‘The Best Place to Watch a Movie’ Closing 4 Hudson Valley Cinemas

Four Hudson Valley movie theaters are part of a nationwide shutdown.

Cineworld, the parent company of Regal, recently announced that it will be temporarily suspending operations at all of its 536 Regal theatres in the U.S., as of Thursday. The company said the move was "in response to an increasingly challenging theatrical landscape and sustained key market closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

"This is not a decision we made lightly, and we did everything in our power to support a safe and sustainable reopening in the U.S.– from putting in place robust health and safety measures at our theatres to joining our industry in making a collective commitment to the CinemaSafe protocols to reaching out to state and local officials to educate them on these initiatives. We are especially grateful for and proud of the hard work our employees put in to adapt our theatres to the new protocols and cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was," CEO of Cineworld Mooky Greidinger said in a statement.

The company says the decision was made because movie theatres in major U.S. markets, mainly New York, remained closed and without guidance on reopening. Because of the closures, studios have been reluctant to release films that are expected to be box-office hits. Last week it was announced the 25th installment in the James Bond franchise, "No Time to Die," will be released in April 2021 instead of next month.

"Despite our work, positive feedback from our customers and the fact that there has been no evidence to date linking any COVID cases with cinemas, we have not been given a route to reopen in New York, although other indoor activities – like indoor dining, bowling and casinos were already allowed," Greidinger added. "The prolonged closures have had a detrimental impact on the release slate for the rest of the year, and, in turn, our ability to supply our customers with the lineup of blockbusters they've come to expect from us. As such, it is simply impossible to continue operations in our primary markets."

Regal has locations in Poughkeepsie, Fishkill, Nanuet and Mohegan Lake. Regal, which claims its theaters are "The Best Place to Watch a Movie" says it will continue to monitor the situation closely and will announce any future plans about resuming operations when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen.

The closures will impact approximately 40,000 employees across the U.S.