Multiplex (movie theater)
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A multiplex is a movie theater complex with multiple screens within a single complex. They are usually housed in a specially designed building. Sometimes, an existing venue undergoes a renovation where the existing auditoriums are split into smaller ones, or more auditoriums are added in an extension or expansion of the building. The largest of these complexes can sit thousands of people and are sometimes referred to as a megaplex.
The difference between a multiplex and a megaplex is related to the number of screens, but the dividing line is not well-defined. Some say that 16 screens and stadium seating make a megaplex, while others say that at least 24 screens are required.[1] Megaplex theaters may have stadium seating or normal seating, and may have other amenities often not found at smaller movie theaters; multiplex theatres often feature regular seating.[citation needed]
The Kinepolis-Madrid Ciudad de la Imagen megaplex in Spain, owned by the Belgian Kinepolis Group, is the largest movie theater in the world, with 25 screens and a seating capacity of 9,200, including one 996-seat auditorium.[2][3][4]
History
Origins
The question of who was the inventor of the multiplex is "one of the longest-running debates in movie theater history."[5] In a 2004 book, Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs identified five leading candidates: James Edwards, Sumner Redstone, Stanley Durwood, Charles Porter, and Nat Taylor.[5]
In 1915, exhibitor Charles Porter opened the Duplex Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, the first known instance of a dual-auditorium movie theater.[6] It had twin 750-seat auditoriums in a single building, sharing a common box office and entrance.[6] The Duplex Theatre's history is poorly documented and it is unknown why Porter built his theater that way, though it was apparently a bit too advanced for its time.[6] It closed in 1922 and was remodeled into a ballroom.[7]
In about 1915 two adjacent theatres in
In 1930, the Regal Twins in Manchester, England became the world's first multiplex followed by Studio 1 and 2 in Oxford Street in London in 1936.[9]
In 1937 James Edwards twinned his Alhambra Theater in the Los Angeles area by converting an adjacent storefront into a second "annex" screen. While both screens would show the same feature movie, one would also offer a
In December 1947 Nat Taylor, the operator of the
Also in late 1947, but in Havana, Cuba, the Duplex movie theater was built to share the vestibule and ancillary facilities with the previously existing Rex Cinema (open since 1938); they were both designed by the same architect, Luis Bonich. The programming was coordinated, so that one of them showed documentary and news reels. while the other was showing feature films.[12][13] They were in use at least until the 1990s.
In 1963 AMC Theatres opened the two-screen Parkway Twin at the Ward Parkway Shopping Center in Kansas City, a concept which company president Stanley Durwood later claimed to have come up with in 1962, realizing he could double the revenue of a single theater "by adding a second screen and still operate with the same size staff".[10][14] Also, the shopping center structure where the Parkway was located could not support a large theater, so two small theaters were built to avoid that issue, and at first both theaters played the same film.
In 1965, the first triplex was opened in Burnaby, Canada by Taylor Twentieth Century Theaters.[9] AMC followed up on the Parkway Twin with a four-screen theater in Kansas City, the Metro Plaza, in 1966 and a six-screen theater in 1969.[15][9] Durwood's insight was that one box office and one concession stand could easily serve two (or more) attached auditoriums. Another AMC innovation was to offset the starting times of films, so that staff members who previously had downtime while films were playing at a single-auditorium theater would now be kept continuously busy servicing other auditoriums. Over the next two decades, AMC Theatres under Durwood's leadership continued to innovate as it built one multiplex after another with more screens across the United States, though its early multiplexes from the 1960s and 1970s are now regarded as relatively small by 21st century standards. According to Melnick and Fuchs, although Durwood was technically not the first person to build a multi-auditorium movie theater, he was "the man perhaps most responsible for driving the industry into 'splitsville'".[16]
In 1965 Martin's Westgate Cinemas became one of the first indoor two-screen theaters in Atlanta, Georgia. Located in East Point, Georgia, it was later converted into a three-screen venue after a fire partially destroyed one of the theaters. The Disney family film Those Calloways had its world premiere at the Westgate,[17] the only film to have been so honored at that theater.
In 1973, Sumner Redstone, as the head of National Amusements, was the first film exhibitor to trademark and regularly use the term "multiplex."[18]
Megaplex
Opening in April 1979, the 18-screen Cineplex, co-founded by Nat Taylor in Toronto's Eaton Centre, became the world's largest multitheatre complex under one roof.[19] It was expanded to 21 screens by at least 1981.[20]
In November 1988, Kinepolis Brussels, was opened by Kinepolis, the Belgian chain, with 25 screens and 7,600 seats,[21] and is often credited as being the first "megaplex".[22][23][24][25]
Meanwhile, during the 1980s, an elderly Durwood, in the "twilight of his prolific career at AMC", began a transition from his traditional pattern of squeezing "as many screens as possible ... into small multiplexes" to building megaplexes which were truly gigantic in scale: a "new supersized movie house for a supersized nation".[16] This coincided with the development of modern big-box stores and warehouse clubs in the United States, and in retrospect can be seen as part of a larger national movement to "grow retail spaces ever bigger."[16]
On December 13, 1996, AMC Ontario Mills 30, a 30-screen theater, opened in Ontario, California, and became the theater with the most screens in the world.[26][27] This was eventually tied by other AMC 30-screen theaters.
Venue sizes and demand
During the 1980s and 1990s, AMC Theatres was at the forefront of a massive boom in multiplex and megaplex construction across the United States.[16][28] From 1988 to 2000, the number of screens in the United States exploded from roughly 23,000 to 37,000.[28] By the end of 1997, the United States was home to 149 megaplexes with over 2,800 screens.[29] The newer venues, especially the megaplexes, often wiped out smaller theaters and led to market consolidation.[29][30] Aging single-screen movie palaces in congested downtown areas simply could not compete against the new suburban megaplexes with their profusion of convenient choices (in terms of films and showtimes), gigantic screens, stadium seating, armrest cup holders, video arcades, spacious parking lots, and state-of-the-art projection and surround sound technology.[31] In some areas, "megaplexes became not just another option for moviegoers, but soon the only one, having driven all other theaters out of business".[31] From 1995 to 2004, the total number of theaters in the United States fell from 7,151 to 5,629.[30]
Multiplexes and megaplexes supposedly have two major advantages over traditional single-screen movie theaters: they can share common infrastructure and staff across multiple auditoriums, and variations in auditorium size enable them to better match capacity to demand.[28] However, movie theater operators eventually discovered the problem with stadium-size movie theaters is that they share the same flawed business model as stadiums: high fixed operating costs, combined with the fact that very few films in any given year can actually fill all those seats.[30] Average occupancy is around 10-15%—meaning that the majority of films are being shown to empty seats.[30] Nearly all major U.S. movie theater companies ultimately went bankrupt as a result of this hasty development process.[30][32] Among the few that were able to avoid bankruptcy were AMC Theatres and Cinemark Theatres.[32]
The boom in new screens in the U.S. in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to multiple changes to Hollywood's distribution model. During the 1990s, American film studios experimented with distributing quirky indie films and art films to megaplexes which would have had a much harder time finding a broad theatrical audience in earlier eras, such as the 1999 hit Being John Malkovich.[33] However, after the turn of the 21st century, as multiplex and megaplex owners came to realize they could screen large-budget blockbuster films all day by staggering showtimes across multiple screens, movie studios jumped onto the blockbuster bandwagon and shifted their film slates towards blockbuster films based on existing media franchises.[33]
Largest cinema multiplex
On 17 September 1998, the world's largest cinema multiplex, Kinepolis Madrid, opened in Spain, with 25 screens and 9,200 seats, each seating between 211 and 996 people.[2][3][4]
Tallest cinema multiplex
Europes's tallest cinema multiplex is the
CGV Cinemas San Francisco 14, is a 14-auditorium[36] movie theater multiplex in a former eight-story Cadillac dealership building on Van Ness Avenue at O'Farrell Street.[37][38][39] It opened on 10 July 1998, as the AMC 1000 Van Ness with 3,146 seats listed.[40]
Around the world
Australia
The largest megaplex in the
Belgium
Kinepolis Brussels, the first cinema to carry the Kinepolis brand, was the biggest and a pioneer in the megaplex industry when it opened in 1988. It introduced various innovations in visual, audio and conceptual aspects of cinema, such as hosting guests and special events. It now has 28 screens and 6270 seats.
Brazil
In 1999, the 18-screen UCI New York City Center multiplex was opened in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro to become the largest in Brazil.
Canada
Canada's largest movie theaters over the years have been located in Toronto. As mentioned above the 18- (later 21-) screen Cineplex was the movie theater with the most screens in the world until the late 1980s, but remained the largest movie theater in Canada until it was closed at the turn of the 21st century. In 1998, AMC expanded to Canada, building large movie theatres with as many as 24 screens before opening a 30-plex there in 1999, which is the AMC Interchange 30. Then in 2008, the 24-screen AMC Yonge Dundas 24, adjacent to the Eaton Centre, was completed. Cineplex Entertainment purchased the theater in 2012, along with several other Canadian AMC megaplexes, bringing the company full circle. After that, some more were closed or sold to Empire Theatres. AMC exited Canada by closing the AMC Interchange 30 in 2014.
France
France's largest movie theaters are: 27-screen UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles (3,913 seats) in Paris, 23-screen Kinépolis - Château du Cinéma in Lomme (7,286 seats), 22-screen UGC Ciné Cité Strasbourg (5,275 seats) and 20-screen MK2 Bibliothèque in Paris (3,500 seats).
Greece
Greece' s largest multiplex is
India
In
Japan
The first multiplex in Japan was built by Warner Bros. in 1993 but the multiplexes were outside Japan's nine largest cities until Shochiku built Cinema World to the west of Tokyo in 1995.[41] By 2000, multiplexes accounted for 44% of the market with the number of screens in Japan increasing rapidly from less than 2,000 in 1998 to nearly 3,000 in 2001.[42] The expansion in screens and multiplexes also reduced the reliance on the grosses from the nine key cities, with over half of a film's Japanese gross now coming from outside those markets.[43]
Netherlands
In the Netherlands there weren't many multiplexes until the millennial change. In April 2000 Pathé ArenA opened its doors in the ArenAPoort area in Amsterdam. It is the largest multiplex in the Netherlands and features 14 screens and 3250 seats in total. Nowadays[when?] a lot of other multiplexes are being set up, but so far none of them have surpassed Pathé ArenA's capacity.
Spain
Multiplexes (multicines) are very popular in Spain and they can be found in or close to most cities, displacing the traditional single-screen theaters.[44] Many middle-sized and large cities have several of them, and they are also common in malls. The average number of screens per theater was 5.2 in 2016.[45]
The
United Kingdom
As noted above, the world's first multiplex, the
In 1985,
United States
The first triplex in the United States was created with the addition of a third screen to the Cheri theater in Boston in June 1967 owned by Ben Sack.[55]
In the United States, only 10% of the 16,712 indoor movie theaters in 1981 had more than one screen, with 80% of the 10% only having two screens.[56] The largest had 7 screens.[56]
In 1982, the 14-screen
Cineplex joined with
In December 1988, Studio 28 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, expanded from 12 to 20 screens with a seating capacity of 6,000.[59] Studio 28 closed in November 2008.
By 1994, building of multiplexes with 14-24 screens with 2,500 to 3,500 seats was the norm. The expansion of multiplexes also concentrated the market with the top ten exhibitors controlling 47% of the nation's screens compared to 27% in 1986.
AMC has since opened many megaplexes with up to 30 screens, beginning with AMC Ontario Mills 30, which was billed by AMC in its advertising as the "world's largest theater" when it opened on December 13, 1996.[27] Three months after AMC Ontario Mills 30 opened, Edwards Theaters opened their largest theater across the street with 22 screens, the Edwards Ontario Palace 22.[27] If the two adjacent parking lots were counted as one, this meant the city of Ontario, California had 52 screens on one parking lot, more than anywhere else in the United States.[27] The construction of these two adjacent megaplexes in the Inland Empire was the culmination of a "bitter lifelong rivalry" between the elderly chief executives of these two leading movie theater operators: AMC's Stanley Durwood (who died in 1999) and Edwards Theaters's James Edwards (who died in 1997).[64] Edwards was furious when he learned that Durwood had beat him to a deal with Ontario Mills, and later told him, "I had to teach you a lesson".[64]
By 2004, only 25% of movie theaters in the United States had one screen and there were over 500 multiplexes with more than 16 screens.[27]
References
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- ^ a b c Watts, Christopher. "Mega-ambitious". forbes.com. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- ^ a b c Bennett, Laura (20 June 2010). "Moviegoing in the land of Almodóvar". Boston.com. Retrieved 5 April 2018 – via The Boston Globe.
- ^ a b c "Fabulous Fifteen - Film Journal International". www.filmjournal.com. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- ^ ISBN 9780760314920. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
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- ^ a b c "The Many Births of the Multiplex". Cinelog.org. June 27, 2009. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
- ^ "Aiken to be 17th City to Show Film ("Gone with the Wind"); Little Patricia to Open Same Day." Aiken Standard, 14 February 1940, p. 5 and see http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/20886/photos/131821
- ^ "Rex Cinema". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
- ^ Melnick, Ross & Andrea Fuchs. Cinema Treasures: A New Look at Classic Movie Theatres. St. Paul: MBI, 2004. Page 147
- ^ Klady, Leonard (July 19, 1999). "Obituaries: Stanley Durwood". Variety. p. 40.
- ^ "Stan Durwood; Multiplex Theater Pioneer". Los Angeles Times. July 16, 1999. Retrieved November 17, 2009.[permanent dead link]
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- ^ "Those Calloways (1965)". Retrieved 5 April 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
- ISBN 9780760314920. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
- ^ Adilman, Sid (August 5, 1979). "Cineplex 18: Movies for Many Tastes". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
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- ^ Andrew H. Malcolm (November 22, 1981). "Toronto Movie Bazaar". The New York Times. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
- ^ John Tagliabue (January 27, 2000). "Now Playing Europe: Invasion of the Multiplex; With Subplots on Pride and Environment". The New York Times. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
- ISBN 978-0822331636.
- ^ Edmunds, Marlene (June 15, 1998). "Kinepolis Keeps the Plexes Coming". Variety. p. 74.
- ^ "Kinepolis Brussels in Brussels, BE". Cinema Treasures.
- ^ Kinepolis (16 November 2016). "Kinepolis re-opens IMAX theatre in Brussels". GlobeNewswire. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ Degen Pener (June 6, 1997). "Tyrannosaurus Plex". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on April 21, 2009. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
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- ^ a b Mars, Roman (March 15, 2021). "Episode 435: The Megaplex!". 99% Invisible. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ Barr, G. "UGC / Cineworld City Centre". www.scottishcinemas.org.uk. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- ^ "Cineworld". www.attractions.glasgowvant.com. Archived from the original on 4 September 2011. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- SFGATE. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ Johnson, G. Allen. "Openings of Opera Plaza, CGV movie theaters signal revival along S.F.'s Van Ness corridor". datebook.sfchronicle.com. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "San Francisco, CA: Former AMC Movie Theater in 1000 Van Ness to Reopen as CGV Location". The BigScreen Cinema Guide. 19 April 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ Counter, Bill. "AMC 1000 Van Ness / CGV San Francisco 14". San Francisco Theatres. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "CGV Cinemas San Francisco in San Francisco, CA". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Shochiku makes multiplex move". Variety. September 18, 1995. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
- ^ Herskovitz, Jon (January 29, 2001). "Japan's plex boom unmatched by B.O". Variety. p. 58.
- ^ Schwarzacher, Lukas (September 16, 2002). "Screen boom stomps island". Variety. p. B1.
- ^ 20Minutos (10 April 2007). "Aumenta número de salas de cine en España, aunque cada vez son más pequeñas". 20minutos.es. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "¿CUÁNTOS CINES HAY EN ESPAÑA? ¿CUÁNTOS CINES TIENE CADA COMUNIDAD AUTÓNOMA? - El Blog de Cine Español". www.elblogdecineespanol.com. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- ^ Manchester Evening News. 26 January 1972.
{{cite news}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ a b "AMC CINEMAS® BRINGS THE MULTIPLEX TO THE UNITED KINGDOM". Archived from the original on 2015-01-04. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
- ^ "How multiplex cinemas saved the British film industry 25 years ago". The Guardian. The Guardian, UK. 25 November 2010. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
- ISBN 0851702171.
- Daily Variety. p. 1.
- ^ Ilott, Terry (January 4, 1993). "Multiplexing still perplexing". Variety. p. 52.
- ^ Groves, Don (November 4, 1991). "Exhibs enjoy steady growth". Variety. p. 58.
- ^ Simpson, David (9 February 2020). "Multiplex Cinemas Introduction". Cinema Theatre Association. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
- ^ Younge, Gary (26 July 2000). "The Big Picture". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
- ^ "Boston's Cheri III; Only Triple-Cinema in U.S.". Variety. April 19, 1967. p. 6.
- ^ ISBN 0-900610-28-X.
- ^ Aljean Harmetz (July 28, 1982). "14 screens housed in 1 theater complex". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on January 25, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
- ^ "About Universal Cinema". www.universalstudioshollywood. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
- ^ Jack Loeks' Studio 28 in Grand Rapids, MI. Cinema Treasures. Retrieved on 2013-07-12.
- ^ a b Noglows, Paul (August 22, 1994). "Here Come the Megaplexes". Variety.
- ISBN 978-0760314920. "[T]he new 'megaplex' theater, defined as containing 20 or more screens"; "Durwood opened the AMC Grand 24 (Dallas) in May 1995".
- ^ Wilonsky, Robert (May 27, 2010). "It's Curtains For the AMC Grand 24". Dallas Observer. Unfair Park blog. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
- ^ Wilonksy, Robert (September 1, 2011). "So, the Old AMC Grand 24 Will Remain a Movie Theater After All. Half of It, Anyway". Dallas Observer. Unfair Park blog. Retrieved September 1, 2011.
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- William Echikson, "Taking the Megaplex on the Road", Business Week, no. 3547 (Oct. 6, 1997), p. 21.
External links
- Short film on the creation of the Cineplex (archived 27 September 2011)
- How to lease a multiplex? Facts, techniques and a proposal checklist (archived 13 December 2013)