The Cinemark theater chain plans to reopen on July 1, with the anticipation that the COVID-19 crisis will lessen.

At the beginning of March, Riverside County issued a quarantine order that forced people to self-isolate, enforced social distancing laws and caused theaters to close down.

This quarantine is meant to last until May 15.

Anticipating this, Cinemark is planning to kickstart their operations by reinstating and hiring workers starting in late June.

But obviously, the theater-going experience will be different now as social distancing rules will most certainly still be in place.

Cinemark does not expect to be at full capacity right from the get-go since people might still be hesitant to be out in large crowds.

Their reopening is just the first step into putting the theaters back in business.

Cinemark owns about 6,000 screens and whether they will stay open or remain closed will depend on how close the curb is to flattening when it comes to the virus.

When it comes to reopening, the theater chain will go by a case to case basis as some areas of the country were hit worse than others.

To put people at ease, the theater chain does not plan on selling all their seats. The chain would halt advance tickets on reserve seats, have some seats off-limits to space out their screening rooms, or sell every other seat in the screening room.

In the case that this global pandemic continues, Cinemark could remain closed until 2021, but no later than that.

At this moment Cinemark is not in as much trouble as AMC’s theater chains, which are reportedly on the verge of Bankruptcy. Cinemark has saved money by raising $250 million in bond sales and laying off over 17,500 employees.

The government has also pledged to aid theater chains that find themselves in a crisis due to this pandemic.

Most of the high profile films of 2020 have been postponed until the fall, so from July 1 t to about July 16, Cinemark plans on showing what they call “High profile library product” on their screens.

One could take this chance to see set films that they usually would not be able to see in the cinemas.

Things are expected to pick up once director Christopher Nolan’s film, Tenet, hits theaters on July 17. Nolan and Warner Brothers have held strong to that release date even through all the trouble with the coronavirus.

And soon after, on July 24, Disney’s remake of Mulan will be released.

Even still, most people will undoubtedly remain cautious and things are expected to run as usual until October, just before most of the major films of the year like ‘Black Widow’ and ‘No Time to Die’ start releasing in November.

This global pandemic has affected the film industry in unforeseen ways. And many hope that soon theaters will reopen to find some entertainment and forget the stress that this pandemic may have caused them, at least for a few hours.