Courtroom Drama Clouds Post-Covid-19 Recovery for Regal Cinemas’ Owner

The owner of the Regal movie-theater chain won’t breathe easy even when it recovers from a bad case of long Covid.

Cineworld Group , the embattled London-listed company that bought Regal in 2018, is banking on consumers quickly returning toward pre-pandemic moviegoing habits this year. On Thursday, alongside reporting annual results, it laid out a base case for 2022 that involves its admissions rebounding to 85% of their 2019 level in the U.S. and 90% in the U.K., its two most important markets.