Cineworld cinema in Northampton set to close this week, company confirms
"This is not a decision we made lightly," bosses say
It comes after a Sunday Times article published on Sunday (October 4) revealed how Cineworld chiefs blamed the decision to shut on the postponement of big budget films in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, Britain's biggest cinema chain has confirmed it will shut its doors in Sixfields from Friday (October 9) until further notice along with its other 127 cinemas in the UK and Ireland, putting an estimated 5,500 jobs at risk. It also affects Northamptonshire's Rushden Lakes site.
Bosses say the delay of the new James Bond film, No Time To Die, has played a major part in their decision making as it's postponed again until 2021.
A spokesperson for the company said: "This is not a decision we made lightly. We did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable reopenings of our cinemas and we are so 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 are 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 can not underscore enough how difficult this decision was."
The 100th Cineworld at Rushden Lakes only opened its 14-screen cinema at the £140m retail destination on June 28, 2019 before shutting in March this year because of COVID-19. The state-of-the-art screens there include and IMAX, 4DX and ScreenX.
All Cineworld screens reopened again in July with strict social distancing measures in place, including staggered film start and finish times, paperless tickets, hand sanitiser stations and computerised bookings.