Chief executive
"I don't know what the restrictions are going to be ... but I feel by the time we get there, we'll have the majority of our theatres open and ready to move forward," he explained after Cineplex reported another quarterly loss.
It's an educated guess on Jacob's part, but lately, the film industry has been full of them.
In
On Thursday, Sony announced that "Cinderella," starring
Meanwhile,
At the same time, studios are pushing out a blend of big-budget holdovers from 2020 and low-risk horror films in theatres, starting with a sequel to breakout thriller "A
That's left Cineplex and its fellow Canadian exhibitors in a tough spot as they watch receipts roll in south of the border, while cinemas here remain shuttered.
"A
"I'm not happy we have 27 theatres open — next week we'll have 30 theatres open — but I'm being optimistic," Jacob said.
"Vaccines are rolling out much quicker than in the past."
At this point, any locations reopened will mark an improvement over the first-quarter results, reported on Thursday.
Cineplex said attendance plunged 96 per cent in the period, with a total of 415,000 patrons buying tickets, compared to the same three months that ended
The company reported a loss of
The losses amounted to
Revenue totalled
Cineplex has spent much of the pandemic tightening its costs, though as of the first quarter it was still burning through an average of
The company struck a number of agreements to counter expenses, including one with lenders to further amend its credit agreement, and another for the sale of its
More recently, Cineplex shed ownership and distribution rights for its digital and in-theatre publication
The move transferred operating costs of the magazine business to the newspaper publisher and, Jacob said, gave Cineplex the benefits of advertising in
Jacob told investors in a conference call that the company's actions will "provide the runway we need to see us swim to the other side of this, and the other side is close, we can all see the light at the end of the tunnel now."
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