Middle East Theater Chain Vox to Become Second to Open in Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom has ended a almost 40-year ban on commercial cinemas, which were shuttered in the early1980s but are returning through a modernizing drive by the reform-minded Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense.
The kingdom has always been seen as a conservative nation.
Movies screened in Saudi cinemas will be subject to approval by government censors, and the premiere on April 18 was no exception.
The AMC chief executive, Adam Aron, said ticket sales will start on Thursday for the first public shows on Friday, but local authorities indicated the test screenings could last for days.
The leisure and development company was established earlier this year by the Public Investment Fund to play an active role in the various entertainment sectors, as well as attracting strategic partnerships to build the business system in the sector in Saudi Arabia. The screening will be followed by a rush to build movie theaters in major cities.
"Saudis now are going to be able to go to a attractive theatre and watch movies the way they're supposed to be watched: on a big screen", Adam Aron, chief executive of AMC Entertainment Holdings, told the news agency. "This is a historic day for your country", Aron told an audience of government officials and industry figures.
"This is the first time that we really see something that's really being materialized", he said. This commitment is expected to create more than 114,000 direct and indirect job opportunities. The authorities plan to set up around 350 cinemas with over 2,500 screens by 2030, which they hope will attract almost $1 billion in annual ticket sales.
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Over the past several years, Saudi Arabia has gradually been loosening restrictions on movie screenings, with local film festivals and screenings in makeshift theaters. Saudis in large part flocked to places like Dubai on the weekends to catch the latest movies before the change in the law.
In the 1970s, there were informal movie screenings but the experience could be interrupted by the country's religious police, whose powers have since been curbed. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, he wrote that to avoid being arrested at one of these screenings in Medina, a friend of his broke his leg jumping off a wall to escape the religious police.
Access to streaming services, such as, and satellite TV steadily eroded attempts by the government to censor what the Saudi public could view.
Further cinemas now under design include Majid Al Futtaim's Mall of Saudi and City Centre Ishbiliyah, with both locations opening in Riyadh in the coming years. But, generally movie theaters will not be gender segregated with "family sections" for women and related men and separate "single sections" for male-only crowds as is customary at restaurants and cafes.
"This is a landmark moment in the transformation of Saudi Arabia into a more vibrant economy and society, " Saudi Minister of Culture and Information Awwad Alawwad said in statement ahead of the screening.
"We want to ensure the movies are in line with our culture and respect for values".
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