Cineworld to close all UK and US venues putting thousands of jobs at risk | Business | The Guardian
Britain’s biggest cinema chain, Cineworld, is to shut all its UK and US venues, putting up to 5,500 jobs in Britain at risk, after the latest James Bond movie was delayed into next year.
Cineworld, which owns the Regal cinema and Picturehouse chains, is understood to be preparing to announce plans to close all its 127 theatres in the UK as soon as Monday. It is also closing all its 536 Regal cinemas in the US.
Its cinema in Dublin, its only venue in Ireland, had to close due to tightened Covid-19 restrictions two weeks ago, and it seems unlikely it will reopen.
The premiere of the new 007 flick, No Time To Die, has been twice postponed, from April to 12 November, and now to April 2021, in a big blow to the cinema industry.
The company, the world’s second-biggest cinema operator, has written to Boris Johnson and the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, this weekend to warn them that the industry has become “unviable”.
Film studios are postponing blockbuster releases because audience numbers have been slow to recover since the Covid-19 outbreak. Other releases that have been pushed into 2021 include Black Widow and West Side Story.
Cineworld’s theatres reopened in July following the coronavirus lockdown, but it flagged up doubts over its ability to survive a second lockdown in September when it reported a £1.3bn loss for the first half of the year.
It said then that admissions had been growing since it reopened 561 out of 778 sites worldwide, thanks in part to local films and the release of Christopher Nolan’s spy movie Tenet. But it warned that its financial future could be in doubt and that it would need to raise more money if authorities introduced further restrictions to combat the next wave of the virus.
The Cineworld Action Group, which represents employees around the world, said staff had not been consulted about the company’s plans. It is understood that news of the closures, which was first reported by the Sunday Times, leaked out before staff could be informed.
Britain’s biggest cinema chain, Cineworld, is to shut all its UK and US venues, putting up to 5,500 jobs in Britain at risk, after the latest James Bond movie was delayed into next year.
Cineworld, which owns the Regal cinema and Picturehouse chains, is understood to be preparing to announce plans to close all its 127 theatres in the UK as soon as Monday. It is also closing all its 536 Regal cinemas in the US.
Its cinema in Dublin, its only venue in Ireland, had to close due to tightened Covid-19 restrictions two weeks ago, and it seems unlikely it will reopen.
The premiere of the new 007 flick, No Time To Die, has been twice postponed, from April to 12 November, and now to April 2021, in a big blow to the cinema industry.
The company, the world’s second-biggest cinema operator, has written to Boris Johnson and the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, this weekend to warn them that the industry has become “unviable”.
Film studios are postponing blockbuster releases because audience numbers have been slow to recover since the Covid-19 outbreak. Other releases that have been pushed into 2021 include Black Widow and West Side Story.
Cineworld’s theatres reopened in July following the coronavirus lockdown, but it flagged up doubts over its ability to survive a second lockdown in September when it reported a £1.3bn loss for the first half of the year.
It said then that admissions had been growing since it reopened 561 out of 778 sites worldwide, thanks in part to local films and the release of Christopher Nolan’s spy movie Tenet. But it warned that its financial future could be in doubt and that it would need to raise more money if authorities introduced further restrictions to combat the next wave of the virus.
The Cineworld Action Group, which represents employees around the world, said staff had not been consulted about the company’s plans. It is understood that news of the closures, which was first reported by the Sunday Times, leaked out before staff could be informed.
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