The front page of tomorrow’s Times is announcing that Cineworld is planning to close all of its cinemas across the country as soon as this week putting all of our jobs at immediate risk. There has been no consultation with staff whatsoever. pic.twitter.com/16fKxGcNnG
— Cineworld Action Group (@cineactiongroup) October 3, 2020
Theaters are closed forever, people.
This whole thing of pretending that theaters and air travel aren’t a thing of the past is just costing a lot of money.
Hours after news surfaced Cineworld was shuttering all locations in the United Kingdom until 2021, the company has announced a similar decision for all Regal Cinemas in the United States. The latest round of closings is the company’s direct response to MGM delaying No Time to Die, a movie that was bumped from November to next April. With No Time to Die off the 2020 release slate for exhibitors, that leaves just Warner Brothers’ Dune and Wonder Woman 1984, two movies all but guaranteed to be pushed back even further should more chains choose to follow suit.
Regal is the second-largest theater chain in the United States behind AMC Theatres and as of now, it’s unclear when the company plans to reopen the locations, both stateside and abroad. The closures are expected to impact at least 5,500 employees in the United Kingdom and upwards of 28,000 employees in the United States.
According to a Variety report, the chains could be closed until next year at the earliest. The news first surfaced via an advance peek at the front page of Britain’s The Sunday Times. Cineworld Action Group, an employee group that’s partnered with Bectu to provide an employee union, commented on the matter, revealing the entire group found out about the closures through social media.
This coronavirus crisis is designed to never end. The only way you could end it now would be to stop the tests. They’re not going to stop the tests, this is just going to keep on going and going.
People need to recognize that and plan based on that instead of pretending we’re going to be watching movies in theaters next year.