UPDATE: Cineworld has now confirmed that it will close all of its venues in the UK and US, resulting in 45,000 jobs lost, at least on a temporary basis. 128 Cineworld and Picturehouse venues will be shut in the UK, while 536 Regal cinemas are to close across the pond. The plan is to monitor the main film release situation, which will govern re-opening plans. Odeon, meanwhile, will only open its cinemas at the weekend from 9 October for the foreseeable future.
After the battering from the Covid pandemic, cinemas around the world were hoping for good news and the chance to re-open properly. But the rotten reports keep on coming, with news that Cineworld Cinemas is on the brink of closing many or all of its venues in the UK and the Regal chain it owns across the pond, as early as this week.
While the company has since made an announcement on twitter that a temporary closure is just one option (see below), the move could leave more than 5,500 people out of work in the UK alone and staff have reported frustration in learning about the potential job cuts from the media rather than the company itself.
According to Variety, Cineworld executives are writing to Boris Johnson and Culture Secretary to explain that its exhibition sector is "unviable" because of studios delaying big films, including the recent move ofNo Time To Dienext year.
We'll keep monitoring this one, but it's obviously a big blow to the cinema business on both sides of the pond, especially with US chain AMC (which also owns Odeon in Britain) also suffering financially.