SHOPPING-MALL operator SM Prime Holdings Inc. will construct stand-alone, franchised cinema across the country, trying to capture the market outside of Metro Manila and city centers.
Edgar Tejereros, an executive of SM Lifestyle Entertainment Inc., said the company already signed a contract to put up a stand-alone cinema each in Bataan and in Kalibo, Aklan.
“This will be the first franchised cinema model in the world. We will put up a stand-alone structure in the provinces,” Tejereros told reporters at the sidelines of the opening of SM’s 60th mall in the former Ever Gotesco’s mall in Ortigas Extension in Pasig City.
Tejereros said franchise fee costs between P25 million and P30 million. Each movie house may have no more than a seating capacity of 100.
Price per movie may cost between P120 and P150, so people in the provinces can afford it.
The construction of shopping malls such as those of SM, which started building malls some three decades ago with movie houses inside, has helped kill the business of stand-alone cinemas, some built after World War II, and are usually located in city centers.
Now, SM is reviving the stand-alone cinema concept, as it cannot build shopping malls to cover the entire country.
Tejereros said movie piracy is rampant, especially in the provinces, as people at times have to commute hours just to go to their nearest mall.
He said the company will use Blink cinema, its video-on-demand product, to bring movies in the provinces and bring down the cost of operation.
For the nine months of the year, SM’s overall mall revenues increased by 9 percent to P32.1 billion, from P29.4 billion last year.
Of its revenues, cinema and event ticket sales contributed P3.44 billion, slightly higher from last year’s performance of P3.4 billion.