Regal Cinemas To Close Forest Hills Movie Theater

Adam Nichols
·3 min read

NEW YORK — Regal Cinemas will close its Forest Hills movie theater this week as it shuts down all 543 of its outlets in the United States due to continued revenue losses from the coronavirus pandemic.

Alongside the Queens Boulevard location, the chain has another nine New York City locations.

On Monday morning Cineworld, which operates Regal Cinemas, confirmed it will suspend operations in the United States and United Kingdom starting Thursday, Oct. 8. No reopening date was set.

Prolonged closures and the reluctance of motion picture companies to release new films in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic drove the move, according to Cineworld.

"This is not a decision we made lightly, and we did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable reopenings in all of our markets — including meeting, and often exceeding, local health and safety guidelines in our theatres and working constructively with regulators and industry bodies to restore public confidence in our industry," Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger said in a statement to investors.

Theaters are among the many businesses hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. They were closed March 16 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and were not allowed to reopen under phase four of the state's reopening plan as many had thought they would be.

The 10 Regal Cinemas in New York are:

  • Brooklyn, Regal UA Sheepshead Bay IMAX & RPX

  • Brooklyn, Regal UA Court Street & RPX

  • Forest Hills, Regal UA Midway

  • Long Island City, Regal UA Kaufman Astoria & RPX

  • New York, Regal Battery Park

  • New York, Regal E-Walk & RPX

  • New York, Regal Essex Crossing & RPX

  • New York, Regal Union Square ScreenX & 4DX

  • Staten Island, Regal Bricktown Charleston

  • Staten Island, Regal UA Staten Island & RPX

"Cineworld will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate any future plans to resume operations in these markets at the appropriate time, when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen," Greidinger said.

The company reported 45,000 employees will be affected by the suspension of operations.

Regal is the second-largest theater chain in the U.S. after AMC.

Its decision comes on the heels of MGM's announcement Friday it is delaying the release of its newest James Bond film, "No Time To Die," from November until April 2, 2021.

Coronavirus has also pushed back the release of dozens of movies, including expected blockbusters like "Black Widow," which was originally set for release May 1 (now tentatively expected in theaters May 7, 2021), "Wonder Woman 1984" (moved from a June 1 release to Christmas Day) and "The Batman" (moved from June 2021 to October 2021).

Running a theater without new releases was "like a grocery shop that doesn't have vegetables, fruit, meat," Greidinger told the Wall Street Journal. "We cannot operate for a long time without a product."

— By Elizabeth Janney and Shannon Antinori, with additional reporting by Michael Woyton.

This article originally appeared on the Forest Hills Patch