until further notice, many have speculated whether or not the other major theater chains will do the same. However, at the moment, this does not appear to be the case. A day after Cineworld’s major announcement, AMC Theatres, the largest movie theater chain in the world, declared that it will not resort to shutting down its theaters again. In fact, once given the go-ahead, AMC will reopen even more of the theaters that are currently closed, hopefully in the New York and Los Angeles markets where local governments have restricted theaters from opening their doors. “We take great comfort in knowing that literally millions of moviegoers have already visited our theatres,” AMC CEO and President Adam Aron writes in a statement recently released by the company, “…our guests are telling us that our theatres have never been cleaner, and that they recognize the great effort AMC is making to keep them healthy and safe.”
The third largest theater chain in the nation, Cinemark, made a similar announcement that same day, stating that it too would keep its theaters open. What makes Cinemark’s position unique, however, is the fact that it has no theaters located in New York City and only one throughout the entire state of New York (specifically in Rochester), so the state government’s insistence on keeping theaters closed has less of an impact on Cinemark than it does on any of the other theater chains. “Cinemark’s reopening plan was designed with multiple contingencies in place to ensure we are able to be nimble and react as needed to this ever-changing environment,” a Cinemark representative states, “…we do not currently have plans to close our U.S. theatres and are continuing to align with demand, including reducing operating hours and days while we await new studio content to encourage theatrical moviegoing.”
Although the confidence that AMC and Cinemark show is admirable (and it’s understandable for them to want to keep their doors open), there’s little to suggest that remaining open will start to pay off any time soon. Assuming that “Soul” and “The Croods: A New Age” (as well as the superhero film “Wonder Woman 1984”, currently set for a Christmas release) are shown in theaters as currently planned, they will be the only major studio releases for the rest of the year, and if “Tenet” is any indication, audiences may still not yet be ready to come see them in theaters, which would make what should be bona fide successes for the studios major financial losses, piling onto the significant economic damage that the studios have dealt with over the course of the year.
If theaters are to remain open, then they will need to work with what they have in order to stay afloat. Smaller films like 101 Studios’ “The War with Grandpa” and Freestyle’s “2 Hearts” may not have gotten much attention, but hopefully they will be able to draw in enough of an audience for the time being. If not, then perhaps whatever classic films that are available to theaters will do the trick (a re-release of 1993’s “Hocus Pocus” was #2 at the box office this weekend). Still, with rising expenses and a pandemic that currently has no end in sight, the decision for Regal to close its theaters may be something the other chains might want to consider for themselves.
