Theater Owners Aren’t Confident With Current Re-Opening Plans
So, with the states of Georgia and Tennessee planning, quite poorly, on re-opening public establishments with certain restrictions, theaters are also planning on opening their doors. This leaves many theaters with nothing, however, since no new motion pictures will be available. With no new films available for premieres, theaters are left showing older films or they must repeat showings of other films. Not only will theaters be short on films, they will be short on people. Specifically, they will be short on people because those who are being cautious and safe will not be going, especially if there are crowds.
These things have been taken notice of by NATO, the National Association of Theater Owners, who recognize the issues that are being presented. The association has already noted that these things will end up being a major issue and that it will create problems for theaters that actually do re-open. Not having any new films and knowing that they will not sell out that many seats leaves very few options as to what to do. Not only do they have nothing to offer, but many theaters will also be understaffed since many employees had to be let go when all of this began.
“The movie theater industry is a national industry,” as said by a spokesperson from NATO. This means that unless all theaters can re-open, there will be issues with how movies are shown on the big screen. So, from their point of view, they are saying that it is a market that simply would not exist at this point in time, even if they did re-open. It being a national industry and there being no new product to push means that it will likely be one of the last industries to properly re-open their doors and it is still a long way off.
Many theater chains such as AMC or Cinemark will not re-open until they know for sure that they have some kind of market to open up to. AMC isn’t planning on trying to re-open until June, while Cinemark is trying to aim for a re-opening in July. Now, we are seeing summer films being pushed back as it becomes more apparent that this is something that will go on longer than originally anticipated. With theater companies chasing after release dates for movies so that they have something to show, even if Georgia and Tennessee want theaters re-opened, they may have no choice but to stay closed.