EasyCinema finding things “difficult”
It seemed too good to be true: a no-frills cinema with tickets costing as little as 20p (Euros0.29). But now the future of EasyCinema, which opened its doors to the public in May and is based in Milton Keynes, the town where Britain’s first multiplex was built in 1985, now appears to be in serious danger.
The brainchild of entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Iannou, founder of the cutprice Easyjet airline, the EasyCinema philosophy is based on tickets costing from 20p to £5 (Euros7.23) bookable over the Internet or from computers situated in the foyer and available on a first come first served basis. No actual tickets are issued and entries are recorded by means of a barcode system as customers passed through turnstyles. There is no advertising nor are trailers screened. Speaking at the launch, Mr Haji-Ioannou said that if he managed to sell 1 million tickets at an average price of £1.50 (Euros2.17) in the first year of operations, EasyCinema could be considered a success.
However, the operation ran into trouble when leading distributors like Disney, Columbia Tristar, Universal Paramount and Fox refused to rent Easycinema their big first run titles. They baulked at EasyCinema’s demand that they pay a flat rate in return for the cinema programming their films for a pre-arranged period of time. Easycinema rebutted by accusing them of running a cartel and put the matter into the hands of the company’s legal team who will present Easycinema’s case before the British Office of Fair Trading and the EU anti-competition authorities based in Brussels.
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