IMAX Grows in India With Nine New Screens

IMAX has signed new agreements with two of India's biggest cinema chains, INOX and Cinépolis, which will see the opening of nine new IMAX theatres in India. Add this to the recent five-theatre deal with PVR in February, and that nearly doubles the IMAX count in the country.

The two new deals will see additional IMAX screens across seven Indian cities. INOX will add five of those nine IMAX theatres, two in New Delhi and one each in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Gurugram (formerly Gurgaon). Cinépolis, meanwhile, will bring IMAX to Bengaluru, Kolkata, Navi Mumbai, and Thiruvananthapuram.

INOX has already chosen locations for its two screens: it'll build a standalone IMAX theatre at the iconic Paras Theatre location in South Delhi, and the second at the Reliance Convention Centre and Retail in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai. The three IMAX screens announced for Navi Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram will be the first IMAX experience in those cities.

There are currently 15 IMAX theatres across India, and another 25 – including the above nine – are in the works. Mumbai currently has four of those fifteen in PVR, INOX, Cinépolis, and Carnival Cinemas, Bengaluru has four with PVR and INOX, while the NCR – New Delhi, Gurugram, and Noida – has three, all with PVR. There are two in Chennai, Cinépolis has one in Pune, and INOX has one in Kolkata.

“We continue to make significant progress in India where IMAX’s 2017 box office increased 78 percent over the previous year and we have signed 14 new theatres in the span of weeks," IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond said in a statement. "I am optimistic that our strong box office performance, which we believe is being driven by a greater audience appetite for Hollywood content as well as IMAX’s programing of more Indian films, coupled with the increased pace of multiplex development in the market will provide continued momentum as we look to build out the IMAX brand nationwide."

Photo by VR Bengaluru is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0