The Commodore Ryde cinema on the Isle of Wight is the latest historic cinema to join the DCM portfolio.
Rich in history, with a variety of different owners over the years, the cinema opened its doors in the summer of 1936 with a 1,507 seat theatre with a stage, café and ballroom. The site was later acquired in 1962 by Isle Of Wight Theatres and subsequently by Star Cinemas of Leeds. Star Cinemas divided the building into a three screen cinema, as was the trend in the 1960s. Following a change in ownership to Cannon Cinemas, the site was renamed ‘The Cannon’. Ten years later the cinema was taken over by Peter Walker, and reopened on the 11th December 1987 under the name of ‘The Picturedrome’. Read more
The Weekend Round-up
The Boxtrolls climbed the box office summit this weekend, taking the top spot with £2m, which included £689k from previews. The Boxtrolls is stop motion animation studio, Laika’s, third film and their previous one, ParaNorman, opened with £1.4m in 2012, so the Friday to Sunday totals are very similar. ParaNorman finished its run with £6.3m, so that’s the target for The Boxtrolls. 27% of The Boxtrolls’ box office was from 3D presentations, which is above average for a family film this year. Read more
My most recent memory of Amsterdam is hazy, almost dreamlike and involves me being dressed in a fisherman’s hat, an apron and a pair of clogs, riding a ‘beer bike’ around town with 11 other, similarly attired men. So, it was with a degree of trepidation that I boarded the early flight to Schipol last Friday, en-route to speak at the IBC conference in Amsterdam. I took part in a panel on ‘Big Screen and Second Screen – can they co-exist peacefully and profitably’, looking at the role of mobile in the cinema experience. It is a topic which understandably comes with some strong opinions.
Julian Pinn was the panel host; a 20 year veteran at Dolby, he is an expert in all things sound and vision who has recently started his own consultancy firm. The other panel members were: Mike Hope Milne, Enterprise Director at Pearl and Dean; Jane Weedon, VP business Development at Shazam; and Keith Scarratt, Partnership Director at Yummi Media, our partners on the mobile cinema app Cinime. Read more
It's 1984. I'm a small boy in Wales playing with Star Wars toys and dressing up as Batman (something that I only do nowadays if crime levels rise to unacceptable levels in my neighbourhood). Meanwhile, in a small mining town, not too far away, an unlikely alliance is taking place. The two members of this alliance? In one corner we have a lesbian and gay activist group from London assuming the role of chalk, and in the other we have a Welsh mining community playing cheese. This unusual pairing of bullied social outcasts is the subject of Matthew Warchus (director) and Stephen Beresford's (writer) film Pride, and I'd just like to say at this point, before we go any further, that it is utterly wonderful.
I was lucky enough to attend the UK premiere and after party of the film in Camden, courtesy of Picturehouse and it was an experience that far outweighed my expectations. And that's even before taking in to consideration meeting Bill Nighy at the after party and an unexpected Jimmy Somerville gig (he was surprisingly good!). I'd heard mutterings in dark corners that Pride was a fabulous piece of film making, but I still wasn't convinced that it would batter its way in to my affections in the manner that it did. Read more
The Weekend Round-up
Despite a poor showing in the US, bawdy comedy of errors Sex Tape took the top spot this weekend with £1.4m (incl. £444k from previews last Wednesday & Thursday). Perhaps this was a case of truth helping fiction, with the recent scandal surrounding the release of intimate photos of female stars from iCloud, no doubt helping the timing of the film. Read more
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Lynn’s Majestic Cinema has jumped straight into the 21st century by launching an app for smart phones and recording regular podcasts for its customers.
Manager Tom Cundy said: “Today’s technology is something of a revolution, especially when it comes to social media platforms, that have transformed the way people and businesses work. Even dependents make the most of these inventive techniques, with the Majestic Cinema following suit with the launch of our new app. Read more
Selfridges is to open the first cinema to be operated within a department store.
The cinema will initially screen films tied to the store's Masters campaign where 12 influential fashion designers will select their favourite films which will go on to be screened, reports PA. Read more
Summer is over, just look outside for proof, but right around the corner to help combat those post-summer blues is the UK's premier film extravaganza, the 58th BFI London Film Festival. The programme was announced at Odeon Leicester Square on Wednesday and includes a huge 245 feature films and 148 shorts. To save you the time of trawling through the comprehensive brochure, I've picked out a few of the key highlights so you can be first in the queue when the tickets go on sale on 18 September.
The festival is bookended, unsurprisingly, by the opening and closing night galas and this year there's a distinctive WWII feel. Opening proceedings is The Imitation Game. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as genius mathematician, Alan Turing, who helped crack the Enigma code, which was instrumental in the allies winning the war. It's directed by Norwegian, Morten Tyldum, who if you saw 2012's Headhunters, you'll know can tell a pacy yarn with twists and turns with ease and after its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, Cumberbatch is being talked up as a serious awards contender. Read more
Headlines this week have claimed a decline in cinema takings following a summer of lacklustre performances by many of the Hollywood blockbusters. The same is not the case in the UK argues Digital Cinema Media's head of film, Tom Linay.
With the summer having drawn to a close just a few days ago, this week has seen a number of articles in the press assessing the box office performance of films released in the summer months and how it compares to previous years. The chat has particularly focussed on the US, where the box office was down year-on-year but when we focus on the UK, it’s a slightly different story. Read more
Mini is showcasing its latest Countryman car range at cinema nationwide with a localised ad campaign targeting over 140 locations.
The ‘Mini at the Movies’ scheme was developed by media agency Vizeum in association with Digital Cinema Media (DCM), a firm which controls 80 per cent of the cinema marketplace. Read more
Gap, the iconic American clothing brand, today revealed a series of films that will air on TV, in cinema, in stores and online, created by Academy Award-nominated director David Fincher (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, Fight Club and the much anticipated Gone Girl). The four new commercials – Kiss, Drive, Golf and Stairs – mark Gap’s return to television.
Fincher’s inspiration and cinematic touch is clearly apparent, with a creative treatment that sets them apart from Gap’s previous TV campaigns. The four films were created with Wieden+Kennedy New York as part of Gap’s new campaign, Dress Normal. Read more
