An official statement from Cineworld Cinemas released on Tuesday 6 October 2020 confirmed that Cineworld cinemas across the UK and Ireland will be closing temporarily from Friday 9 October 2020 until further notice.
Cheltenham Cineworld in the Brewery Quarter and Gloucester Cineworld at Gloucester Quays will both be closing temporarily.
The closures have been widely attributed to audiences being slow to return after lockdown, as well as big movie releases, including the new James Bond No Time To Die, being pushed back.
The official statement read: ‘This is not a decision we made lightly. We did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable re-openings of our cinemas and we are so very grateful for our employees who implemented the new protocols which resulted in lots of positive feedback from customers who visited our cinemas and felt safe.
‘We were very proud of the fact that cinemas were open for two months and there was not one COVID case resulting from visiting the cinema. We cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was.
‘As we have done to date, we will do everything we can to save livelihoods and the company – this is an extremely delicate and tricky balance. We continue to work with the Cinema Association, to ensure we are lobbying government to support our employees and the industry which has so much cultural significance.
‘We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate our plans to resume operations once film studios are able to bring their pipeline of major movie releases back to the big screen.
‘We can assure you that once a line-up of movie releases is confirmed, we will be ready to re-open our cinemas, as we did in July, with the same safety levels you have already seen while at the same time keeping the great experience that you are used to getting from us.’
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