Cineworld, the parent company of American movie theater chain operator Regal Cinemas, is planning to temporarily shut down all of its U.S. and UK locations amid the lack of any new blockbuster movies. The company's chief executive officer, Mooky Gredinger, said Monday that the lack of any good movies has made it very difficult for them to attract attendees at any of their locations.
"We are now like a kind of a grocery shop that have no food to sell," Greidinger said during a CNBC interview.
Greidinger stated that the company will be temporarily shutting down more than 500 movie theaters in the United States starting Thursday. The company will also be temporarily close 127 Picturehouse and Cineworld theaters in the UK. The executive did not state when the locations would reopen, but he did not that it was better for the company to just "wait" until things get better.
"Might be a month, might be two months, until the...COVID-19 situation will be clearer. Maybe there will already be a vaccination, but at the end of the day, we must have a clear lineup of movies before we reopen," Greidinger said.
Cineworld's decision to temporarily shut down its locations comes just days after the postponed release of the latest James Bond movie. The 25th installment in the long-running movie series was originally scheduled to debut in April this year. However, the pandemic had forced production to shut down, delaying its completion. The movie's release date had to be pushed back to April 2021.
Apart from the lack of any new blockbuster movies, Greidinger said that another factor that had forced it to delay its reopening was due to the existing operating restrictions in states such as California and New York.
In California, theaters are only allowed to operate on a county-by-county basis depending on the amount of coronavirus transmission on any given day or week. As of this week, movie theaters are still not allowed to operate. In New York, movie houses are still restricted from reopening due to an uptick in new coronavirus cases.
The two states are Cineworld's largest movie markets in the United States. Greidinger noted that he really doesn't blame movie studios for opting to delay their planned releases. Without those movies, movie theaters are simply left with no other choice but to wait, he added.
