With cutting edge technology, new experiences and grandeur driving it, we speak to experts who say the face of cinema is no longer the multiplex.
With today’s film fans being pulled toward streaming services, you could be forgiven for thinking cinemas were suffering at the hands of Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube.
The reality, however, is quite the opposite. In 2018, UK cinemas saw their highest attendance since 1970, with 177 million trips being made over the course of the year. This success has been explained by several factors, the most obvious being the number of blockbuster pictures released.
But beyond the helping hand movies like Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Bohemian Rhapsody gave the UK cinema industry, a widespread investment in infrastructure is also thought to have contributed.
“We’re having a revival of interest in a certain kind of cinema,” says David Sin, head of cinemas at national supporting body the Independent Cinema Office. “It’s much different to the interest we had 30 years ago.”
In the 1980s and 1990s, the face of cinema design was the multiplex. “Films were served to the public in ten-screen, edge-of-town developments, which were basically just sheds, architecturally speaking,” says Sin.
This most recent surge in popularity has seen the reverse of this trend. Now more than ever many UK cinemas appear to be embracing the golden age of film, uncovering the art deco roots of long-forgotten cinema buildings in some cases and creating them in others.
London’s newly refurbished Odeon in Leicester Square is perhaps the most well-known of examples. But the same is true elsewhere in the UK – just look at The Rex in Berkhamsted, the Tyneside in Newcastle-upon-Tyne or The Plaza in Truro – all of which have learnt to lose their late twentieth century accoutrements and embrace their art deco heritage.