Cinema City International has announced plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the Czech Republic in the coming years.
The Israel-based company recently opened its fifth multiplex in the Czech Republic and its first outside the capital city of Prague: a 10-screen, 1,721-seat facility at the new Plaza shopping centre in Plzen.
By the end of the year the company plans to open another multiplex at a new shopping center in Pardubice.
The move puts Cinema City in competition with Prague-based exhibitor CineStar for audiences outside the capital. CineStar operates multiplexes in six regional cities with populations under 400,000 people.
In an interview with the Czech daily E15, Cinema City executive director Moshe Greidinger said his company had invested roughly $5m in the Plzen multiplex. The company's total investment in the Czech Republic so far is roughly $40m.
Greidinger said his company wants to catch a wave of Czech audiences returning to the cinemas. 'We see great potential here,' he told E15. 'At present Czechs visit the cinema 1.2 times a year. In Western Europe, it's three to four times a year.'
Last year multiplexes enjoyed a 79% share of the exhibition market in the Czech Republic, pulling in $59.7m (CZK 942m) in revenue, according to the Czech Union of Film Distributors. That revenue has nearly quintupled since 2000, when multiplexes had a 28% market share.
Greidinger said that Cinema City has not outfitted its Czech theatres with digital projectors yet but that it plans to have 30%-50% of its screens converted to digital in three years' time.
Cinema City operates 540 screens worldwide,, a figure which Greidinger said will expand to 1,000 by 2011. The company currently has multiplexes in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland and Romania.
The Israel-based company recently opened its fifth multiplex in the Czech Republic and its first outside the capital city of Prague: a 10-screen, 1,721-seat facility at the new Plaza shopping centre in Plzen.
By the end of the year the company plans to open another multiplex at a new shopping center in Pardubice.
The move puts Cinema City in competition with Prague-based exhibitor CineStar for audiences outside the capital. CineStar operates multiplexes in six regional cities with populations under 400,000 people.
In an interview with the Czech daily E15, Cinema City executive director Moshe Greidinger said his company had invested roughly $5m in the Plzen multiplex. The company's total investment in the Czech Republic so far is roughly $40m.
Greidinger said his company wants to catch a wave of Czech audiences returning to the cinemas. 'We see great potential here,' he told E15. 'At present Czechs visit the cinema 1.2 times a year. In Western Europe, it's three to four times a year.'
Last year multiplexes enjoyed a 79% share of the exhibition market in the Czech Republic, pulling in $59.7m (CZK 942m) in revenue, according to the Czech Union of Film Distributors. That revenue has nearly quintupled since 2000, when multiplexes had a 28% market share.
Greidinger said that Cinema City has not outfitted its Czech theatres with digital projectors yet but that it plans to have 30%-50% of its screens converted to digital in three years' time.
Cinema City operates 540 screens worldwide,, a figure which Greidinger said will expand to 1,000 by 2011. The company currently has multiplexes in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland and Romania.
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