Here's an UrbEx crew checking out an abandoned movie theater. A bit of recent research on my part made me wonder about the future of movie theaters as a whole, as we slide into what will soon be a massive recession, in my opinion.
It's Wednesday, July 19th, and we're on the verge of what is now tagged as "Barbenheimer" weekend. After a decent summer movie season, theaters are still trying to claw back to pre-pandemic sales numbers. In a juxtaposition like so many in our fucked up, weird, post pandemic world, the Barbie movie, and the story of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer,* are both opening this Friday, July 21. They're even being sold as a double feature. While the movie and TV writers and actors strike, the movie industry is hoping for a huge weekend of ticket sales to help get theater viewing back up to pre-pandemic sales figures.
I'm a huge movie fan, though my sketchy lifestyle has kept me from seeing many movies in the last several years. At one point, when I was a taxi driver, I often saw two or three movies a week, during the afternoon matinees, when taxi business was slow. But thoughts of an abandoned theater I pass by once in a while spurred me to doing a bit of research. I got to day dreaming about turning the old theater into an indie art gallery, with indie movies as well. Just a cool daydream of a business idea. That particular theater, part of the Regal/UA chain, has been empty for about three years. Obviously the pandemic played a role, but I wondered why.
It turns out Regal and UA (formerly United Artists) theaters in the U.S., have been owned by a British theater company, called Cineworld. Like the theater industry overall, Cineworld isn't doing so well. In fact, their stock is now selling (or not selling, I guess) for just over 1/2 a cent (U.S.) per share. On the long term chart, their stock has literally flatlined. So the owners of the 505 Regal theaters in the U.S. are, themselves, on financial life support. Cineworld was supposed to come up with new financing in July 2023, but that, apparently didn't work out. So in late June, Cineworld, already in Chapter 11 in the U.S., filed for "Administration" in the U.K. All their assets will be transferred into a new entity called Crown, which will be owned by their lenders. So U.K. bankers now own Crown, which was Cineworld, which owns the 505 Regal and Regal/UA theaters in the U.S.. And when the bankers own a huge business they lost a shit-ton of money on, there's probably more changes coming before too long. Anybody want to buy a movie theater? Or ten? Or 505?
Meanwhile... AMC Theaters, a popular meme stock in 2021, did better in the first quarter of 2023, than in 2022. But they still lost $235 million for the quarter. Business was building back, post pandemic, but they still have a long way to go to profitability. AMC stock, now at $4.37 a share as I write this, is holding steady. The stock soared to nearly $60 a share in 2021, at the height of the meme stock action.
Will U.S. theaters make a solid comeback, even in a recession? Or will most of the theaters wind up like the one in the UrbEx video above? I hope the industry can make a comeback, as a lifelong movie fan. But times are tough, the fate of the (theater world) may come down to Barbenheimer, so let's hope Barbenhemier weekend is big, let's hope Barbenheimer weekend is HUGE, and helps the ailing theater industry get back on solid footing again.
Blogger's note- Monday- 7/24/2023- "Barbenheimer tops $235 million domestic debut..." The Barbie movie and Oppenheimer both had huge opening weekends. Me, as a homeless guy, wasn't able to see either movie. But I'm glad they did well, because I love going to see movies in theaters, just in general, and the AMC and Regal theater chains are both struggling after the long pandemic period. You can argue over how good each movie was, that's your business. I just want to see theaters themselves survive, and the big Barbenheimer weekend helped movie theaters overall, and I'm happy for that. I want movie theaters to still exist in the future, when I get my act together, and can afford to go watch movies again, on a regular basis. This weird mash-up of movies helped that cause.
Blogger's note: Monday- 7/31/2023- Barbenheimer is a billion dollar win for the global box office- CNBC report today. While the writer's and actor's strikes continue, the movie business and struggling theaters get a couple of big wins.
* Oh yeah, there's a huge push by the globalists types to bring back nuclear energy in a big way in the coming years, as part of the "green" energy agenda. That's why many business types are talking about uranium stocks and such, and why there's a major movie about Oppenheimer. Plutonium-239 has a half life of about 24,000 years. The longest lived human civilizations have survived maybe 2,000 years. What could possibly go wrong?
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