#Shut in movie theaters movie#
“The movie theater is really an outlet to the world for a lot of people,” she said. They’ve raised more than $40,000 thus far from 500 donors, said Carrie Wallace, one of those leading the effort. In Crested Butte, a small ski town in Colorado, former employees of The Majestic theater are seeking $300,000 to reopen its doors.
You never know what’s going to happen.”īut like any Hollywood tearjerker, there’s at least a shot at a happy ending.
“The irony of it is I just signed a new lease in February of 2020 and then COVID hit in March. “It was just too expensive to stay open,” Schulz said. Chalmette Movies closed for good in March of this year. But business was just 10 percent of what it used to be. Schulz, 73, tried to reopen in mid-2020 – typically the best season for his theater. Wendeslaus Schulz, owner of the six-screen Chalmette Movies in the namesake Louisiana town, couldn’t afford the back rent he owed after months of government-mandated closures. “If you can’t sell popcorn and you can’t put butts in seats, how can you remain a viable business?” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Comscore. Movie theaters this year will likely take in about $4 billion in ticket revenue domestically, a fraction of the $11.4 billion generated in 2019.ĭata from Comscore show revenue from states on the East Coast, which tended to keep their theaters closed longer and put in capacity restrictions when they reopened, have recovered more slowly than many in the middle of the country. Even with several big-budget Hollywood films getting exclusive runs in theaters, box-office receipts remain well below what they were before the pandemic. Altogether, almost 40,000 screens are operating in North America. The shuttered locations represent a little under 12 percent of the roughly 5,500 theaters nationally that were operating just before the pandemic, according to market researcher Comscore Inc., which says about half of the closed cinemas had three screens or fewer. “It’s been a big loss for the city,” said Dave Allaire, the mayor of Rutland, which has fewer than 16,000 residents. The location, part of a Massachusetts-based chain, has been closed even though theaters in Vermont have been allowed to reopen.
“Today’s my birthday, I’m going to miss it this year.” “My birthday ritual is to see a movie,” wrote another film lover. “I’m a regular that went almost every Thursday night,” one man said. It’s the only movie destination for about 30 miles. You can read the pleas to reopen the town’s sole multiplex, Flagship Cinemas, on its Facebook page. While Americans are again jamming football stadiums and theme parks, theater attendance is recovering only slowly from last year’s industrywide shutdown.įor small towns like Rutland, Vermont, the closings particularly sting. Bing Guan/BloombergĬOVID-19 has accelerated trends that preceded the pandemic, with major films today becoming available online far sooner than in the past and moviegoing already on the decline. The Pacific Theatres’ Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, part of the ArcLight Hollywood complex, closed permanently earlier this year.
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