The New Westmount theatres.

There's going to be another change in the theatrical landscape of London soon. The last one was the closing of the Huron Market Place last September.

Cineplex is building new theatres out at Westmount Mall which is in the south end of the city, quite aways from Western Film.

Currently there's a somewhat antiquated six-plex in the mall, the new theatres are in a separate building which I can't tell if is going to be connected to the mall or not.

According to the Cineplex website it will have 8 stadium seating screens, three of which are their VIP cinemas. The VIP cinemas cost extra but have extra comfy chairs, serve food at the seats and are licensed so they are 19+ only.

There's several questions and things I find interesting about the place.

They built it behind the mall where it's not visible from the street. I thought this seemed odd but I figure they probably got the land/lease for very little back there. The mall itself is dying so it doesn't need the parking.

What will the admission price be? The current theatre is $7.50 but I would be willing to bet the new ones will be about the same price as the Silver City which is $11.00. That would leave Western Film by far the cheapest theatre in London, the closest would be Rainbow downtown which is $7.50.
In Toronto the VIP cinemas are $4.00 more than the regular cinemas.

Currently they tend to play a lot of 'art' product there. Will they continue to do so or go more Hollywood? My feeling is they will put the art product in the VIP cinemas assuming the people who want to see those films will be willing to pay the extra. I'd certainly consider it just to get away from the damn teenagers and their cellphones.

I'm not sure when it's supposed to open. I would imagine they want to open ASAP to catch the summer business.

Will the VIP cinemas work in London? especially right now. Probably but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't charge as much extra as in Toronto.

It says some theatres will be 3-D. Will any of the VIP theatres be 3-D and will they then charge an extra fee on top for that as most 3-D theatres do? That would be getting close to $20.00 per ticket.

Will it change booking patterns at all? That kinda depends on what they do with the art product. If they go more Hollywood that would leave pretty much only Western Film and the Hyland playing anything non Hollywood. Currently at least a couple of the studios consider us to be far enough from each other to play the same film at the same time. That might change with their higher price.

I'm kinda surprised it's only 8 screens. I didn't think anyone built less than 10 or 12 these days.

I'll check them out as soon as they open and report back.