Regal Cinemas facts for kids
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Regal Cinemas at the Irvine Spectrum Center
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| Subsidiary | |
| Predecessors |
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| Founded |
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| Founders |
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U.S.
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Number of locations
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420 (December 2024) |
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Key people
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| Revenue |  US$3,197.10 million (2016) |
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Operating income
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US$339.40 million (2016) |
| US$170.40 million (2016) |
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| Total assets | US$2,645.70 million (2016) |
| Total equity | US$839.10 million (2016) |
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Number of employees
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26,047 (2018) |
| Parent | Cineworld |
| Subsidiaries | Cinebarre United Artists Theatres Edwards Theatres |
Regal Entertainment Group, also known as Regal Cinemas, is a large American company that owns movie theaters. It has the second-largest number of movie screens in the United States. As of December 2024, Regal operates 5,720 screens in 420 theaters.
The company started on August 10, 1989. It is now owned by a British company called Cineworld. Regal's main office is in Knoxville, Tennessee. The three main movie theater names you might see under Regal Entertainment Group are Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres, and United Artists Theatres.
Even though these theaters might have different names on the outside, like Edwards or United Artists, most things inside, like popcorn bags and movie trailers, use the Regal Entertainment Group name and logo. Most new movie theaters built by the company are called Regal Cinemas. Regal has bought many smaller theater chains over the years. These smaller chains usually change their names to Regal Cinemas.
In December 2017, a British theater company called Cineworld bought Regal for $3.6 billion. This made Cineworld the second-largest movie theater company in the world, after AMC Theatres. In September 2022, Cineworld faced financial challenges and filed for a type of bankruptcy protection.
The Story of Regal Cinemas
How Regal Cinemas Began
Regal Cinemas started in 1989 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Mike Campbell was its first CEO, which means he was the main boss. The very first Regal movie theater was the Searstown Cinema in Titusville, Florida. Regal grew very quickly, opening bigger movie theaters in towns and cities. Many of these new theaters had a special café and looked more fancy than other movie theaters at the time.
Regal Cinemas expanded a lot during the 1990s. It bought smaller movie theater companies and built new, modern theaters with many screens. One of its biggest purchases was Act III Theatres in 1998. It also bought other smaller chains like Cobb Theatres and National Theatre Corp.
By 2001, Regal had grown too fast and faced financial difficulties. It had to go through a process to reorganize its business. The company later became the main name for the group that combined with Edwards and United Artists theaters.
A fun fact about Regal is its famous "Regal Roller Coaster" policy trailer. This animated video was shown before every movie from the early 1990s to 2005. It was brought back in 2010, and a new version was made in 2015.
United Artists Theatres: A Look Back
United Artists Theatres started in 1924. It was connected to the famous movie studio called United Artists. This studio was founded by well-known movie stars like Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. Even though they shared a name, the theater chain and the movie studio were legally separate. Over time, the theater chain became its own company.
In the late 1940s, the Naify Brothers bought United Artists Theatres. They owned theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area. Later, in 1988, UA bought another chain called Sameric. The main office for UA Theatres was in San Francisco until 1988.
United Artists was also one of the first companies to get involved in cable television. By the end of the 1980s, a company called Tele-Communications, Inc. owned most of it. In 1992, the theater chain was sold to a group of investors and UA's own management.
Edwards Theatres: A Family Business
Edwards Theatres was a family-owned movie theater chain in California. It was started in 1930 by William James Edwards Jr. It became one of California's most popular theater chains. When William James Edwards Jr. passed away in 1997, the company had about 90 locations with 560 screens. Edwards Theatres had its main office in Newport Beach, California.
His son, W. James Edwards III, took over and planned to make the company much bigger. This big expansion plan led to the company having a lot of debt. In 2000, Edwards Theatres also had to file for bankruptcy.
Bringing the Chains Together (2002-2017)
When all three movie theater chains (Regal, Edwards, and United Artists) faced financial trouble, an investor named Philip Anschutz bought a lot of shares in each company. This made him the main owner. In 2002, Anschutz brought all three theater companies together under a new main company called Regal Entertainment Group.
Mike Campbell from Regal and Kurt Hall from United Artists became co-CEOs. Campbell managed the theater operations from Knoxville, while Hall led a new part of the company called National CineMedia from Colorado. The Edwards corporate offices were closed.
Regal and United Artists had actually tried to merge before, in 1998. But United Artists decided not to go through with it that time. However, Regal and Act III Theatres did merge.
As Regal brought the three chains together, CineMedia started working on a new way to show advertisements and trailers before movies. Instead of old slides and film ads, they used digital content. This new pre-movie show, first called "The 2wenty," started in February 2003. It's now known as "Regal FirstLook." This new system was also meant for special events like concerts. Regal CineMedia later joined with AMC Theatres' National Cinema Network in 2005 to form National CineMedia.
Since Regal Entertainment Group was formed in 2002, it has bought several smaller movie theater chains. It took over Hoyts Cinemas' US locations in 2003 and Signature Theatres in 2004. Unlike the merger with UA and Edwards, Regal changed the names of all these theaters to Regal Cinemas. In 2005, Regal bought Eastern Federal, a theater company in the Southeastern United States. In 2013, Regal bought Hollywood Theaters, a chain with 46 theaters across the country. In 2017, Regal purchased Warren Theatres, a company based in Wichita, Kansas. The Warren Theater locations continue to operate under their original name.
In 2007, Regal opened its first theater that used only digital projectors in Henderson, Nevada. Regal also sold its online ticket service, Fandango, to Comcast Corporation in 2007.
Regal Entertainment Group finished buying Consolidated Theatres in May 2008. Regal gained 28 theaters and 400 screens. Because Regal would have had too much control in some areas, the government asked Regal to sell off a few theaters in places like Asheville, North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Raleigh, North Carolina.
In May 2009, Regal made a deal with Sony Corporation to put Sony's advanced 4K digital projectors in all its theaters over the next few years.
In April 2010, Regal launched something called Regal Premium Experience (RPX). This is an upgraded movie theater experience. Each RPX theater has a very large 60-foot screen, powerful digital projectors, and an amazing sound system. They also have comfortable reclining leather seats. You can watch both 2D and RealD 3D movies in RPX. As of January 2016, there were 87 RPX locations.
In June 2011, Regal started to change how it managed its theaters to save money. This meant some managers were replaced by other staff, and some full-time managers became part-time. As theaters switched to all-digital screens, Regal also no longer needed projectionists. These changes helped the company improve its profits.
In March 2014, Regal added 4DX—a special movie format—to its theater at L.A. Live. 4DX theaters have seats that move with the movie's action and special effects like wind, water, and scents. By 2018, Regal had six 4DX screens and planned to add many more.
In December 2015, Regal took over managing Cinebarre locations. Cinebarre theaters have a full bar and a restaurant menu. You can order food and drinks before or during the movie, and they are brought right to your seat. As of August 2024, there are four Cinebarre locations in the United States.
In January 2016, a court in Texas temporarily stopped Regal from doing certain things. This happened after another cinema chain, iPic Entertainment, complained that Regal had worked with movie studios like 20th Century Fox, Sony, and Universal. iPic said Regal threatened to not show their movies if the studios allowed smaller cinemas to show them.
Regal Joins Cineworld (2018-Present)
In November 2017, Regal started talking about merging with the UK theater chain Cineworld. On December 5, it was officially announced that Cineworld would buy Regal for $3.6 billion. This created the world's second-largest movie theater group.
Regal got a new logo in October 2018. It looks like a camera lens and a crown. To honor its roots in Knoxville, Regal also started using orange as a company color, which is the color of the Tennessee Volunteers sports teams.
In July 2019, Regal announced a new movie ticket subscription service called Regal Unlimited. This service lets people watch an unlimited number of movies. It also gives them a 10% discount on snacks and drinks. There is a small extra charge for special movie formats. This service is similar to a program Cineworld already had.
In January 2020, PepsiCo became the only supplier of non-alcoholic drinks for all Regal cinemas. This meant that The Coca-Cola Company was no longer the only drink supplier for the biggest movie theater chains in the U.S. Pepsi also became the main sponsor for Regal's 4DX screens.
Movie Theaters During the COVID-19 Pandemic
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On March 16, 2020, Regal Cinemas closed all 543 of its theaters in the United States. This was because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Regal was the first major theater chain in the U.S. to close all its locations due to the pandemic.
Regal Cinemas started to reopen most of its theaters on August 21, 2020. Some reopened later, and a few stayed closed because of local rules or because they were already planning to close.
On October 5, 2020, Cineworld announced it would close most Regal, Cineworld, and Picturehouse Cinemas locations in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland. These closures started on October 8. The CEO, Mooky Greidinger, said that New York state not allowing cinemas to open was a big reason. He also mentioned that there weren't enough big new Hollywood movies coming out. He said it was too expensive to run a cinema without new movies. Mooky explained that studios were waiting for New York cinemas to reopen before releasing big films. He said the company would only reopen its cinemas when there was a clear lineup of new movies.
At first, seven recently opened locations in California and 11 in New York state were not closed. New York state had started to allow cinemas outside of New York City to reopen with limited capacity. However, on November 9, Regal announced that these remaining locations would also close starting November 12.
On March 23, 2021, Cineworld announced that since theaters in New York City and Los Angeles were allowed to reopen, they would start reopening some Regal locations on April 2. This was in time for the movie Godzilla vs. Kong. The company aimed to have most Regal locations open by April 16, for the release of Mortal Kombat. The widespread reopening was pushed back to May 7, and by May 28, almost all theaters were open. Cineworld made agreements with Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. to show their movies in theaters for a certain time before they went to streaming.
On June 19, 2021, Regal Cinemas took over the lease of a former Arclight Cinemas theater in Los Angeles. They planned a $10 million renovation to add special screens like 4DX, IMAX, and ScreenX. In January 2023, it was announced the theater might close, but it continued to operate. In May 2023, Regal announced they had a new agreement to keep the theater open.
In April 2023, Regal also took over the lease for another former ArcLight theater in Pasadena, California. This location reopened as part of the Regal chain in June 2023.
Cineworld's Financial Challenges
In August 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Cineworld might file for bankruptcy. This was because it was struggling to get people back to theaters and had a lot of debt after the pandemic. Cineworld confirmed that Regal Cinemas would stay open while Cineworld looked at its financial plans. On September 7, 2022, Cineworld announced it had filed for a type of bankruptcy protection. Cineworld planned to come out of this process in the first part of 2023. They also planned to make changes to their real estate, which included closing or selling some theaters and talking with landlords about their lease agreements for Regal cinemas.
In September 2022, The Wall Street Journal also reported that a Canadian movie theater company called Cineplex was thinking about merging with Regal. Cineworld had tried to buy Cineplex in 2020 but had to pay a large amount of money for breaking their agreement. In May 2023, Cineworld said it expected to finish its bankruptcy process by July 2023.
Special Movie Experiences at Regal
- RealD 3D: This is a partner of Regal that shows movies in 3D, making the images pop out at you.
- Regal Premium Experience (RPX): This is Regal's own special large screen format. RPX theaters have amazing Dolby Atmos sound, seats that vibrate with the movie (ButtKicker motion seats), and super clear 4K laser projection on a huge screen.
- IMAX: Regal operates at least 94 IMAX locations in the United States. IMAX screens are very large, and the movies are shown with special projectors and sound systems for a truly immersive experience.
- 4DX: Created by CJ 4DPLEX, 4DX uses special seats that move along with the movie's action. It also has environmental effects like wind, strobe lights, water, air blasts, leg ticklers, vibrations, rain, smoke, and even scents! Regal opened its first 4DX theater in 2014 and had 32 theaters with this technology by May 2021.
- ScreenX: This movie theater experience shows films with two extra screens on the side walls. This gives you a 270-degree view, making you feel like you're right in the middle of the action. Created by CJ CGV, there were 34 ScreenX theaters by May 2021.
Other Movie Theater Chains
- AMC Theatres
- Cinemark Theatres
