Today it was announced that Odeon Cinemas will close a quarter of its wide cinema chain within the U.K. to weekends only.
Out of 120 this leaves 30 closed mid-week & most likely this will increase as the month continues.
This morning we saw the news that Cineworld was to close until March/April causing job losses across its Chain world-wide of U.K. to 45,000, 5,500 in the U.K. alone.
Odeon is owned by AMC theatres, which recently was in the news for debt trouble & money losses over in America.
VUE Cinemas Trying To Retain All Staff
Credit: Empire Cinemas
Read more: Disney Pulls Support For The U.K. And Pushes Releases Of All 2020 Blockbusters
The Guardian reports that VUE cinemas chief executive Tim Richards is also considering closure options, but is committed to retaining its 5,500 staff.
“We’re likely to make it through. We came into this a very strong industry. We just need to make it through the next three or four months where there are no movies”
Empire Cinemas, the largest- independently owned chain in the U.K, holding 131 screens across the country, has announced they will be operating a weekend only (fri-sun) policy for its 14 sites.
Cineworld chief executive Mooky Greidinger stated in an internal memo since obtained by the Guardian said the new scheme introduced by Rishi Sunak last week for employers was of no help to its situation.
“This said, the new government scheme places a greater financial burden on employers, which cannot work for us when we have almost no income”
Investors Wary Over Cineworld And Odeon Cinemas
Credit: Cineworld
Read more: The Mandalorian Season 2 Is Coming To Disney Plus’ In October 2020
Further bad news came for Cineworld again today from Quilter Cheviot equity analyst Amisha Chohan. She stated investors weren’t going to be looking to fondly upon Cineworld.
“Cineworld suffers from high debt, and in our view management will have to seek additional funding to survive. We believe financing will be expensive”
At one point today on the stock market, the company shares fell over 50% being able to be purchased for as little as 19p.
We’ve reached out to Cineworld to find out the financial plans for its staff, and the rumoured incentives for people to return at a later date, but as of the time of this article, we’ve had no response.
After the news broke this morning of the struggles in Cinema across the U.K. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister chose to tell the population to “go to the Cinema”.
Perhaps Boris hasn’t been reading SmallScreen lately or following the news of the current plight, it’s difficult for people to go, when they are closing down, and studios keep cancelling releases.
What do you make of this news?
Are you sad, like we are, to hear about all of these cinema closures?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
What do you make of this story? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook or Instagram pages!
And if you enjoy listening to film podcasts, why not check out our podcasts, Small Screen Stories and Small Screen Film Club wherever you get your podcasts!
[…] Cinemas we reported were looking to close over November until December prior to lockdown. Vue and Odeon had made […]