If you are one of the 330,000 residents of Manukau city in New Zealand then beginning on September 13th you’ll have a brand new movie theatre to see the latest and greatest films in. SkyCity Cinemas is opening a flagship multiplex at the Westfield Manukau City on Saturday featuring ten screens and a combined 1,932 seats.
Eight of the screens will be reserved for traditional theatres complete with digital sound and extra-wide stadium seating that will provide plenty of leg room. The two remaining screens have been transformed into SkyCity’s premium auditoriums, Cinema Deluxe. They will seat 78 and 62 patrons respectively in reclining leather chairs. Despite what may appear to be limited seating capacity, the VIP screens are full sized theatres with the same screen size, throw and digital sound as featured in the multiplex’s other auditoriums. The largest screen in the complex will seat 364.
SkyCity Cinemas Manukau will also host a full bar in hopes of coaxing some extra New Zealand Dollars out of adult moviegoers before and after shows, as well as an interactive gaming arcade. Read More »
Popularity: 37% [?]
![Village Roadshow chairman, Robert G. Kirby [Lawrence K. Ho/LA Times]](http://celluloidjunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/robertgkirby.jpg "Robet G. Kirby")
Village Roadshow chairman, Robert G. Kirby (Lawrence K. Ho/LA Times)
Back in March of this year, Australian exhibitor Village Roadshow Ltd. announced plans to bring their Gold Class luxury cinemas concept to the United States. Already a huge hit in Australia, Village Roadshow teamed up with television producer Norman Lear’s Act III Communications and investment firm Lambert Entertainment in a USD $200 million venture that has plans to open 50 theaters in the U.S. over a five year period. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times shed some light on what moviegoers can expect from Village Roadshow’s high-end cinemas.
Specifically, they can look forward to the price of admission - up to USD $35 per ticket.
Turns out Village Roadshow’s Gold Class Cinemas, which is based in Burbank, California, will be opening three theaters in the Los Angeles area by December of 2009. It should come as no surprise that these theatres will be built in affluent areas such as One Colorado in Pasadena, Triangle Square in Costa Mesa and at the Guasti Winery in Ontario. Read More »
Popularity: 50% [?]
As the multiplexing of India continues, Adlabs Cinemas and Phoenix Mills are teaming up to build a 15 screen screen at the Phoenix Market City at Kurla in Mumbai. The 140,000 square foot facility will have more about 4,000 seats. Like many exhibitors these days, Adlabs plans to fortify their offerings of first run movies with a heavy dose of live concerts and sporting events. The company will also build two of the screens as luxury theatres. No word on when the theatre will open.
Speaking about the news on Thursday Adlabs Cinemas chief operating officer Tushar Dhingra was quoted as saying:
“It is our endeavour to offer audiences a wide variety of viewing experiences. The Ebony Lounge will have live band performances round the year. It will add novelty and uniqueness to the cinema experience in India.”
Heck, having a music lounge at a movie theatre would be “unique” no matter what country it was located in. Adlabs recently announced they would be building a chain of luxury lounges geared towards moviegoers and this new complex seems to fit that plan. With an emerging economy like India’s such theatres would seem a natural fit, however lately many of the country’s moviegoers have been complaining, mostly on personal blogs, about the high ticket prices charged by such multiplexes.
While they had everybody’s attention by spreading the news about their plans for the Mumbai multiplex Adlabs also announced Kids 101, a new loyalty program meant to attract children and teenagers to the circuit’s 66 locations throughout India. To start out, the program will provide games and contests to members on Sundays.
Popularity: 40% [?]
The Chelsea West Cinemas in New York City has long been a home to film industry events such as premieres and trade screenings. Now, in what Variety is calling “one of the boldest moves in Gotham exhibition this decade” the School of Visual Arts has taken out a 26-year lease on the theatre and will spend the next several months renovating the venue to reopen it as a repertory theatre. (AMC opening the Empire 25 on 42nd Street in 2000 directly across the street from a Loews multiplex must not count as bold, just extremely confident.)
The Chelsea West, which opened in 1963 as a single-screen theatre, is a 20,000 square foot, two-screen complex which had been operated by Clearview Cinemas until SVA recently took over the lease. Clearview will still operate the Chelsea, a nine-screen complex just across Eighth Avenue which shows first-run features.
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Popularity: 28% [?]
Maya Cinemas and Chicago real estate developer Urban Retail Properties have announced a joint venture to bring high-end, first-class multiplexes to inner-city Latino neighborhoods. The Los Angeles Times is reporting the two companies plan on building 500 screens in 40 locations in North America over the next five years and have already begun development or construction in cities such as Fresno, Bakersfield and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Maya Cinemas presently runs a 14 screen complex in Salinas, California with plans to open a location in Inglewood to play movies in both Spanish and English. Urban Retail Properties is best known for developing mixed use properties such as Copley Place in Boston, Valencia Town Center near Los Angeles and Water Tower Place in Chicago.
The Times article quotes Patrick Corcoran of the National Association of Theatre Owners as saying that of the estimated 175 million moviegoers in the United States a majority are whites and that Latinos and African Americans aren’t far behind. Of these groups Corcoran points to Latinos as the most consistent movie watchers, a group he says exhibitors have begun to take notice of over the past several years. The Motion Picture Association of America figures Latinos make up 17% of U.S. movie audiences, the largest minority ethnic group among frequent moviegoers. Read More »
Popularity: 25% [?]
Movie Palaces Inc. are expanding their five theatre empire in Casper, Wyoming with one more ten-screen multiplex on the east side of town. The Casper Star Tribune reveals that because of parking and building size issues downtown the multiplex has to be situated at the east side of town. Randy Pride, the co-owner of Movie Palaces, proudly states “I compare it to Wal-Mart building a new location on the west side,” but re-assures readers that the cinemas downtown won’t be closing as a result. But not everyone is convinced: “Tina Wulf, director of the Downtown Development Authority, hopes the new multiplex won’t negatively affect downtown, but it remains to be seen.” There’s even discussion about whether this will have an impact on downtown restaurants.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Can a movie theater make movies better? That was the question residents of the San Fernando Valley found waiting for them at the end of their driveway last Thursday. At least those residents who subscribe to home delivery of the Los Angeles Times. The question was posed on an insert folded into Thursday’s paper advertising Pacific Theatres latest theatre opening; Arclight Sherman Oaks.
The Arclight Sherman Oaks is modeled after 14-screen, 140,000 square foot Arclight Hollywood which Pacific opened in March of 2002 next to the historic Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard. At the time there was a great deal of hoopla over the new complex for a number of reasons, not the least of which was its USD $14 ticket price for prime shows and the USD $6 parking fee. Pacific eventually caved and picked up USD $4 of the parking fee which led some to speculate that the Arclight may be doomed due to its high operating costs.
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Popularity: 26% [?]
Apparently the opening of a new multiplex is big news in Tucson, Arizona. Just ask Kent Edwards, a managing partner in Tower Theatres, a new independently owned 12 screen multiplex that opened at Arizona Pavilions in Marana on December 7th. The day before the grand opening the Arizona Daily Star published two stories on the opening of the theatre.
Marana is a fast growing town whose population has nearly tripled since 1999 to 35,000. The area of Northwest Tucson has been growing so rapidly that chain stores such as Wal-Mart and Kohl’s have started to spring up so it was only a matter of time before it sprouted a multiplex, independent or otherwise. As Edwards told the Arizona Daily Star:
“Marana is growing. . . As far as entertainment, all there was, was a bowling alley and Famous Sam’s. The area definitely needed a movie theater.”
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Popularity: 27% [?]
Whoever is handling public relations for Cinemax India, Ltd. deserves a wee bit of a raise after last week. The circuit’s press release announcing the opening of their new four screen multiplex in Gandhinagar managed to be picked up by every major media outlet in India and quite a few outside the country. The major news here was that the complex, which opened December 1st, meant that Cinemax surpassed the 50 screen milestone. The exhibitor now how has 51 screens spread across 17 venues.
According to the release, as well as a couple of online news blurbs, the grand opening of the new Cinemax multiplex was quite the event, headlined by John Abraham. While many outside of India may not know who Abraham is (including yours truly), but apparently he’s one of India’s hunky movie stars and having him cut the ribbon at the open was news in itself.
The fourplex in Gandhinagar is the second theatre Cinemax has opened in the state of Gujarat. Their first was in a multiplex in Himmatnagar. The exhibitor has been busy of late, opening additional properties in Vashi, Nasik and Mumbai. Cinemax’s theaters in Mumbai have often played host to movie premieres and the company is hoping that the Gandhinagar theatre will be able to attract similar events.
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Popularity: 28% [?]
This past Friday a three screen movie theatre officially opened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, marking the first multiplex theatre in the country’s history. The theater resides in the eight story Edna Mall complex and was built by one of the countries largest real estate developers, Teklebirhan Ambaye.
Ambaye reports that he spent 28 million Ethiopian birr, roughly USD $3.1 million on building the theater and equipping it with the latest in digital cinema technology, including projectors from Christie and surround sound systems from Dolby and THX. A story on the opening published in the Addis Fortune related that the interior of the 100 plus seat auditoriums are furnished with “plush blue seats complete with an armrest cup holder for the beverages sold in the lobby”.
The Ethiopian Reporter quoted Ambaye boasting:
“The sound and picture quality are the same as you would get anywhere in the world where they claim to have the best.”
Ambaye is planning to bring Hollywood blockbusters into the country, opening films just two days after their initial release in the United States. The Reporter goes on to humorously state that the Matti Multiplex will show three different films five times a day whether there are capacity crowds or “there is just one customer”. While that may be Ambaye’s intention, someone might want to inform him that some Hollywood films, specifically those by the likes of a Peter Jackson or a Steven Spielberg, can run over 140 minutes and thus getting five shows a day in for every film might be a tad difficult.
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Popularity: 36% [?]
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