Cineworld Group, the London parent of the Regal Cinemas chain of movie theaters, has announced the closure of its Oaks location. Michael Tannenbaum reported the bad news to local movie lovers in PhillyVoice.

The shutdown of the Montgomery County movie theater is only one of 39 exiting the U.S. landscape on Feb. 15.

In the Philadelphia region, the company’s Doylestown location is also going dark.

With more than 500 theaters, Regal is the nation’s second-biggest movie theater chain, behind AMC.

In September, Cineworld announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which makes it easier to back out of leases or negotiate new terms with landlords.

The causes are fairly easy to understand. The revenue losses from the COVID-19 pandemic were an initial hit. And following that were mass audience migrations to online streaming services.

Box office receipts in North America for 2022 were $7.5 billion, a 34 percent drop from $11 billion in 2018–2019.

Fans of the chain can take some comfort in its two remaining sites in Montgomery County:

• Regal Plymouth Meeting in Conshohocken
• Regal UA King of Prussia

More on the closure of Regal Cinemas is at PhillyVoice.

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This Media Philosophy report digs deeper into the effect of services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ on traditional movie theaters.