Shortly after it was announced that The Roxy would be shutting down until April, now Missoula's other movie theater option is going away for a while - AMC, the largest movie theater chain in the US, has announced that it is closing all of its locations nationwide for the next six to twelve weeks, beginning today.

We've got two AMC locations in Missoula, the Dine-In theater at the Southgate Mall plaza and the AMC 12 over on North Reserve. This was something to be expected, after the studios pulled most of their major releases for March and April, and after cities across the country had been forcing their locations to close, including NY and LA.

Still, this is unsettling - there's never been a time in my lifetime when new movies weren't being released in theaters, and now we could be looking at a completely empty 2-3 months or longer. Obviously, this is all in the public interest, and this is the right move - and the other chains including Regal, Cinemark, and Alamo Drafthouse are following suit.

Will this have an impact on the future of the theater industry, even after the Coronavirus is all over? Only time will tell - but in the meantime, a few studios are putting some of their recent films on VOD early, including The Invisible ManThe HuntBirds of Prey, and The Gentlemen.

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