Regal Entertainment Group
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| Regal Entertainment Group | |
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| Type | Public (NYSE: RGC) |
| Founded | 2002, Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Headquarters | Knoxville, Tennessee, United States |
| Key people | Mike Campbell, CEO Gregory Dunn, COO |
| Industry | Motion Picture Exhibition |
Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE: RGC) is the largest movie theatre chain in North America, operating 6,423 screens in 529 locations in 41 U.S. states. It was formed in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2002, when billionaire investor Phillip Anschutz acquired several smaller chains that had gone bankrupt at the end of the megaplex building binge of the mid-1990s. The company is currently based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Anschutz owns more than half of the company.
The three main theatre brands operated by Regal Entertainment Group are:
- Regal Cinemas
- Edwards Theatres
- 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 California. Regal has acquired several smaller chains since this merger; these, however, have been rebranded as Regal Cinemas.
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[edit] History Pre-2002
[edit] Regal Cinemas
Regal Cinemas was formed in 1989 in Knoxville, with Mike Campbell as CEO. Campbell was previously president of a smaller chain called Premiere Cinemas, which was sold to Cinemark. Regal began to grow at a rapid pace, opening larger cinemas in suburban areas. Many of these contained a "premium" cafe (later called Cafe Del Moro) and a more upscale look than theatres 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 Theatres, although it had acquired some smaller chains as well in the mid-1990s, including the original Cobb theatres, RC Theatres, and Cleveland-based National Theatre Corp.
By 2001, Regal was overextended like many other cinema chains, and went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
[edit] United Artists Theatres
United Artists Theatres has its roots in the movie studio of the same name founded by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith, but legally, has always been separate from it. Joseph Schenck 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 Theatres was purchased in the late 1940's by the Naify Brothers who owned theatres in the San Francisco Bay Area. 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 theatre 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.
[edit] Edwards Theatres
Edwards Theatres was a family-owned chain in California, started in 1930 by William James Edwards Jr. It became one of California's best-known and most popular theatre chains, and by Edwards' death in 1997, operated about 90 locations with 560 screens. 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.
[edit] History Post-2002
When all three chains went into bankruptcy, investor Philip Anschutz 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 Cinemedia, from the UA offices in Centennial, Colorado. 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. NBC and Turner were among the first to sign on to provide content for the venture, and the preshow, dubbed "The 2wenty", went online in February 2003. The new distribution system was also meant to be used for special events such as concerts. Regal CineMedia merged with AMC Theatres' National Cinema Network in 2005 to form National CineMedia. 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 of 2005, Eastern Federal, which was a fairly prominent theatre company in the Southeastern United States, was brought into the Regal family. It acquired San Ramon, California-based Signature Theatres from Phil Harris on September 30, 2004, and took over the US assets of Hoyts Cinemas 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, NV, the Fiesta Henderson Stadium 12.
Regal Entertainment Group completed acquisition of Consolidated Theatres on May 1, 2008[1]. 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 Justice required that Regal divest itself of several theaters in areas where it would have a monopoly. Regal agreed to sell off 4 theaters in the Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina markets.
[edit] Digital Content Network/Pre Show Entertainment
In 2003, Regal introduced The 2wenty, an approximately 20 minute digital video program distributed to Regal's theatres via satellite. The initiative was meant to replace the traditional slide show presentation and "rolling stock" film advertisements. Instead of focusing on movie trivia, info about actors, and other movie-related items, as was the norm with the slide show presentation, the 2wenty was four approximately 5-minute long advertisements, usually for TV shows or upcoming films. Standard 30-second television commercials are shown as well. In January 2006 the preshow was renamed Regal First Look, but is largely the same as the show it replaced. The program is scheduled to end at the movie's start time, at which point the 35 mm film begins rolling with the previews and feature.
[edit] References
- ^ Regal completes purchase of Consolidated Theatres. Retrieved on 2008-04-30.
