Alamo Drafthouse Temporarily Closes, Cinemark & Premiere to Remain Open in Lubbock
The Alamo Drafthouse in Lubbock is closing its doors, at least temporarily. According to an article posted on the theater’s website, the Alamo Drafthouse, located at 120 West Loop 289, has canceled all upcoming showtimes and is closing in order to “conserve our resources during COVID.”
The article also cites a lack of upcoming major movie releases as a reason for the closure. Many big name blockbusters, like Marvel’s Black Widow and the new James Bond film No Time to Die, had once planned to open in theaters this fall, but have now been pushed back to 2021 or 2022.
When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the U.S. back in March 2020, many theaters across the country closed their doors in order to mitigate the spread of the virus. Alamo Drafthouse, Premiere Cinemas and the two Cinemark locations in Lubbock also closed.
However, on August 21st, 2020, Alamo Drafthouse announced that several of their locations had reopened, including their location in Lubbock. Cinemark had also reopened its Lubbock location at 82nd and University just days earlier on August 14th.
But as the pandemic continued, many big name movie studios had decided to push back their release dates to 2021 in the hopes that COVID-19 will be more under control. The lack of blockbuster movie titles has proven to cost movie theaters worldwide millions of dollars in revenue.
As a result, NPR reports that Regal announced on October 5th, 2020, that they’ll be temporarily closing more than 536 of their theaters in the hopes that they’ll stop hemorrhaging money. It’s unclear exactly when Regal plans to reopen any of their locations, or how many might remain closed.
AMC Theaters and Cinemark, however, say they have no plans to close their locations even with a lack of blockbuster movie titles to promote. Alamo Drafthouse, however, doesn’t appear to be as confident.