Close to 40 AMC, Cinemark and Regal multiplexes are closed throughout Florida as the state braces for Hurricane Helene to hit landfall as a Category 4 with a force of 130 mph.
Theaters from as far south as Fort Myers, Florida to as far north as Tallahassee, are shuttered. Their tentative re-opening date is tomorrow, Friday Sept. 27. The major movies opening this weekend are DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot and Lionsgate’s Megalopolis.
Hurricane-force winds at 74 mph are expected per Weather.com to stretch into Florida’s Panhandle northward into southern and middle Georgia tonight, possibly as far north as the Atlanta metro area. Downed trees and power outages are expected to be widespread and will no doubt impact cinema reopenings. Per CNN, there were more than 225,000 homes and businesses without power in Florida. Then there’s the flooding — already Naples, FL downtown is underwater.
One of the more recent hurricane casualties as far as multiplexes go was Regal’s Hollywood 20 in Naples which was damaged during Hurricane Irma in the fall of 2017. The cinema was completely remodeled and updated to what is essentially one of the chain’s zenith venues in the country, reopening on April 7, 2019.
Box office sources always say that Florida theater closures won’t necessarily impact the overall domestic marketplace. However, if cinemas are forced to close this weekend in Atlanta, GA, which is a top ten market, we could see a shortfall of ticket sales. While events are getting canceled in the Atlanta area, we’re still waiting to hear about cinemas closures there. Already, we hear that some schools in the Atlanta, GA area are being forced to close in anticipation of Hurricane Helene. If the storm wounds up being less severe than that could be good for business.
In recent memory, the last time a major storm slowed the domestic box office was winter storm Jonas over the weekend of Jan. 22-24, 2016 which deep-freezed from Charlotte, NC upward to New York City. The weekend box office then was down 32% from its previous frame.