With Hurricane Ian en route to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday morning, Deadline hears that nearly 80 movie theaters have closed throughout Tampa, Orlando, the Panhandle and southwestern part of the state.
This includes such properties as the spruced-up Regal Naples, the Regal Hollywood 18, the AMC Veterans Expressway 24 in Tampa, the AMC Woodlands Square 20 in Oldsmar, the Regal Gulf Coast in Fort Myers, among several others. Many already have closed today to wait out this big storm, which is seeing more than 2.5 million ordered to evacuate the state, the latter stat according to CNN.
And it’s not just movie theaters that closed — most grocery stores too. Big Florida chain Publix is closing down stores tonight in 11 counties, effective 6 p.m. ET, including those in Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Hernando, Hillsborough, Lake, Lee, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas and Sarasota.
Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando already reported that they’ll be closing during this week.
Hurricane Ian remains a 120 mph, Category 3 storm, per CNN, and by the time it hits land could wind up a Category 4. Also per the news network, 30K workers from 23 states are being dispatched to help Florida with power restoration. Ian has already hit Cuba.
Typically when Florida gets hit with a hurricane, it doesn’t dent box office dollars that much. Don’t Worry Darling grossed a solid $1.66M on Monday, taking its 4-day total to $21M. The Olivia Wilde-directed genre pic is on course to make $2M today, on par with The Woman King’s first Tuesday. The pic is expected to ease by around 55% this coming weekend as Paramount’s horror movie Smile spots a high-teens start and Universal’s Billy Eichner LGBTQ romantic comedy Bros eyes a high -single-digits start.
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