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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