follow the day, marked by the presentation of the deconfinement plan

Big American movie chains will wait for summer to reopen

The cinemas in Georgia were re-authorized to open to the public on Monday, and Texas will follow in four days, but none of the major theater networks plans to take advantage of them until the summer. The new operating rules in Georgia in particular require cinemas to space each group of spectators by at least two meters and to clean the seats between each screening. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has set the maximum capacity for each dark room at 25% of the tonnage.

During a presentation to investors in mid-April, the third network of theaters in the United States, Cinemark, had indicated that its average occupancy rate in ordinary times was between 20% and 30%. “We can therefore operate very profitably while respecting the obligations regarding social distancing”, wrote the operator in his presentation. But during the same presentation, managing director Mark Zoradi said Cinemark was targeting a reopening in late July.

It is for the network to ensure that measures to prevent the spread of the virus are in place, but also to wait for the release of a big budget film, to encourage the public to return. The chain of cinemas has therefore set its sights on the new film by director Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, The Dark Knight, the black knight, Inception), Tenet, whose release in the United States is scheduled for July 17. It also counts on the arrival, from the following weekend (July 24), of Mulan, live version of the Disney animated film.

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