Cineworld Announce Cinema Closures
British cinema chain, and world-leading name in film exhibition, Cineworld, have announced that they are to close a significant number of their UK cinemas as part of major restructuring plans.
Cineworld Group PLC, the 2nd largest movie exhibitors in the world, have announced that they will close a number of their UK cinemas as early as this summer (2024) in an attempt to alleviate some of the company’s debts.
Twelve branches were originally at risk of closure, but only six have been confirmed. The latest statement from Cineworld revealed that they are planning to close six sites that they have evaluated as being “commercially unviable.” The cinemas in question are:
– Glasgow Parkhead
– Bedford
– Hinckley
– Loughborough
– Yate
– Swindon – Regent Circus
It is hoped that other UK cinema operators may step in to take over some of these sites, but there have been no confirmed reports to date.
While the future of many Cineworld cinemas remains unsure, the company is planning to renegotiate some of its rent agreements as part of their restructuring plans. They hope to acquire cheaper property agreements and have suggested that doing so will prevent further closures in the coming months.
Hundreds of jobs are said to be under threat, though a representative for Cineworld did confirm that the company are looking to redeploy as many employees as possible to other cinemas, adding that staff members have been contacted and support offered.
As the second-largest cinema chain in the world, following the USA’s AMC Theatres, the impact of Cineworld closures is potentially monumental to the wider film industry. Cineworld Group PLC counts more than 9,000 screens across the country. In the UK and Ireland, the company’s brands are Cineworld Cinemas and Picturehouse.
Three Picturehouse branches have closed across London in recent months: Fulham Road Picturehouse closed on 11th July, the Stratford East branch closed on 28th July, and most recently Bromley Picturehouse had its last day on 1st August. The Film Magazine can confirm that other UK Picturehouse cinemas are currently cutting staff hours in an attempt to reduce costs.
The parent company, Cineworld Group PLC, has been struggling with debt for years, and entered administration in the UK in July 2022, citing poor return-to-cinema numbers and an overall reduction in visitors since before the pandemic.
In reality, the situation was more nuanced than that, with Cineworld being ordered to pay $965million in damages to rival brand Cineplex, and high-ranking executives taking payoffs in the $35million range to leave their jobs after directing the company into administration. Before the closures were announced, Cineworld Group had been trying to find a buyer for its UK sites but ultimately failed to do so.
Cineworld’s struggles have surprised some after back-to-back successful summers at the box office, with the Barbenheimer phenomenon driving cinema sales across the country in 2023, and 2024’s Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine being amongst the 100 highest-grossing hits of all time in the region. But, as various sites close one after the other across the country, the struggle to get audiences back in cinemas in a post-Covid world – one in which new film release windows are shorter than ever and studios are focusing on streaming – is more pressing than ever.
The widely reported cost of living crisis, which was propelled by rising fuel and living costs, has caused the vast majority of people to lose most of what disposable income they had, ensuring that fewer people are willing to spend money on trips to the cinema. Likewise, the cinemas themselves are tackling the most expensive energy bills they have ever faced. These issues, combined with the Hollywood studios’ new focuses and the relative death of box office power of independent films since COVID, and some terrifying executive decisions, have ensured that any “road to recovery” has been troublesome for Cineworld.
Cinema is a form of escape for so many, a house in which to dream, and the sudden absence of those spaces could prove fatal to many a passion, a fandom, a safe space. Six cinemas is too many, though there will be people across the country hoping there’ll be no more.
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