Moviegoers in the mood to spend a few hours with Barbie or J. Robert Oppenheimer will have to hurry — or wait — to catch the films at the Regal theater in Foothill Ranch.
Regal, which is shedding theater locations in bankruptcy, has sold the facility to Cinemark, according to an employee who answered the phone there Friday, July 21.
The movie theater at 26602 Town Center Drive in Lake Forest will have its last day as a Regal brand on Wednesday, July 26. It will close for a short time, the employee said.
SEE MORE: Regal to close 39 more theaters, including 11 in California
Fortunately for the Regal staff, they’ve all been retained on the Cinemark payroll, she said. A timeline for the reopening was not immediately known, but “hopefully soon.”
The local Regal closure is the latest in a series for Cineworld, the parent company now operating as NewCo. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September.
Since January at least seven theaters in Southern California have been earmarked for closure, including Anaheim Hills 14, Calabasas Stadium 6, the Westpark 8 theater in Irvine, Metro Point Costa Mesa, Hemet Cinema 12, Sherman Oaks Galleria 16, and Yorda Linda and Imax theater.
The movie theater industry has struggled to recover from a one-two punch in recent years. First, new and cheaper streaming options convinced millions of Americans they didn’t have to go to a theater to see a movie. The pandemic forced the closure of most theaters nationwide, putting operator finances in peril.
Theater revenues in North America hit reached $7.4 billion in 2022, according to Comscore, down from more than $11 billion in 2019 and 2018.
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