Regal to close six theaters in Southern California

Wish to atone for “Girls Speaking,” “The Fabelmans” or “Avatar: The Means of Water” earlier than the Oscars?

Your listing of locations to go simply bought a bit shorter.

Six Regal Cinemas theaters throughout the Southland are set to close down, in response to a brand new submitting that the chain’s dad or mum firm, Cineworld Group, submitted Tuesday as a part of its chapter proceedings.

Impacted theaters embrace the Sherman Oaks Galleria 16 in Los Angeles; Metro Level in Costa Mesa; Yorba Linda & IMAX in Yorba Linda; Escondido Stadium 16 & IMAX in Escondido; Hemet Cinema 12 in Hemet; and Parkway Plaza Stadium 18 & IMAX in El Cajon.

The Southern California places are amongst 39 that comprise an inventory of “Leases to Be Rejected” within the Cineworld submitting. The closures are anticipated to start in February.

Theaters in Berkeley and Las Vegas may even be affected.

Regal retailers in Calabasas, Irvine, Anaheim Hills and San Francisco have already been shut down, in response to Insider, which was the primary to notice the shutdowns.

Cineworld, the second-largest theater operator on this planet, filed for chapter safety final September.

Based on its newest submitting, the agency is in search of an order authorizing it to reject unexpired actual property leases in addition to “abandon sure gear, fixtures, furnishings, or different private property” situated therein.

Cineworld reported $10.35 billion in web debt as of late June.

The corporate mentioned it had secured $1.94 billion in new financing to proceed working whereas it reorganized below Chapter 11 of the chapter code.

Cineworld’s authorized representatives didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The COVID-19 pandemic proved a attempting time for theaters, which — like many different gamers within the occasions business — struggled with misplaced income and absent clients, in addition to shifts within the launch schedules for money-making blockbusters. The rise of streaming has additionally remodeled the place and the way shoppers watch motion pictures.

Cineworld’s American theaters are “a big contributing issue to their present monetary challenges,” the corporate wrote in its Tuesday submitting. “Primarily because of the impression of deferred hire funds, the Debtors estimate that the common month-to-month hire obligations per theater elevated by nearly 30% year-to-date July 2022 in comparison with full-year 2019.”

This isn’t Regal’s first rodeo. Following a interval of overdevelopment within the ‘90s, the chain declared chapter in 2001, solely to emerge a yr later having reorganized.

Cineworld, a British firm, subsequently agreed to purchase Regal in 2017 with an acquisition deal that valued the chain at $3.6 billion.