Regal Entertainment Group also known as REG is a movie theater chain headquartered in
Knoxville, TennesseeFounded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
. Regal operates the largest and most geographically diverse theater circuit in the United States, consisting of 6,775 screens in 548 locations in 39 states and the District of Columbia as of October 23, 2009. The three main theatre 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 (popcorn bags, policy trailers) uses the Regal Entertainment Group name and logo. Where applicable, the REG logo is used alongside the three individual brands. Most new cinema construction uses the Regal Cinemas name, although Regal has built new Edwards locations in
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and
IdahoIdaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
. Regal has acquired several smaller chains since this merger; these, however, have been rebranded as Regal Cinemas.
Regal Cinemas
Regal Cinemas was established in 1989 in
Knoxville, TennesseeFounded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, with Mike Campbell as CEO. Regal began to grow at a rapid pace, opening larger cinemas in suburban areas. Many of these contained a "premium" café (later called Cafe Del Moro) and a more upscale look than theaters of the time.
Regal Cinema embarked on an aggressive expansion throughout the decade, swallowing up 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 Theaters, although it had acquired some smaller chains as well in the mid-1990s, including the original
Cobb TheatresCobb Theatres, who presently operates 18 locations with 232 screens, is a cinema chain based in Birmingham, Alabama. The majority of Cobb Theatres' currently operating cinemas are in Florida, with others in Alabama, Virginia, and Colorado plus a new location under construction in Georgia.The...
, RC Theatres, and Cleveland-based National Theatre Corp.
By 2001, Regal was overextended like many other cinema chains, and went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
United Artists Theaters
United Artists Theaters has its roots in the
movie studio of the same nameUnited Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
founded by
Douglas FairbanksDouglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
,
Mary PickfordMary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
,
Charlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, and
D. W. GriffithDavid Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
, but legally has always been separate from it.
Joseph SchenckJoseph Michael Schenck was a pioneer executive who played a key role in the development of the United States film industry.Born in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia to a Jewish household, he and his family-including younger brother Nicholas- emigrated to New York City in 1893, he and Nicholas...
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 theatres 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.
UAC was an early pioneer in cable television, and aggressively bought smaller regional systems. By the end of the 1980s, John Malone's Tele-Communications, Inc. was majority owner; by 1991, it had bought the company outright. Choosing to concentrate on its cable assets, TCI then sold the theatre chain to an investment group.
United Artists Theaters was purchased in the late 1940s by the Naify Brothers, who owned theatres in the
San Francisco Bay AreaThe San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. Their company up until 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. The UA Theatres main office was in San Francisco until 1988 when it was sold to TCI .
The theater chain, by now running as United Artists Theatre Circuit, had a rocky existence after the sale, posting years of consecutive losses. By the end of the 1990s, UA was whipped into financial shape by new CEO Kurt Hall, but that wasn't enough to save it from declaring bankruptcy in 2000 after the end of the multiplex building binge.
Edwards Theatres
Edwards Theatres was a family-owned chain in
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, 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, CaliforniaNewport Beach, incorporated in 1906, is a city in Orange County, California, south of downtown Santa Ana. The population was 85,186 at the 2010 census.The city's median family income and property values consistently place high in national rankings...
.
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.
History after 2002
When all three chains went into bankruptcy, investor
Philip AnschutzPhilip Frederick Anschutz is an American entrepreneur. Anschutz bought out his father's drilling company in 1961 and earned large returns in Wyoming. He has invested in stocks, real estate and railroads...
bought substantial investments in all three companies, becoming majority owner. In March 2002, Anschutz announced plans to consolidate all three of his 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 CinemediaNational CineMedia operates NCM Media Networks, an integrated media company reaching U.S. consumers in movie theaters, online and through mobile technology...
, from the UA offices in
Centennial, ColoradoThe city of Centennial is a Home Rule City located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States, and part of the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area. The city was to have a total population of 100,377 in 2010 census. Centennial is the tenth-most populous municipality in the state of Colorado and its...
. 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 (which would be bought by Hicks, Muse) and Act III (controlled by KKR), 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.
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
and Turner Broadcasting were among the first to sign on to provide content for the venture, and the preshow, dubbed "The 2wenty", went online 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 TheatresAMC Theatres , officially known as AMC Entertainment, Inc., is the second largest movie theater chain in North America with 5,325 screens, second only to Regal Entertainment Group, and one of the United States's four national cinema chains AMC Theatres (American Multi-Cinema), officially known as...
' National Cinema Network in 2005 to form
National CineMediaNational CineMedia operates NCM Media Networks, an integrated media company reaching U.S. consumers in movie theaters, online and through mobile technology...
. 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.
Since the 2002 formation of REG, it has acquired several smaller chains. In April 2005, Eastern Federal, which was a fairly prominent theatre company in the Southeastern
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, was brought into the Regal family. It acquired
San Ramon, California-2010 census:The 2010 United States Census reported that San Ramon had a population of 72,148. The population density was 3,991.1 people per square mile...
-based Signature Theatres from Phil Harris on September 30, 2004, and took over the US assets of
Hoyts CinemasThe Hoyts Group is an Australian company consisting of Hoyts Exhibition, Hoyts Distribution and Val Morgan.Hoyts Exhibition manages 450 screens across 40 Australian and 10 New Zealand cinema complexes; making it Australia's second largest cinema chain. Val Morgan, the cinema advertising arm of the...
in 2004. Unlike the merger with UA and Edwards, Regal has rebranded all of these theatres as Regal Cinemas.
In 2007, REG opened its first all digital projection theatre in Henderson, Nevada, the Fiesta Henderson Stadium 12.
Regal Entertainment Group completed acquisition of
Consolidated TheatresConsolidated Theatres was a movie theater chain based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company operated over 400 movie screens and 28 theaters in 6 states along the East Coast.It was part of "The Stone Group" and was founded by Herman Stone....
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 of a condition of approval of the merger, the
United States Department of JusticeThe United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
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
AshevilleAsheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
,
Charlotte- CHARLOTTE :CHARLOTTE is an American blues-based hard rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1986. Currently, they are signed to indie label, Eonian Records, under which they released their debut cd, Medusa Groove, in 2010. Notable Charlotte songs include 'Siren', 'Little Devils',...
and
Raleigh, North CarolinaRaleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
markets.
On May 18, 2009, Regal signed a deal with
Sony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
to equip all of its theaters with
4k4K is an emerging standard for resolution in digital film and computer graphics. The name comes from its approximately 4,000 pixels of horizontal resolution. The fact that it describes the horizontal resolution is contrary to the standard resolutions 720p and 1080p, which represent the number of...
digital projection over the next three to five years.
In April 2010, Regal launched Regal Premium Experience (RPX), an upgraded theater format. Each RPX theater features a 60-foot screen, dual 30K
lumenLumen can mean:* Lumen , the SI unit of luminous flux* Lumen , the cavity or channel within a tubular structure* Thylakoid lumen, the inner membrane space of the chloroplast* Phenobarbital...
digital projectors, 100,000 watt sound system, and better seats with headrests. Both digital 2D and RealD Cinema films can be screened. As of March 2011, there were 11 operating RPX locations, with more announced.
In June, 2011 Regal began downsizing its theater employees, removing managers from projection and replacing them with lower paid floor staff. This move allowed Regal to layoff part time managers across the country and forcibly demote many full time managers to part time and part time managers to floor staff. As theaters convert to all digital automated screens, Regal has also begun removing projectionists altogether. This focus on "cost control" has helped Regal post better than expected profits for both the 2nd and 3rd quarters.
Regal Foundation
The Regal Foundation was organized in 2003 by Regal Entertainment Group in order to engage in charitable activities directly and by providing funds to other charitable organizations. The Regal Foundation holds a large in-theater donation drive during the summer months of the year known as "Stars of Hope". During this event patrons can donate $1 to the Regal Foundation. The names of donors are written on individual stars and posted on a "wall of fame" visible in that patrons respective theater.
Regal Crown Club
The Regal Crown Club is a points-based reward card program offered by Regal Entertainment Group in all of its theaters.
Main competitors
- National Amusements Inc.
- AMC Theatres
AMC Theatres , officially known as AMC Entertainment, Inc., is the second largest movie theater chain in North America with 5,325 screens, second only to Regal Entertainment Group, and one of the United States's four national cinema chains AMC Theatres (American Multi-Cinema), officially known as...
- Cinemark Theatres
Cinemark Theatres is a chain of movie theatres owned by Cinemark Holdings, Inc. in North and South America and Taiwan. It has its headquarters in Plano, Texas.Cinemark's Missions Statement Reads as follows:...
- Muvico Theaters
Muvico Theaters is a movie theater chain. Its headquarters are in Oakland Park, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale.Based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Muvico has seven complexes in Florida. Muvico has also expanded out of the state of Florida to include complexes in the Chicago Metropolitan Area , and...