(Update: Officially Closed) All Regal Cinemas Locations Likely Closing Indefinitely

Update 10/5/20: Cineworld has officially confirmed that all Regal Cinemas locations are closed until further notice.

Reports are coming out that Cineworld – the owner of Regal Cinemas – is planning on closing all of its 500+ movie theater locations in the US for an indefinite period of time.

Movie theaters around the country opened up in recent weeks, placing limits on the number of moviegoers. It sounds like those limits were unnecessary though as even with capacity controls, they haven’t received the number of customers they’d been hoping for.

The latest James Bond movie has pushed back its release date to April 2021 and that appears to be the final straw for the parent company of Regal Cinemas. With a greatly reduced number of people through its doors and a lack of new blockbuster movies to draw more people in, they’re seriously considering closing indefinitely as their losses while open presumably outweigh their losses by remaining closed.

From a gift card perspective, this obviously isn’t a positive development. If you’re holding their gift cards for personal use, a closure means you’re unable to redeem them yourself. If you’re holding Regal Cinemas gift cards for reselling, a closure means no one will be buying them. AMC Theaters at least has an online option where you can redeem their gift cards by streaming movies, but Regal doesn’t appear to have such an option. If you have any Regal gift cards you just want to be done with, you could visit one of their locations to redeem them on concessions if you don’t want to risk watching a movie due to the pandemic. Each $25 Regal gift card should get you half a box of Raisinets, a handful of popcorn and a complimentary napkin.

A closure isn’t definite yet, but Cineworld has officially confirmed that it’s something they’re considering.

We can confirm we are considering the temporary closure of our U.K. and US cinemas, but a final decision has not yet been reached. Once a decision has been made we will update all staff and customers as soon as we can.

— Cineworld (@cineworld) October 4, 2020