As the world continues to hunker down for the month of April due to the coronavirus pandemic, businesses across the United States remain closed due to social distancing restrictions. One of the hardest-hit industries remains Hollywood, where there has been a halt on all movie productions and studios are scrambling to find solutions. The part of the industry that may never have a comeback is the theaters, as AMC, the world’s largest movie theater chain, is on the brink of bankruptcy due to the coronavirus.

At the beginning of March, as panic about the spread of the disease began picking up, theaters attempted to assure customers that they were taking proper health precautions to protect customers. That included staggered seating in the cinema, to keep the six-foot recommended distance, and regular cleaning and disinfecting in between shows.

The public never believed these pledges. Movie theaters had gained a reputation for cleanliness problems, sometimes facing difficulty evening wiping down seats once a day if at all. And new digital ticket ordering made the seat staggering fall apart immediately.

This led to the worst box office weekend in twenty-two years. From March 13-15, movie showings only grossed a national total of $55.3 million. The only movie to break double digits was Disney’s Onward, and nearly every film had a weekend drop of over 60-70% from the previous week. On Tuesday, March 17, New York City and Los Angeles became the first cities to order the closing of movie theaters along with other leisure establishments, and the rest of the country followed suit.

This is likely a death blow for AMC Theaters, which has over 660 theaters in the United States alone. The company already entered this crisis $5 billion in debt, a result of recent expansions that included the purchase of Carmike Cinemas and other competitors. AMC is a publicly-traded company, with its majority stockholders (a combined 66%) being the Wanda Group, a Chinese property developer, and Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm that invests in numerous entertainment companies.

Last week Wall Street’s S&P downgraded AMC’s credit rating. “We do not believe AMC has sufficient sources of liquidity to cover its expected negative cash flows past mid-summer, and we believe the company will likely breach” a debt covenant by September, they reported. This comes in parallel with the company’s announcement that it was furloughing all six hundred of its corporate staff, and that none of them, including the CEO, will be receiving a salary until the public health crisis abates.

Whenever the pandemic does dampen, its unlikely AMC’s theaters will remain shut forever. Instead, the company will be purchased through bankruptcy, restructured, and placed under new leadership. Its current CEO, Adam Aron, is not without hope, however. He still believes theaters could reopen by mid-June, a very sunny estimate according to public health officials.

Hunter DeRensis is a senior reporter for the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.

Image: Reuters.