Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As two local Regal Cinemas are reported to be shutting down in the Western New York area due to the Regal's parent company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, local theatres and cinemas are working to bounce back and navigate business in this post-pandemic period.
"It's been extremely difficult primarily because of a supply chain problem, because when COVID hit," said Ray Barker, Program Director for the North Park Theatre in Buffalo. "The production of movies was down for about a year to 18 months. In most cases, that has meant that fewer and fewer movies have been released."
Not even the the big name movies are drawing large crowds, with the exception of a few. "The interesting thing about Top Gun Maverick is that was actually filmed before COVID," noted Barker. "Paramount shelved that and waited for the right time to release it and then when they released it, there was kind of a tidal wave of enthusiasm for something which was both good and static. At the same time, I think regal has been very happy that Avatar has performed so well. However, Marvel's Wakanda Forever has underperformed and a lot of the Disney movies have underperformed, so there's been some negatives as well."
Film Commissioner for the Buffalo Niagara Film Office, Tim Clark tells WBEN that movie streaming is also a big obstacle that our local cinemas have to overcome. "The movie theater industry is challenging all the time because they're competing with these new platforms, the streamers and other things," Clark said. "The other thing that happened during COVID too is, it disrupted people's viewing patterns. People got used to staying at home and watching on demand and it's always tough to change people's mind and get them back acclimated to going out and being in public and watch movies."
Barker is confident that long-term, things will continue to normalize, but maybe not locally, "I think in the long term, things will recover. The movie industry is surprisingly resilient and it's gone through many disruptions over time, like the Great Depression, like World Wars and so forth. It's always come back. It's always found ways of reinventing itself, but in terms of the short term locally, we might be looking at a very different theatre landscape with the closure of a couple of theaters."