In asking a question during a panel at CinemaCon in April, Tim Richards, the CEO of Vue International, one of the leading cinema operators in Europe, stated that 40% of the movies his circuit plays are foreign language titles. What’s more, he said that 70% of the box office from the United Kingdom’s top chains – Cineworld, Odeon and Vue – is for smaller, independent and foreign language titles.

When we ran into Richards at the conference in Las Vegas we couldn’t help but pose the same question we asked him in May of 2021 on the CJ Cinema Summit about the possibility of Vue distributing movies, similar to how other European exhibitors like Pathé and MK2 operate. He told us more news about the company’s thinking along those lines would be coming before the end of 2024. It took less than a week.

After distributing the Italian hit film “There’s Still Tomorrow” (“C’è ancora domani”) to box office success in the UK and Ireland, Richards is publicly stating that Vue will be expanding their direct-distribution initiatives throughout the region. The company will focus on non-English language titles initially, importing films from Denmark, Germany and Poland.

Actor Paola Cortellesi’s directorial debut “There’s Still Tomorrow” was already Italy’s top film in 2023, earning EUR €36.6 million (USD $39.7 million), more than both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”

“We know there’s an audience that want to see it in the UK, we thought we’d bring it in,” Richards said of his company’s strategic shift into distribution during The Leisure Property Forum in London. “We’re going to start doing that with more films from more of our markets.”