Saudi Arabia’s first cinema theatre in over 3 decades will open on Wednesday (April 18) in Riyadh after ban was lifted last year.
Blockbuster action flick ‘Black Panther’ will play at a cinema test screening in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the first in a series of trial runs before movie theatres open to the wider public next month.
The Kingdom lifted a 35-year ban on cinemas last year as part of a far-reaching liberalisation drive, with US giant AMC Entertainment granted the first licence to operate movie theatres.
Saudi Arabia announced it will open 40 cinemas in 15 Saudi cities over the next five years as part of plans to develop the entertainment sector in the Kingdom. 100 theatres will open in approximately 25 Saudi cities by 2030.
Saudi Ministry of Information confirmed 350 cinema theatres with 2,500 screens are slated to be open across several Saudi cities by 2030.
The first company to obtain a license to operate cinemas in Saudi Arabia is AMC.
The Black Panther will be the first film to be shown in the Kingdom’s first cinema. It has now made $665.4 million domestically, which makes it the third-highest grossing film in North American history.
The film will be exhibited in a theatre that can accommodate 620 people at the King Abdullah Financial Center in Riyadh, and the American operator AMC has also scheduled a special event for the historic opening.
Cinema tickets will be initially priced at 50 riyals.
Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture and Information has estimated the contribution of the cinema sector to its GDP to be over $24 billion.
Cinemas in Saudi Arabia will create more than 30,000 full-time jobs, in addition to 130,000 part-time jobs by the year 2030.
Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw
