This news is understandable, but sad and unfortunate. All United States Regal Cinemas to close, all cinemas in Ireland and the U.K as well.
UPDATE 10/4/20 @ 10:25am PT: Cineworld posted to their Twitter account to confirm they are “considering” closing but no official decision has been made yet:
Variety understands from sources that the chain will close all sites in both countries as early as this week, with staff notified ahead of Monday. Regal is the second largest domestic chain in the U.S., while Cineworld is the U.K.’s biggest cinema operator.
Cineworld to Close U.S., U.K. Cinemas In Response to James Bond Delay – Variety
Fellow Regal Unlimited customers, all we can say is guess we’ll have to wait until they reopen again. They never charged us for the monthly subscription, despite saying they would a month after reopening. Guess they decided it wasn’t worth the hassle (?).
The underlying culprit remains the pandemic, but the more immediate concern is not enough new movie content. No Black Widow, No Time To Die also delayed. Heck, movies like Greenland were bailing on theaters.
Just look at the movies in the above picture being offered. Hocus Pocus, despite the timeliness, is not going to bring moviegoers back in large numbers, Tenet attendance was cratering, The New Mutants and Infidel? Forget about it. The Empire Strikes Back is worth seeing again, but that’s it. I saw they had Akira in 4K (not pictured) and was interested in seeing that. I might have to rush out to the theater tomorrow and catch it while I still can.
Guess until further notice we won’t be seeing any more new movies at the theater. Nothing else is open to even allow us to in our area. We just went through this for over 5 months. Hopefully, this time around won’t be as long. The reality is this isn’t totally shocking after Black Widow and No Time To Die bailed.
It’s hard to imagine another movie theater year worse than 2020. Prepare for more movie delays …
Movies, Movies, Movies 
And yet it’s been a decent year for films, if you include streaming. I guess we just have to be patient and accept that we’re part of a bigger, worldwide problem. I just hope that we won’t lose the cinema habit forever…
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Tenet still has made almost (or over by now) $300 million. I think that’s enough worldwide commitment to show that moviegoers, especially in this environment, are still interested in cinema.
The longer this goes, however, to your point, some amount will find other entertainment interests.
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I can’t help feeling that we’ve known since March that a second wave would hit, and while those dependent on blockbusters must close without product, it’s a great opportunity to give cinemgoers a chance to see new, classic and less-known films…
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Yeah, so many good classic films that could have been spotlighted. Hocus Pocus, really? How about a Halloween or Universal monster marathon? Missed opportunities everywhere. It’s like the theaters are saying, “we can’t do this without $200+ million budget movies” — The Invisible Man is one of the best movies in 2020 we’ve seen in theaters this year. That was made for a pittance of what most movies cost these days.
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Right, and when we had blockbusters, we complained they were dumb and too similar. Why not show anything that draws a crowd? Live sports at $10 a ticket? If capacity is small, make private hires easy…show some of the backlog of unreleased films, let Apple Netflix and Amazon pay to showcase their own films? But in the six months of planning, they’ve come up with less than nothing…reliance on an outdated business plan should not be an option…
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Yeah, too much of the old guard. Time for the new boss. They need to listen to that song from The Who 🙂 There are creative ideas out there, it’s shameful that they are in the blame game instead.
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Angling for bail-outs like the airlines, perhaps…
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