Regal Cinemas
Regal Entertainment Group is an American movie theater chain that operates the second-largest theater circuit in the United States, with 5,720 screens in 420 theaters as of December 31, 2024. Founded on August 10, 1989, it is owned by the British company Cineworld and headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. The three main theater brands operated by Regal Entertainment Group are Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres, and United Artists Theatres.
These chains retain their exterior signage, but most indoor branding uses the Regal Entertainment Group name and logo. Most new cinema construction uses the Regal Cinemas name. Regal has acquired several smaller chains since this merger; these, however, have been rebranded as Regal Cinemas.
On December 5, 2017, it was announced that the British theater chain Cineworld would acquire Regal for $3.6 billion, making it the second largest global theater exhibitor behind AMC Theatres. On September 7, 2022, Cineworld filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
History
1989–2002: Three separate chains
Regal Cinemas was established in 1989 in Knoxville, Tennessee, with Mike Campbell as CEO. Its first location was the Searstown Cinema in Titusville, Florida. Regal began to grow at a rapid pace, opening larger cinemas in suburban areas. Many of these contained a "premium" café and a more upscale look than typical theaters of the time.Regal Cinemas embarked on a large-scale expansion throughout the decade, acquiring 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, which followed an acquisition of both chains by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, 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.
By 2001, Regal was over-extended, 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 theaters.
The chain's famous "Regal Roller Coaster" policy trailer, animated by SmithGroup Communications, which was shown before every movie shown from the early 1990s to the spring of 2005, 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 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 theaters 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. On April 22, 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 December 1986, when it relocated to Englewood, Colorado.
UA was an early pioneer in cable television, and aggressively bought smaller regional systems. In December 1986, John C. Malone's Tele-Communications, Inc. became the 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.
;Edwards Theatres
Image:EdwardsHoustonGrandPalace.JPG|thumb|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. Edwards Theatres had its headquarters in Newport Beach, California. 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.
2002–2017: Anschutz consolidation
When all three chains went into bankruptcy, investor Philip Anschutz bought substantial investments in all three companies, becoming majority owner. In 2002, Anschutz consolidated his three 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 and Act III, 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.
File:Regal_Cinemas_at_Nanuet_Mall.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The 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. It took over the US assets of Hoyts Cinemas in March 2003 and announced the acquisition of San Ramon, California–based Signature Theatres in April 2004. Unlike the merger with UA and Edwards, Regal has rebranded all of these theatres as Regal Cinemas. In April 2005, Eastern Federal, which was a theatre company in the Southeastern United States, was acquired by Regal. 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. 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.
In 2007, REG opened its first all-digital projection theater in Henderson, Nevada, the Fiesta Henderson Stadium 12. Regal sold Fandango to the leading cable company Comcast Corporation in 2007.
Regal Entertainment Group completed its acquisition of Consolidated Theatres on May 1, 2008. 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 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 17, 2009, Regal collaborated with Sony Corporation to equip all of its theaters with Sony 4K digital projection over the next three to five years.
In April 2010, Regal launched Regal Premium Experience, a new upgraded theater format. Both digital 2D and RealD 3D films can be screened. As of January 2016, there are 87 operating RPX locations.
In June 2011, after posting a loss for the first quarter, Regal began downsizing its theater workforce 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.
In March 2014, AEG and Regal collaborated an agreement to add 4DX—a 4D film format—to its location at L.A. Live. As of 2018, it operated six 4DX screens nationwide, with plans to expand to at least 79.
In December 2015, Regal took over managing operations of Cinebarre, a former joint venture between Regal Entertainment Group and Terrell Braly. These locations feature a full bar and made-from-scratch restaurant menu, allowing patrons to order before/during a movie and have the food delivered directly to their seats. As of August 2024, there are four Cinebarre locations operating within the United States.
In January 2016, Regal was issued a temporary injunction by a district court in the state of Texas following complaints by the Houston-based theater 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.
In 2017, Regal purchased Wichita, Kansas–based Warren Theatres.