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Cinemark on Wednesday said it’s taking a

slew of measures to tempt back moviegoers

as it reopens. Those include discounting and

vigorous cleaning protocols for theaters, like

disinfecting seats in the mornings and before

each showtime. It will also require employees

— but not customers — to wear masks and will

stagger showtimes to thin out crowds.

The company also said it would stay in the black

even if local governments only allow it to sell

half of its seats to keep customers separated,

which the company expects governments

will allow for most places in the U.S. by mid-

July. Cinemark CEO Mark Zoradi said that even

“below that level,” the chain’s theaters can be

“very, very profitable.”

Local rules for theaters vary across the U.S.

New York City has not even begun to reopen,

and California hasn’t gotten to that phase of its

reopening yet. In Texas, theaters are allowed to

be at 25% capacity.

Theater chains are also concerned that film

studios could push more movies straight to the

streaming services that they own. Since the

pandemic shut down theaters, entertainment

companies have delayed most movies. But

Comcast’s NBCUniversal released “Trolls World

Tour” on video on demand in April, triggering

an angry response from the theater industry,

and Disney will release “Artemis Fowl” to its

streaming service, Disney Plus, in June, rather

than theaters.

Research firm MoffettNathanson expects box

office receipts in the U.S. and Canada to drop

50% in 2020, to $5.5 billion from $11.4 billion

in 2019, and then to rebound to $9.7 billion in

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