Cineworld, the parent company of the second largest chain in the U.S., is closing all its theaters in the country, as studios keep postponing releases and audiences remain reluctant to return to the movies.
A little more than a month after movie theater chains restarted operations in the United States, some are starting to shut back down. On Monday, Cineworld, the parent company of Regal Cinemas, the second largest theater chain in the country, announced that it would temporarily close its 663 theaters in the United States and Britain this week. Late last week, MGM/Universal announced that it was delaying the release of the new James Bond film, “No Time to Die,” until next year, the latest in a slew of big-budget movies that have been moved out of 2020 by Hollywood studios. And Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” whose Labor Day weekend release was intended to herald the return of movie theaters, continues to struggle at the U.S. box office, at least in part because audiences are wary of theaters. Cineworld’s decision to close again, affecting 40,000 employees in the United States and 5,000 more in Britain, raised questions about what other chains will do if Hollywood’s release schedule remains barren. For instance, Warner Bros. is postponing releasing the remake of “Dune,” once scheduled for December, until Oct.1,2021, according to two people familiar with the studio’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been made public. Warner Bros. declined to comment. “If the studios continue postponing all their releases, the movie theaters aren’t going to be there for those postponed releases,” John Fithian, chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners, said in an interview. “They have to consider whether they want the long-term viability of the theater platform to be available to them. And I think they do since about 80 percent of the movies that were scheduled during our closed period have been postponed for future theatrical release and not taken to the home.” Mr. Fithian also pointed to the government-mandated closure of theaters in New York State, home to a crucial box office market because of its size and cultural influence, as a major reason that releases were being delayed and chains were suffering financially. Cinemark, the third largest theater operator in the country, said Monday that it would not shut its theaters. (Of its 332 theaters,264 are open.) But it did say it would consider reducing the number of days and hours they operate while it “awaits new studio content to encourage theatrical moviegoing.
