“Entering the age of the hypermarket cinema’: the first five years of the multiplex in the United Kingdom’

Abstract

During the first five years of its development from the opening of The Point in Milton Keynes in 1985 the multiplex cinema radically changed the previous exhibition landscape, modernising the business of cinema exhibition, and shifting the site of film consumption to new, out-of-town shopping and leisure centres. This article considers some key developments in the first five years of the multiplex cinema’s introduction in the UK, with particular emphasis on three aspects of multiplex diffusion: the importance of regeneration and enterprise; the multiplex’s role in stimulating associated leisure and commercial developments; and out-of-town and regional shopping developments. In order to illustrate these themes, the article will consider the opening of four complexes: The Cannon in Salford Quays, and the AMC multiplexes in Telford in Shropshire, Sheffield and Dudley Merry Hill, in the West Midlands.