MUNICH (dpa) – It’s full speed ahead for the new Mathaeser, a massive multiplex taking shape in downtown Munich, defying warnings in the film trade of overscreening and disregarding fading admissions at similar giant movie palaces.
Germany’s traditional “roof-raising” ceremony went ahead recently as workers and executives of the construction company, Deutsche Herold, along with Munich Mayor Christian Ude, celebrated the occasion.
The project is located on a site a stone’s throw from Munich’s main railway station and within walking distance of the city’s shopping centres.
The Australian media group Village Roadshow Exhibition is behind the 130 million mark (58 million dollar) multiplex, which will offer the cinema-going public 14 screening units, with seating for 4,200 patrons, when it opens early in 2002.
Under the slogan “Shopping, Entertainment, Business” the nine- story, mega-theatre will also provide shops, offices, cafes, and even a genuine Munich beer garden for the Bavarian capital’s famed lovers of the Gambrinian.
Despite the fanfare, construction of the complex has its dark side, especially with regard to the plight suffered by other mutliplex operators and the ongoing closure of smaller cinemas in the neighborhood.
Munich’s first multi, the CinemaxX operated by cinema magnate Hans-Joachim Flebbe’s CinemaxX AG Hamburg, posted losses of 52.3 million marks during the last two quarters of 2000.
And at the Hamburg company’s shareholder meeting on July 6, Flebbe blamed the group’s problems on the lack of box office hits during the second half of last year, which failed to continue the positive trend set in the first two quarters.
At the same time, 11 new multiplex theatres opened, bringing the total in Germany to 128, increasing seating capacity by 8.9 per cent, a clear indication of overscreening.
The CinemaxX group itself opened six new cinemas in Germany and three others abroad, at the same time was operating 40 multiplexes.
“There is nothing here to gloss over,” said board member Marius Schwarz responsible for the group’s finances. During the first five months of this year, operative income totalled 150 million marks, compared with expenditures of 154 million.
Schwarz said the group expected a deficit again this year, with the profit zone to be reached at the earliest in 2002. Schwarz announced drastic measures to put the group on a sound financial basis, including sale of all cinemas abroad.
Opening of the new Mathaeser cinema centre also bodes ill for some of Munich’s smaller houses. The Elisenhof, located just around the corner from the Malthaeser, has already folded. Likewise going belly up have been the Odyssee and the Tuerkendolch cinemas.
Steffen Kuchenreuther, president of the film theatre owners’ umbrella organization HDF, says that opening of the multiplex has had its effect, but that the end of small houses in Munich was not in sight. “The city is very careful when it comes to issuing permits for multiplexes,” he said.
The once popular ARRI cinema, whose contract with the Constantin exhibition and production group expired June 30, also appears doomed. It will have to close down if no successor is found. The ARRI’s history goes back to 1917 when the camera firm Arnold and Richter founded the theatre for a testing of its newest technical devices.
Likewise, the new Mathaeser has a bit of history behind it, since the beerhall razed to make way for the multiplex was founded by one Georg Mathaeser in 1811.
And on November 7, 1918, a council of workers and soldiers proclaimed the end of the monarchy at the hall and established the “Free State of Bavaria.” At the roof-razing ceremony, Deutsche Herold board member Karl Rudolf Vins stressed that “we’ll always be aware of the significance of the Mathaeser in Bavarian history”.
