On October 4th, Regal Cinemas announced that they would be temporarily closing all 536 theatres across the country starting on October 8th, due to the lack of new film releases. This decision will affect the new Regal Cinema here in Yorba Linda, in the Town Center.

As you most likely know, many movies and TV shows have been significantly delayed or even completely canceled due to the Coronavirus. The latest movie to be rescheduled was the new James Bond movie, “No Time To Die,” set to release now in April 2021, instead of next month. Regal Cinemas saw that this delay was going to happen, and immediately decided that it would be best to close their businesses worldwide.

Regal had just opened up their theatres in mid-August for the first time since the pandemic struck the country. While they were mostly only showing old movies, there was one movie that had some hype around it: the new movie Tenet by Christopher Nolan. The biggest reason for the enthusiasm for the release of this movie was the fact that it was going to be the first new movie released in months. Another reason is that Christopher Nolan is a famous and excellent director, as shown in his films The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar.

The turnout for Tenet actually was very strong. Its domestic box office total sat at around $36 million on September 21st, right around when movie theatres started to reclose across the country due to the lack of income from other showings.

Now, an important question rises for Regal Theatres and many other theatres all over the country and the world: When will more new films finally be released? It does seem that Regal Theatres has no plans to reopen for at least a couple of months, and if they don’t reopen, then it would not be surprising to see other theatres across the country close temporarily. 

A big part of when these upcoming movies eventually reach theatres around the county, and the world, is dependent on the location where the film is being created. The reasoning for why the site of film creation is so important right now is simply due to the fact as to whether production can even start, or continue. Movies that are in production in a state such as Florida or Georgia, for example, most likely can resume or begin creation with very little changes due to state Coronavirus restrictions. However, a film being made in California or New York may not see filming restart until next year.

When asked about what he thinks the future in movies holds, Marcus Tran (12) responded, “I don’t expect any new movies to be released until next spring. Once we do get to next spring though, I expect lots of highly-anticipated films to be released one after another, and that all theatres will be able to make up for some of the money they lost in 2020 since there will be a huge turnout at the box office.”                           

One thing is for certain; we all hope that a cure or vaccine for the virus will be produced soon so that all of the highly anticipated movies of 2020 can be filmed and released in theatres for our enjoyment!