VOX Cinemas plans 300 cinemas in Saudi Arabia: report

VOX Cinemas, a unit of Dubai-based mall operator Majid Al Futtaim, plans to open 300 cinemas in Saudi Arabia over the next three to five years, Zawya reported, citing chief executive Cameron Mitchell.

“We have around 300 screens (in the Middle East region) at the moment, without Saudi we will at least reach 600 by 2020. With Saudi, we expect by 2021, we could be in the 1,000-screen range,” he said.  

In December 2017, Saudi Arabia announced plans to lift a 35-year-old ban on cinemas, a move expected to contribute more than SAR 90 billion (about $24 billion) to GDP.

Following the announcement, US-based AMC Entertainment signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, to operate cinemas by end-2018.

In February, UK's Vue International inked a MoU with Abdulmohsin Al Hokair Holding Group to explore the construction and operation of multiplex cinemas.

Last month, the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information finalised the licensing terms for cinemas in the Kingdom.

“We expect the legislation should come out within the next sort of three to four weeks. As soon as that happens, we will make an announcement that [will] sort of cover all our plans for the Kingdom but we are organising ourselves to be ready to move quickly as soon as the announcement is made and the legislation is confirmed," Mitchell said.

Separately, Majid Al Futtaim is currently working on building a 10,000 square metre entertainment facility in Saudi Arabia, the report said.