Cineworld Group, the owner of Regal Cinemas, has confirmed that they will be suspending U.S. and U.K. operations beginning Thursday.
In a statement, the company said, "In response to an increasingly challenging theatrical landscape and sustained key market closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cineworld confirms that it will be temporarily suspending operations at all of its 536 Regal theatres in the U.S. and its 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse theaters in the U.K. from Thursday, 8 October 2020."
They also said, "Without these new releases, Cineworld cannot provide customers in both the U.S. and the U.K. - the company's primary markets - with the breadth of strong commercial films necessary for them to consider coming back to theaters against the backdrop of COVID-19. Cineworld's main priorities remain the safety of customers and employees, cash preservation, and cost reduction," the group said. Approximately 45,000 jobs will be affected by this closure.
Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger said, "This is not a decision we made lightly, and we did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable re-openings in all of our markets - including meeting, and often exceeding, local health and safety guidelines in our theatres and working constructively with regulators and industry bodies to restore public confidence in our industry. We are especially grateful for and proud of the hard work our employees put in to adapt our theaters to the new protocols and cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was, Cineworld will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate any future plans to resume operations in these markets at the appropriate time, when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen."
No reopening date was announced but it is being said that it may not be until 2021.
