Hurricane Ian Forces 80 Movie Theaters To Close In Florida – Deadline

With Hurricane Ian enroute to hit Southern Florida in the morning, Deadline hears close to 80 movie theaters have closed throughout the Tampa, Orlando, North Florida 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 have already closed effective today to wait this big storm out which is seeing more than 2.5M 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 in 11 counties effective 6PM EST tonight including Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Hernando, Hillsborough, Lake, Lee, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas and Sarasota.

Walt Disney World and Universal 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 tomorrow 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 yesterday taking its 4-day total to $21M. ‘The Olivia Wilde-directed genre pic is on course to make $2M today, on par with Woman King’s first Tuesday. The pic is expected to ease 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.