Major Movie Theater Chain Confirms Nationwide Closure

It's definitely an understatement to say that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has made business difficult for movie theaters.

The obvious part of that is the fact that, by nature, it's not really all that easy to sit in an indoor movie theater for a couple of hours while adhering to safety guidelines.

But also, theater chains are struggling because of the dearth of new movies at the moment thanks to the prolonged movie production shutdown.

Today, one of the world's biggest movie theater companies confirmed that they'll be shutting down all of their locations at least temporarily in an attempt to cut operating costs.

And it's all because of James Bond.

Well, in fairness, it's not all because of James Bond, but USAToday reports that last week's announcement that the new James Bond movie, "No Time To Die" being postponed from November 20, 2020 to April 2021 sealed the deal for Regal Cinemas parent company Cineworld Group to make the closure call.

CNN reports that the closure of more than 500 movie theaters in the U.S. and 127 in the U.K. could come as early as the middle of this week and would last for an undetermined period of time, saying:

Cineworld will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate any future plans to resume operations in these markets at the appropriate time...

The same report points out that Cineworld lost $1.6 billion in the first half of 2020.

Locally for us here at the Jersey Shore, there's a Regal Cinema in Manahawkin, one of nearly a dozen that are spread throughout the Garden State.