Movie theaters across the country are struggling to draw crowds amid the coronavirus pandemic as cities and states have eased stay-at-home orders, according to multiple reports.
What’s happening:
- Multiple states across the country have eased stay-at-home orders, allowing movie theaters and restaurants to reopen. This has been happening since March.
- Movie theaters have seen mixed results. Some theaters haven’t opened, some have opened with limited capacity, and many have seen limited amount of people come back.
- Malcolm Neal, who runs the Ritz Theatre in Thomaston, Georgia, told Variety there’s been few people heading to the movies.
- “We didn’t have hardly anybody the first weekend. In a small town, a lot of people wait to hear that somebody else did it before they’ll do it. They want to know their neighbor went last weekend and it was fine.”
- Rick Moser, head of operations for Coral Cliffs Cinema 8 in Hurricane, Utah, told Variety: “We are going to lose money whether we’re open or not, so we figure we might as well be open. Our owner’s philosophy is that we want to give the community something to do.”
Drive-in theaters rebound
View Comments
Indoor movie theaters might not see too much success right now because of the pandemic. But there has been an influx of drive-in theaters across multiple states.
- Brooklyn is getting a new drive-in movie theater, per Brooklyn Vegan.
- The Miami Dolphins have decided to turn Hard Rock Stadium into a drive-in theater amid the pandemic, NBC Sports reports.
- Starlite Drive-In Theater in Christiansburg, Virginia, decided to open early to bring people in amid the pandemic, according to WSLS.
- Marcus Theatres opened up a drive-in theater out in Brookfield, Wisconsin, per Fox 6.