Giving Closed Movie Theaters a Second Act
As the pandemic keeps audiences away, developers could soon face an adaptive reuse dilemma: What can you do with dead megaplexes?
Temporarily shuttered by the pandemic, many movie theaters are facing the possibility of permanent closures. What then?
Photographer: Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg
When a tub of popcorn can run nearly $10, renting out an entire theater for $99 seems like a steal. For AMC Theatres, the mega-chain that recently introduced the private screening plan as a Covid-era concession to safety and shrinking audiences, it’s more a desperate ploy to keep the lights on as the American megaplexes face the prospect of a final showing.
Recent coronavirus case spikes, new lockdowns and the expectation of minimal family outings during the holidays has turned a year of bad news for the country’s cinemas into an outlook that’s simply bleak. In early October, when Regal Cinemas shuttered all 500-plus locations nationwide, that darkened more than 7,000 screens alone. The industry has already seen a cinema cull in the U.S., per the National Association of Theatre Owners, with the number of movie theaters shrinking from around 7,200 in 1996 to roughly 5,500 as of late 2019. But that may just be a preview. John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theatre Owners, told Variety that unless Congress passes the Save Our Stages Act, a bipartisan push to support concert venues and theaters that have seen their businesses decimated by Covid, “probably around 70% of our mid- and small-sized members will either confront bankruptcy reorganization or the likelihood of going out of business entirely by sometime in January.”