AMC now targeting July 30 reopening due to Tenet and Mulan delays, Regal staying July 10 course

This makes sense — and yet it sort of doesn’t.

The problem with theaters continuing to wait to reopen until they have new movies is waiting too long, not testing the moviegoer marketplace in current times with safety protocols in place. Wait too long, not enough screens are open, this spooks the studios who, in turn, delay their movies further, thus giving the theaters less new movies to show.

This perpetuates a cycle that will be difficult to break as long as theaters continue to stay closed. The sooner they open, they start testing the market with their enhanced safety protocols and then they’re ready and customers are programmed by the time Tenet, Mulan and other new titles hit. It makes sense.

As of this writing, assuming it’s safe and legal to do so of course, Regal Cinema is standing by their reopening date plans (see: Regal Cinemas Announces Classic Movie Screenings Starting July 10 (IF they reopen): Rocky, Jaws, The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight, Jurassic Park and more), but AMC announced they are pushing back their reopening plans by a couple more weeks.

On Monday, the largest theater chain in the U.S., said it would now begin its phased reopening of theaters on July 30. Previously, the company had planned on starting to reopen theaters in mid-July in time for the releases of “Tenet” and “Mulan.” 

AMC shifts reopening to July 30 as Hollywood pushes back blockbusters

As stated here before, we don’t personally care when AMC reopens in our area, because we are Regal Unlimited Pass customers and watch the vast majority of movies in Regal Cinemas in our area.

These are the theaters we’ll be watching movies at again soon, hopefully. And, yes, we’ll wear masks, as they are now required everywhere in Washington State in public. Don’t know about you, but I’m more used to wearing a mask. No, I don’t like wearing them, but I’ve been wearing one literally for months now, so it’s become conditioned behavior. When health officials say it is safe to no longer wear one, I happily go without, but I’m not going to let wearing a mask spoil going out in public and to the movies (see: Will You Watch More or Less Movies in Theaters That Require Wearing a Mask?)

Regal Cinemas is a mere 11 days from this post, and yet no movie times are showing yet. I’m curious when presales will become available? I mean, you’d think the next few days if they’re opening in 11 days, certainly not like the night before, right? Yes/no?

I keep reading about part of the safety is not having cash transactions and buying tickets online … .but yet we’re nearing a week before theaters reopen and still can’t buy tickets yet. I realize they are probably waiting until the last possible moment to reopen, but it seems counter to planning and safety to not give some amount of time in advance of the reopening for ticket presales.

Then again, maybe the vast majority of theater ticket purchases are on site? Admittedly, that’s how we prefer to do it, even though we can use the app in our phones and pay like 50 cents or something for the “convenience” of a presale. I wonder if those convenience fees will be waived in light of this being the primary way to buy movie tickets?

So many questions and so few answers. We’ll stay on top of it. Feel free to use the comments to share what your movie theater reopening experience is like.