The property owner, San Diego-based real estate investment trust Realty Income Corporation, placed the 37 acres up for lease in September via real estate services firm CBRE, as previously reported in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Proximity to Interstate 85 and Interstate 285 make the site desirable for multifamily, commercial, and potentially industrial development,” the listing on the CBRE website said, noting it is not far from the new Arthur M. Blank Hospital for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the TV and film stages at Assembly Studios in Doraville.
The brokers at CBRE did not return messages seeking more information about the property.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@
Regal’s Hollywood 24 was built during the heyday of multiplexes in the late 1990s, replacing the North 85 Drive-In, which opened in 1965. With its central location off I-85, it became the No. 1 theater in metro Atlanta in 2001 and remained in the top 10 for its first 19 years, according to comScore, which tracks box office performance by theater. Its best year in box office gross was in 2003 at $9.7 million.
At 24 screens, it had the most screens of any theater in metro Atlanta except AMC Southlake 24 in Morrow, which opened in 1997.
As recently as 2019, Regal Hollywood was the 13th-most-popular theater in metro Atlanta in box office gross, generating about $5 million.
But the pandemic severely impacted Regal’s parent company Cineworld, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2022. Cineworld emerged from bankruptcy in 2023 after slashing billions in debt.
Now, about five years since the pandemic began, the cinema business remains challenged by shifting viewer habits, especially for movie genres like romantic comedies and independent dramas, which more people are apt to watch from home. Movie attendance has not recovered from prepandemic levels, down by about one-third since 2019 in North America, according to Nash Information Services.
Regal Hollywood suffered even more. By 2024, its box office gross had tumbled 65% from 2019 to $1.75 million. Its ranking in metro Atlanta fell to 41st place, just barely ahead of the six-year-old Movie Tavern in Tucker, which has only eight screens.
Over the years, Regal Hollywood faced increasing competition from more modern, newer theaters such as NCG Cinema and LOOK Dine-In Cinemas, both in Brookhaven. And theaters like AMC Phipps Plaza in Buckhead and The Springs Cinema and Taphouse in Sandy Springs remodeled. Regal didn’t invest in a major refurbishment of its Hollywood space, and its exterior, with its rusting panels, looked increasingly unsightly.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
This theater’s closing “is yet another example that, if we want cinemas to stay open, we need to be going to them and they need to have sustainable leases,” said Christopher Escobar, owner of two independent cinemas, the Plaza Theatre and Tara Theatre. “The cost of real estate and labor has gone up faster than the hit cinemas have taken in attendance.”
But Escobar said the loss of this particular Regal won’t have a major impact on area theater options since its market share in the Atlanta metro area had dipped below 1%. Metro Atlanta still has more than 800 screens.
Brandt Gully, who owns The Springs Cinema and Taphouse, said with fewer movies being released in theaters, “it has just become so difficult for the megaplex model to work in today’s cinema environment. I personally think there are too many screens out there. And the ones that don’t keep up with the capital expenditures and constantly evolving amenities and consumer tastes may unfortunately be the odd man out.”
Gully, who has owned the cinema since 2019 and gave it a major $2.5 million overhaul, said he had his best holiday season ever and “we are sitting here trying to figure out where to invest more in the business to keep the momentum going.”
The closest remaining Regal theater to Regal Hollywood is 11 miles away at Regal Atlantic Station. Other theaters not far from Regal Hollywood include the Movie Tavern, AMC Phipps Plaza and NCG Brookhaven. Escobar’s Tara is 5 miles away.
Regal has closed three other theaters in metro Atlanta since 2020. It shuttered Regal Town Center Stadium 16 in Kennesaw in 2020 during the heart of the pandemic. In November 2022, Regal closed the historic Tara, which Escobar and a group of investors reopened in 2023. Last year, Regal also terminated Regal Stadium 22 in Austell.
The chain now has 13 theaters in metro Atlanta in cities like Newnan, Duluth, Griffin and Woodstock.
