Cinema to remain closed

Monday 05 October 2020

Jersey’s only cinema will remain closed for the near future as Cineworld confirmed it is “temporarily suspending operations” after studios announced the next Bond film would no longer be released this year.

Cineworld closed on 17 March and was due to reopen on 26 August, but government restrictions prevented it from happening.

in the UK, cinemas reopened at the end of July but the announcement of UK-wide closures could affect approximately 45,000 employees.

In a statement published this morning, Cineworld Group plc announced it would be temporarily suspending operations at all of its 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse theatres in the UK, as well as its 536 Regal theatres in the US, from 8 October, in response to what they described as “increasingly challenging theatrical landscape and sustained key market closures due to the covid-19 pandemic."

Video: Cinemas were hoping the new Bond movie, ‘No time to Die’ would be released this year.

The statement comes after the release of the new Bond movie, ‘No time to Die’, was pushed back to April 2021. 

As Cineworld explained, without new releases, it cannot provide customers with the “breadth of strong commercial films necessary for them to consider coming back to theatres against the backdrop of covid-19."

“This is not a decision we made lightly, and we did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable reopenings in all of our markets - including meeting, and often exceeding, local health and safety guidelines in our theatres and working constructively with regulators and industry bodies to restore public confidence in our industry,” Mooky Greidinger, CEO of Cineworld, commented. 

“We are especially grateful for and proud of the hard work our employees put in to adapt our theatres to the new protocols and cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was, Cineworld will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate any future plans to resume operations in these markets at the appropriate time, when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen."

Pictured: Plans for the future of the Waterfront do not make any specific reference to a cinema.

This new closure casts further doubt over the future of the cinema.

Earlier this year, the Jersey Development Company (JDC) released their proposals for the future of the Waterfront zone,  two years ago after buying the leisure complex – which includes Cineworld, Aquasplash and Fitness First.

In the proposals, there is no clear mention of Cineworld, or another cinema, despite the inclusion of a ‘Leisure quarter’.

The omission has prompted an islander to create a petition “to ensure the island is not left without a movie theatre /cinema."

“There are many rumours going around that Cineworld is never to re-open,” the petition notes.

“On top of this of course the plans for the Waterfront development ultimately confirm its omission in future plans. The States should deal with this by including a cinema in the forthcoming Island Plan and the Economic Development Minister should work with cinema providers to ensure Jersey retains a cinema.

”Whatever happens with Cineworld (thoughts with all the workers there facing uncertainty over their jobs) and with proposals to redevelop the Waterfront, government must absolutely ensure we retain a decent cinema facility here for Islanders to enjoy."

Senator Sam Mézec, the Minister for Children and Housing, echoed the plea, tweeting “Government must absolutely ensure we retain a decent cinema facility here for Islanders to enjoy."

In a post shared to his Facebook page, he added: 

"Cinemas are such an important facility in any community, giving us a place to enjoy films with our friends and family, relax, go on dates, create happy memories and even just escape from reality for a bit (don’t we all need that sometimes...).

"It must be unthinkable that we could let Jersey lose such a facility. I hope that the authorities can commit as soon as possible to ensuring we keep a cinema operating at the Waterfront and, if it does get demolished in the redevelopment, that we will provide an alternative facility without delay.

"My thoughts are with the local employees here who may be worried about the future of their jobs."