Merced movie theater abruptly closes amid holiday season blockbusters. What will replace it?
Amid a holiday burst of blockbuster releases like “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “The Matrix Resurrections,” one of Merced’s two movie theaters shuttered its windows this week — possibly permanently.
The Regal UA Regency theater at the Merced Mall is listed as permanently closed online and all movie showtimes have been removed from the theater’s website.
Although the theater has been standing for decades, its closure happened rather abruptly — and quietly. So far, there has been no official word on the theater’s status from Cineworld Group, the parent company of Regal Cinemas.
The theater’s final day of operation was purportedly Sunday, according to an official on site who requested to remain unnamed.
The impetus for the theater’s closure is unclear at this time.
Grand plans for a revamp of the Merced Mall include a deal with Cinemark Theatres for a new, larger 14-screen modern cinema. The new theater, expected to be built inside the mall, is intended as a catalyst for the Merced Mall Renovation Project as a whole.
Although it is uncertain whether the new Cinemark theater project is directly connected to the Regal UA Regency’s closure this week, City of Merced officials have previously said that the plan calls for the Regal cinema to eventually be leveled and possibly turned into retail space.
The Merced Mall revamp project is slated to build a 56,000 square-foot theater with about 1,377 seats — including reclining chairs — and state-of-the-art audio and video equipment. The new theater space in the mall would be over twice as large as the 22,000-square-foot Regal UA Regency cinema.
Construction of the Cinemark theater is still about a year off, officials involved with the project have estimated.
Meanwhile downtown’s Regal Hollywood Merced theater is still playing films as normally scheduled. For now, that cinema will be the only place to catch the latest movies on the big screen in Merced.
This story was originally published December 23, 2021 at 11:09 AM.
