Boris Johnson urges everyone to ‘go to the cinema’ after Cineworld is forced to close its UK outlets

Boris Johnson has urged people to go to the cinema to support the struggling industry. 

The news comes after Cineworld announced plans to close 127 UK outlets – with a total of 663 venues shutting around the world – telling 45,000 people they are off work until further notice.

Vue also warned on Monday that they are in talks about closure and there may be redundancies.

Cineworld chief executive Mooky Greidinger said: “We did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable reopenings in all of our markets.”

Adding that the company ‘cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was’ to close the sites. 

He continued: “Cineworld will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate any future plans to resume operations in these markets at the appropriate time, when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen”.

Cineworld employs 5,000 people in the UK, and said it’s been hit hard by the absence of blockbuster movies due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tim Richards, founder and chief executive of the Vue cinema chain, said the delay of the release of Daniel Craig’s final James Bond film from November to April has been a huge ‘blow’ for the industry.

Adding: “Our problem right now is we have no movies and this [the delay to the Bond film] was a big blow for us.”

Richards explained that Vue is ‘likely going to make it through’ and that the goal is to keep as many of its 5,500 employees as possible. 

The Prime Minister said he would ‘encourage people to go out to the cinema, enjoy themselves and support outlets’.