All Regal Theaters In US Shutting Down Alongside Some Cineworld UK Locations

Cineworld, the world's second largest theater chain and the owner of Regal theaters, is temporarily closing all of its US and UK sites. This follows the news that No Time To Die, the upcoming James Bond movie, has been delayed for a second time and will now release in April 2021.

As reported by Variety, Cineworld will temporarily close 536 Regal theaters in the US and 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse theaters in the UK. In a statement, the company explained that this was in response to "an increasingly challenging theatrical landscape and sustained key market closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Without these new releases, Cineworld cannot provide customers in both the US and the UK--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."

No Time To Die was the latest major movie to be delayed into 2021, following Disney's decision last month to push Black Widow until next May. With these two tentpole releases no longer set for 2020, it leaves very few big movies on the calendar for the next three months. Wonder Woman 1984 and Dune are still scheduled for December releases, but it's unknown whether they will also be delayed, especially following the closure of so many theaters in the US and the UK.

The only big movie to have been released over the past few months is Christopher Nolan's Tenet. The movie has made $307 million worldwide so far and has performed well internationally, but its US gross has been very low, making just $45.1 million to date.

In related news, it's been reported that Odeon Cinema, the UK chain owned by AMC, is reducing the opening hours for some of its theaters. Variety states that a quarter of its 120 sites will now be opening on weekends only.