Watching the Twitter footage of the bombed out Youth Centre cinema in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, I was reminded of the National Picture Theatre in the UK city of Hull. The latter cinema was largely destroyed by a German bomb in March 1941. When the air-raid siren sounded, the cinema was screen…

Most of us have only experienced war as filtered through the camera lens of Hollywood onto the cinema screen. But a real war is playing out in Europe right now; one whose true horror we only catch glimpses of through snatches of phone cameras and CCTV footage. A war that few imagined and nobody butR…

As February draws to a close, all of us in the northern hemisphere are looking forward to spring. Meteorological spring starts 1 March, but astronomical spring has to wait until 20 March, which is also the start date for Le Printemps du Cinéma (Springtime for Cinema) in France. The annual festival w…

On Thursday, 17 February, the CJ Cinema Summit will be focusing on China. We’ll be joined by Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore who will explain how China managed to secure five of the top 10 global box office titles last week. We’ll also hear from Lawrence Wang, the CEO of Vista China about…

Patrick von Sychowski is traveling this week so you’re stuck with me. Though before I forget, if you missed John Fithian of NATO and Charlotte Jones of Omdia on our last CJ Cinema Summit, you can always catch the session on-demand. And be sure to register for our next session on 17 February. W…

If you listen to film purists, the switch to digital cinema led to the death of the projectionist craft, VPF-enforced superhero multiplex programming and bad 3D. So what good has digital actually done for cinema? A new research paper by Anne-Britt Gran from the Oslo Business School called “Dig…

It is exactly two years since China closed all of its cinemas as part of its effort to stop the spread of the new Coronavirus that had originated in Wuhan. The closures on the eve of the all-important Spring Holiday (a.k.a. Chinese/Lunar New Year), when the biggest local blockbusters are released (a…

“Generals are always prepared to fight the last war,” is a saying by Winston Churchill that applies to more than just conventional battlefields. As cinema emerges from the COVID pandemic, there is a risk that the industry will be prepared for battles past, rather than new enemies and dan…

Perhaps you’ve noticed this is the second week in a row that you’ve been forced to hear from me at the top of the CJ Marquee rather than our editor, Patrick von Sychowski. Have no fear, Patrick hasn’t gone anywhere. We’re just in the midst of launching our new newsletter plat…

The new year may have begun earlier this week, though many exhibitors, if not the entire world, may be feeling as if they are frozen in time. We are entering the third calendar year of the pandemic and much like this time last year, 2022 has begun with COVID infection rates throughout the world skyr…