Saudi Arabia's first cinema
In more than 35 years will open on April 18 in the capital Riyadh, the authorities said on Wednesday after agreeing with AMC Entertainment Holdings to open up to 40 theaters over the next five years. Movie theaters will not be segregated by gender like most other public places in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom, and the first screening will be Marvel’s superhero movie “Black Panther,” a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Saudi Arabia had some cinemas in the 1970s but its powerful clerics closed them, reflecting rising Islamist influence throughout the Arab region at the time. In 2017, the government said it would lift the ban as part of ambitious economic and social reforms pushed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman He is currently touring the United States seeking investments to help broaden the economy and lessen its dependence on oil. READ MORE: Saudi women will be allowed to drive motorcycles, trucks along with cars Saudi Arabians are avid consumers of Western media and culture. Despite the cinema ban, Hollywood films and recent television series are widely watched at home and discussed. AMC’s first cinema will be located in the King Abdullah Financial District in a building originally intended to be a symphony concert hall, AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron said in an interview. The main theater will feature about 500 leather seats, orchestra and balcony levels, and marble bathrooms, he said. Three more screens will be added by mid-summer. “We think it’s going to be the prettiest movie theater in the world,” Aron said. “It’s a dramatic building.”
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