REGAL

Movie theaters around San Antonio are kicking off the summer with free and discounted tickets for families.

Regal Cinemas movie theaters in San Antonio will reopen on Friday after closing twice during the coronavirus pandemic.

SAN ANTONIO – The company that owns Regal cinemas has announced it will temporarily close 536 cinemas across the U.S. — six of those being in the San Antonio area — on Thursday. Cineworld will close the Regal theaters, as well as 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse venues in the U.K., due to the lack of blockbusters to attract customers during the pandemic. Some 45,000 employees are affected in total. The same decision has been made by other major studios, including Disney that has postponed Marvel’s “Black Widow” and Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story.”Regal has six locations in San Antonio: Regal Alamo Quarry, Regal Cielo Vista near Ingram Road, Regal Huebner Oaks & RPX, Regal Fiesta on Vance Jackson, Regal Northwoods on Henderson Pass, and Regal Live Oak. Greg Abbott allowed movie theaters to reopen at 25% capacity in May.

Cineworld Group Plc said Monday that it would close 536 Regal cinemas in the U.S. and 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse venues in the U.K. this week, affecting some 45,000 employees. Last week groups representing theater owners, movie studios and directors issued a plea to U.S. lawmakers to provide relief to ailing movie theaters. Cineworld had also been highly leveraged, having largely funded its acquisition of Regal Entertainment in 2018 through debt. Greidinger hopes that that might be settled before Christmas, in time for “Wonder Woman 1984.”“I will be the happiest man to open the cinemas for ‘Wonder Woman," he said. “But we will also need to look beyond ‘Wonder Woman’ to January and February.”