Just months after the 40th anniversary of the opening of the first Cineplex multi-theatre complex in Toronto’s Eaton Centre in the fall of 1979, Cineworld of Great Britain announced it is buying the company for $2.8 billion CND, subject to federal regulatory approval. The Cinewold Group is the world’s second largest cinema chain with over 9,500 screens across 10 countries. It’s the largest cinema operator in the U.K. and Ireland and now the largest in North America.
The origins of Cineplex can be traced back 85 years to 1934 when Toronto-born pioneering independent film exhibitor / distributor / producer / publisher Nat Taylor (1906–2004) founded 20th Century Theatres. Over the years it became the third largest exhibition chain in Ontario; however, well behind the national chains of U.S.-owned Famous Players and British-owned Odeon Theatres. By 1941, he operated 17 theatres and in addition was hired by Famous to operate 25 of theirs in order to keep him from linking up with Odeon.
He built one of the world’s first multi-screen theatres in Ottawa at his Elgin Theatre. The Elgin’s second screen opened in 1947, adjacent to the original 1935 theatre. At first, the same program played in both auditoriums but several years later Taylor came up with the idea of selling tickets to different movies from the same box office, laying claim as the first to do so. He also opened one of the first movie theatres in a shopping mall, the dual-screen at Yorkdale Plaza in suburban Toronto in 1964. By the 1970s Taylor had sold all but a few of his 20th Century Theatres to Famous Players, holding on to a few at prime locations such as the upscale Towne Cinema on Bloor Street East at Yonge (now gone) and the New Yorker (Yonge at Charles Street, now a live theatre) in Toronto. Then he started a second chain from scratch in partnership with Garth Drabinsky, an energetic young Toronto entertainment lawyer and aspiring producer, co-founding Cineplex Cinemas.
Although Taylor had pioneered the idea of multi-theatre locations as early as 1948, the new site, with 18 screening rooms, was much more ambitious than anything he had previously built. In order to distinguish the Eaton Centre location, Taylor coined the name ‘Cineplex,’ an abbreviation of cinema complex, and the company was born. The Eaton Centre theatres were small and played 16-mm specialty films, European art films and Hollywood second runs. When the multiplex first opened its doors, the major American distribution companies limited the access to their first-run films to the two largest national chains.
Competitors failed to take Cineplex seriously at first. The consensus in the industry was that Drabinsky and Taylor would be lucky to last six months. Yet Drabinsky was a canny lawyer and aggressive businessman. He never gave up on breaking the tight grip Famous and Odeon had on the exhibition market, and in 1983 Cineplex received a hearing before the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission in Ottawa. Just hours before the hearing began, the six major American distributors issued a joint statement saying they would change their practices and ensure competition in the distribution and exhibition of films in Canada. Odeon and Famous Players had been accused of operating as a duopoly and choking off the film supply so smaller theatres could not show first-run films. With the fabled Bronfman family of Montreal as a major investor, Cineplex bought the Odeon chain to become Cineplex Odeon in 1984.
Source: Cineplex: The Little Company That Could – Northernstars.ca