Regal Entertainment Group

Last updated

Regal Entertainment Group
Subsidiary
Predecessor 1989;29 years ago (1989) (Regal Cinemas)
1930;88 years ago (1930) (Edwards Theaters)
1924;94 years ago (1924) (United Artists Theaters)
Founded 1924;94 years ago (1924) (United Artists Theaters)
1930;88 years ago (1930) (Edwards Theaters)
1989;29 years ago (1989) (Regal Cinemas)
2002;16 years ago (2002) (Regal Entertainment Group)
Headquarters Knoxville, Tennessee , U.S.
Number of locations
more than 570
Key people
Moshe J. Greidinger
(Chairman and CEO)
Matt Eyre
(President and COO)
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$ 3,197.10 million (2016) [1]
Increase2.svgUS$339.40 million(2016) [1]
Increase2.svgUS$170.40 million (2016) [1]
Total assets Increase2.svgUS$2,645.70 million (2016) [1]
Total equity Increase2.svgUS$839.10 million (2016) [1]
Parent Cineworld Group plc
Subsidiaries Cinebarre
Warren Theatres
United Artists Theatres
Edwards Theatres
Website regmovies.com

Regal Entertainment Group (REG) is an American movie theater chain headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. [2] Regal operates the second-largest theater circuit in the United States, with over 7,307 screens in 564 theaters as of June 2016. [3] The three main theatre brands operated by Regal Entertainment Group are Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres, and United Artists Theatres.

Movie theater Venue, usually a building, for viewing films

A movie theater, cinema, or cinema hall, also known as a picture house or the pictures, is a building that contains an auditorium for viewing films for entertainment. Most, but not all, theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing a ticket. Some movie theaters, however, are operated by non-profit organizations or societies that charge members a membership fee to view films.

Knoxville, Tennessee City in Tennessee, United States

Knoxville is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Knox County. The city had an estimated population of 186,239 in 2016 and a population of 178,874 as of the 2010 census, making it the state's third largest city after Nashville and Memphis. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which, in 2016, was 868,546, up 0.9 percent, or 7,377 people, from to 2015. The KMSA is, in turn, the central component of the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette Combined Statistical Area, which, in 2013, had a population of 1,096,961.

Contents

These chains retain their exterior signage, but most indoor branding (popcorn bags, policy trailers) uses the Regal Entertainment Group name and logo. Where applicable, the REG logo is used alongside the three individual brands. Most new cinema construction uses the Regal Cinemas name, although Regal has built new Edwards locations in California and Idaho. [4] Regal has acquired several smaller chains since this merger; these, however, have been rebranded as Regal Cinemas.

California State of the United States of America

California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second-most populous, after New York City. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.

Idaho State of the United States of America

Idaho is a state in the northwestern region of the United States. It borders the state of Montana to the east and northeast, Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canadian border with the province of British Columbia. With a population of approximately 1.7 million and an area of 83,569 square miles (216,440 km2), Idaho is the 14th largest, the 12th least populous and the 7th least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. The state's capital and largest city is Boise.

On December 5, 2017, it was officially announced that the UK theater chain Cineworld would acquire Regal for $3.6 billion. On February 27th, 2018, the acquisition of Regal by Cineworld was completed, making it the second largest global cinema exhibitor behind AMC. [5]

Cineworld cinema chain operating in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Jersey

Cineworld Group plc is the world’s second largest cinema chain, with 9,538 screens across 793 sites in 10 countries: the US, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Israel, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovakia. The group’s primary brands are Regal, Cineworld and Picturehouse, Cinema City and Yes Planet. Cineworld is currently the leading cinema operator in the UK by box office market share, with 99 cinemas and over 1017 screens, including Ireland’s single largest multiplex by screens and customer base. Cineworld Glasgow Renfrew Street is the tallest cinema in the world and the busiest, by customer base, in the UK. The Cineworld site with the greatest number of screens is located at Valley Centertainment in Sheffield, which has 20. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History

Before 2002

Regal Cinemas

A Regal Cinemas (with a built in IMAX theater) in New Rochelle, New York, a suburb of New York City Regal Cinemas Imax Theatre.jpg
A Regal Cinemas (with a built in IMAX theater) in New Rochelle, New York, a suburb of New York City

Regal Cinemas was established in 1989 in Knoxville, Tennessee, with Mike Campbell as CEO. Regal began to grow at a rapid pace, opening larger cinemas in suburban areas. Many of these contained a "premium" café (later called Cafe Del Moro) and a more upscale look than typical theaters of the time.

Regal Cinemas embarked on an aggressive expansion throughout the decade, swallowing up smaller chains as well as building new, more modern multiplexes. Its largest acquisition during this original period was the 1998 combination of it and Act III Theatres, although it had acquired some smaller chains as well in the mid-1990s, including the original Cobb Theatres, RC Theatres, and Cleveland-based National Theatre Corp.

Act III Theatres was an American company that owned movie theater multiplexes and screens principally located in the U.S. states of Texas, Oregon and Washington. The company was in business from 1986 to 1997, when it was sold to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). Television producer Norman Lear owned a controlling stake in Act III Theatres through his company Act III Communications. At the time of sale in 1997, Act III Theaters consisted of 124 multiplex theaters operating 793 screens located primarily in San Antonio and Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon, and was the tenth-largest chain of cinemas in the United States.

Cobb Theatres is an American cinema chain based in Birmingham, Alabama. The company was established in 1921, in Fayette, Alabama expanding through the South, and buying out General Cinema and Wometco Theatres. Cobb presently operates 19 locations with 232 screens, the majority of which are located in Florida, with others in Alabama, Georgia, Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Cleveland City in Ohio

Cleveland is a major city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. The city proper has a population of 385,525, making it the 51st-largest city in the United States, and the second-largest city in Ohio. Greater Cleveland is ranked as the 32nd-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with 2,055,612 people in 2016. The city anchors the Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area, which had a population of 3,515,646 in 2010 and is ranked 15th in the United States.

By 2001, Regal was overextended like many other cinema chains, and went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It became the namesake for the theater chain in which it would be merged into with the Edwards and United Artists chains.

The chain's famous "Regal Roller Coaster" policy trailer, which was shown before every movie shown from the early 1990s to the fall of 2004, was revived in 2010 and the current version was made in 2015, which was animated by The Tombras Group.

United Artists Theatres

United Artists Theatres (established in 1924) has its roots in the movie studio of the same name founded by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith, but legally has always been separate from it. Joseph Schenck was brought in to become UA's president in 1924; as part of the deal, Schenck entered into a partnership with Chaplin and Pickford to buy and construct theatres using UA's name. Over time, the chain became separate from the studio and by the 1970s was part of a larger company, United Artists Communications.

United Artists Theatres was purchased in the late 1940s by the Naify Brothers, who owned theatres in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their company up to this time was called Golden State Theatres. About this time they also acquired the San Francisco Theatres owned by Samuel H Levin. These theatres were the Balboa, Alexandria, Coliseum, Vogue Metro, the Harding, and Coronet, which was opened in 1949. In 1988 UA bought the Philadelphia-based Sameric chain of about 30 locations in PA, NJ, and DE. The UA Theatres main office was in San Francisco until 1988 when it was sold to TCI. Thereafter, it was relocated to Englewood, CO.

UAC was an early pioneer in cable television, and aggressively bought smaller regional systems. By the end of the 1980s, John Malone's Tele-Communications, Inc. was majority owner; on June 8, 1991, it purchased the remainder of the company. Then on February 19, 1992, TCI sold the theatre chain in a leveraged buyout led by Merrill Lynch Capital Partners Inc and UA management. [6]

Edwards Theatres

The Edwards Theatres Grand Palace 24 in Houston EdwardsHoustonGrandPalace.JPG
The Edwards Theatres Grand Palace 24 in Houston

Edwards Theatres was a family-owned chain in California, started in 1930 by William James Edwards Jr. It became one of California's best-known and most popular theater chains, and by Edwards' death in 1997, operated about 90 locations with 560 screens. [7] Edwards Theatres had its headquarters in Newport Beach, California. [8] His son, W. James Edwards III, became president and announced an ambitious expansion plan that would nearly double the company's screen count. The expansion plan gave Edwards a crushing debt load, and in 2000 it filed for bankruptcy. [9]

After 2002

The Regal Cinemas 14 in Short Pump, Virginia. Regal Cinemas No. 14.jpg
The Regal Cinemas 14 in Short Pump, Virginia.

When all three chains went into bankruptcy, investor Philip Anschutz bought substantial investments in all three companies, becoming majority owner. In March 2002, Anschutz announced plans to consolidate all three of his theatre holdings under a new parent company, Regal Entertainment Group. Regal's Mike Campbell and UA's Kurt Hall were named co-CEOs, with Campbell overseeing the theatre operations from Regal Cinemas' headquarters in Knoxville, and Kurt Hall heading up a new subsidiary, Regal CineMedia, from the UA offices in Centennial, Colorado. The Edwards corporate offices were closed.

Regal and United Artists had attempted to merge before in 1998, using a similar method. Investment firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst announced plans to acquire Regal, then merge it with UA (which would be bought by Hicks, Muse) and Act III (controlled by KKR), with the new company using the Regal Cinemas name. UA eventually dropped out of the merger, but the merger between Regal and Act III went through.

As Regal consolidated the three chains, CineMedia began work on a new digital distribution system to provide a new "preshow", replacing the slides and film advertisements with digital content. NBC and Turner Broadcasting were among the first to sign on to provide content for the venture, and the preshow, dubbed "The 2wenty", debuted in February 2003; this pre-film preshow is now known as "Regal FirstLook". The new distribution system was also meant to be used for special events such as concerts. Regal CineMedia merged with AMC Theatres' National Cinema Network in 2005 to form National CineMedia. In effect, this was a takeover of NCN by Regal CineMedia, as Kurt Hall stayed on as CEO and AMC adopted Regal's preshow. Regal owned 50% of the new company before it went public.

A Regal Cinemas at The Shops at Nanuet shopping mall in Nanuet, New York. Regal Cinemas at Nanuet Mall.jpg
A Regal Cinemas at The Shops at Nanuet shopping mall in Nanuet, New York.

Since the 2002 formation of REG, it has acquired several smaller chains. In April 2005, Eastern Federal, which was a fairly prominent theatre company in the Southeastern United States, was brought into the Regal family. It acquired San Ramon, California–based Signature Theatres from Phil Harris on September 30, 2004, and took over the US assets of Hoyts Cinemas in 2004. Unlike the merger with UA and Edwards, Regal has rebranded all of these theatres as Regal Cinemas. In February 2013, Regal agreed to purchase Hollywood Theaters, a nationwide chain of 46 theaters that operated from Portland, Oregon. The sale was closed on April 1, 2013. [10] In May 2017 Regal purchased the $200 million company Warren Theaters based in Wichita Kansas. The sale included all Warren Theater locations in Wichita KS as well as those in Moore and Broken Arrow OK. The theaters will continue operation under the Warren name. [11]

In 2007, REG opened its first all digital projection theatre in Henderson, Nevada (a suburb of Las Vegas), the Fiesta Henderson Stadium 12. Fandango was sold by Regal to leading cable company Comcast Corporation in 2007.

Regal Entertainment Group completed its acquisition of Consolidated Theatres on May 1, 2008. [12] In the transaction, Regal acquired Consolidated's 28 theaters and 400 screens for $210 million. Consolidated's concentrations of theatres in the Mid-Atlantic states of Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and North and South Carolina overlapped in some places with Regal's. As of a condition of approval of the merger, the United States Department of Justice required that Regal divest itself of several theaters in areas where it would have a monopoly. Regal agreed to sell off four theaters in the Asheville, Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina markets, but a large number of theaters still remains in all three markets.

On May 18, 2009, Regal signed a deal with Sony Corporation to equip all of its theaters with Sony 4K digital projection over the next three to five years.[ citation needed ]

In April 2010, Regal launched Regal Premium Experience (RPX), an upgraded theater format. Each RPX theater features a 60-foot screen, dual 30,000 lumen digital projectors, a 7.1 sound system, a Dolby Atmos sound system or an Auro 11.1 sound system with 273 loudspeaker components including eight 21 inch subwoofers. There are reclining leather seats with headrests. Both digital 2D and RealD 3D films can be screened. [13] As of January 2016, there are 87 operating RPX locations. [14]

In June 2011, after posting a loss for the first quarter, Regal began downsizing its theater employees by removing managers from projection and replacing them with lower paid floor staff. This move allowed Regal to lay off part-time managers across the country and forcibly demote many full-time managers to part-time. As theaters converted to all digital automated screens, Regal also removed projectionists altogether. This focus on "cost control" helped the company post better than expected profits for the 3rd quarter of that year. [15]

In December 2015, Regal took over managing operations of Cinebarre, a former joint venture between Regal Entertainment Group and Terrell Braly. There are 8 Cinebarre locations in the Regal Entertainment Group circuit. These locations feature a full bar as well a full made from scratch restaurant menu which is delivered right to the customer's seat.

In January 2016, Regal was issued a temporary injunction by a district court in the state of Texas following complaints by the Houston-based cinema chain iPic Entertainment, which found that Regal had colluded with 20th Century Fox, Sony, and Universal by threatening boycotts of their releases if they did not refuse clearance of their films to smaller cinema chain locations (such as iPic). [16] In 2017, Regal purchased Wichita, Kansas–based Warren Theatres.[ citation needed ]

In November 2017, Regal began merger talks with the UK theater chain Cineworld. [17] On December 5, it was officially announced that Cineworld would buy Regal for $3.6 billion, forming the world's second-largest cinema group. [5]

The chain adopted a new logo in October 2018, featuring an emblem resembling a camera aperture and crown, and colored in orange in honor of the University of Tennessee (as a reflection of Regal's Knoxville heritage). [18]

Regal Foundation

The Regal Foundation was organized in 2003 by Regal Entertainment Group in order to engage in charitable activities directly and by providing funds to other organizations, golf tournaments, and the University of Tennessee. The Regal Foundation holds a large in-theater donation drive during the summer months of the year known as "Stars of Hope". During this event patrons can donate $1 to the Regal Foundation. The names of donors are written on individual stars and posted on a "wall of fame" visible in that patron's respective theater. [19] [ non-primary source needed ]

See also

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References

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  2. "Privacy Policy." Regal Entertainment Group. Updated on April 9, 2018. Retrieved on July 28, 2010. "Regal Cinemas, Inc. 101 E. Blount Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37920."
  3. Group, Regal Entertainment. "About Regal". Regal Cinemas. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  4. "The Treasure Valley's new theater". Idaho Statesman. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
  5. 1 2 "Cineworld to buy Regal cinemas in blockbuster deal". BBC News. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  6. "Theaters to be sold: Tele-Communications Inc. said..." Chicago Tribune. February 19, 1992.
  7. "Edwards Movie Theaters". LoveToKnow.
  8. "Contact Us." Edwards Cinemas. May 10, 2000. Retrieved on February 2, 2011. "Our corporate offices are located at: 300 Newport Center Dr. Newport Beach CA. 92660."
  9. "Edwards Theatres Files for Chapter 11 Protection". LA Times .
  10. "Regal Closes $191M Acquisition Of Hollywood Theaters". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  11. "Bill Warren on selling to Regal: 'This is a legacy thing'". May 19, 2017.
  12. "Regal completes purchase of Consolidated Theatres". Charlotte Business Journal. April 30, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
  13. Nick Bona (April 9, 2010). "Knoxville-based Regal announces new RPX theaters". WVLT. Grey Television Story ID: 90333319. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2011.
  14. Regal Entertainment Group. "RPX®". Regal Cinemas.
  15. Szalai, Georg (October 27, 2011). "Regal Entertainment Reports Better Than Expected Third Quarter Profit". Hollywood Report. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
  16. "Texas Court Orders Regal To Stop "Anticompetitive" Clearance Deals". Deadline.com. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
  17. McNary, Dave. "Regal Entertainment Group in Merger Talks With Cineworld". Variety. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  18. "Regal commits $1 billion to theaters, creates new logo with nod to UT Vols". Knoxville News Sentinel. Retrieved 2018-11-04.
  19. "Regal Entertainment Group Corporate: Community Affairs". Regal Entertainment Group. Retrieved 2008-07-07.