CLEVELAND — One of your local movie theaters may be closing.

What You Need To Know

  • Regal Cinemas will close all 543 U.S. locations

  • More than 40,000 jobs will be lost by the closures

  • Regal Cinemas as 17 theaters in Ohio

Regal Cinemas has announced it will close all U.S. locations indefinitely.

Regal is owned by U.K. based theatre chain Cineworld, which reported more than $1.6 billion in losses in the first half of 2020 alone.

There are 543 Regal locations across the country, 17 of which are in Ohio.

The closures will result in the loss of more than 40,0000 jobs nationwide. Regal Cinemas just reopened in August after closing down for four months because of the pandemic. 

The company announced the closures are indefinite and says they have no plans in place to reopen.

Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough says the loss of their city's Regal Cinemas, located in the popular retail destination Crocker Park, will be felt throughout the community.

“Crocker Park has become a destination location and Regal Cinemas is one of those facilities that make it that destination location and bring so many people there to see a good movie, and what do they do after they see a movie? They go out to eat. They stay and go out to shop. And that's what's been missing quite a bit during this whole COVID-19 experience,” said Clough.

Cineworld sites the lack of new films for the closure. Right now, a lot of the movies that they're showing came out years ago and cost just $5 a ticket. Cineworld says a big factor in this was the delayed release of the new James Bond movie, No Time to Die. It was supposed to come out this fall but instead it will hit theaters next spring.

“This is not a decision we made lightly, and we did everything in our power to support a safe and sustainable reopening in the U.S.—from putting in place robust health and safety measures at our theaters to joining our industry in making a collective commitment to the CinemaSafe protocols to reaching out to state and local officials to educate them on these initiatives,” Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger said in a statement. “We are especially grateful for and proud of the hard work our employees put in to adapt our theaters to the new protocols and cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was.”

The announcement comes after months of uncertainty for the theater industry in general. AMC just reopened 100 locations in late August after closing in late March. Some local theaters have expressed their worries as well as turnout declined after reopening compared to pre-pandemic times. 

Here is a list of the Ohio Regal Cinema locations: