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World Cup stars score on the silver screen

Posted on: Thursday, 15 June 2006, 06:49 CDT

By Jeffrey Goldfarb

LONDON (Reuters) - Ronaldinho and David Beckham are joining Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp on the multiplex marquee this summer as cinemas on both sides of the Atlantic try to reel in extra customers by screening World Cup matches.

The Clapham Picturehouse in southwest London attracted 150 fans to watch England beat Paraguay, while the Old Town Cinema in Alexandria, Virginia, hosted 250 mostly rowdy kids, who watched the United States fall 3-0 to the Czech Republic.

"It took dead time right off our hands," Old Town Managing Partner Roger Fons said. "Now at least we have some flow in here."

Fons is supplying a $7 sandwich buffet, with trays that attach into the seat cupholders, and showing all 64 matches on HDTV on his 22-feet-wide screen during the month-long tournament.

British cinema attendance typically drops during big summer soccer tournaments, so this time around some theatres are trying the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" method.

Cinema owners are trading on their comfortable seats and air-conditioning to tempt fans used to standing in overcrowded pubs and straining to see TV screens amid a summer heat wave.

"It's a good environment to watch the football," promised Marc Allenby, head of marketing for the Picturehouse chain, which is showing England's matches at four locations. "You're guaranteed a seat."

The ploy didn't convince everyone, though. Picturehouse reached out to the Polish and Iranian communities in London to see if they might attend screenings of their countries' matches but found little interest, Allenby said.

EXPERIMENT

The Vue cinema chain is showing England's first-round matches for free at 13 multiplexes around Britain including in Manchester and Birmingham, while at its Livingston, Scotland, screen, it is donating the 1 pound ($1.84) entry fee to a children's charity.

London's Imax at the British Film Institute is charging 12 pounds for England's matches against Trinidad & Tobago and Sweden, hoping to lure fans with its 40-feet-wide, 30-feet-high screen and smoke-free environment.

"It is something of an experiment," spokeswoman Jill Reading said. "We think there's an appetite to see the football on the biggest screen possible, and we have the biggest one in London. The idea is for us to reach out to a broader audience, so maybe if they see the football they'll come back to see movies."

Showcase Cinemas in Coventry, in central England, is trying to duplicate with the World Cup the success the National Amusements-owned chain has had showing Red Sox baseball games in selected Boston-area cinemas.

"Our goal is to make each one of our theatres a community entertainment destination," spokeswoman Wanda Whitson said.

And while the Drexel Gateway cinema in Columbus, Ohio, said it is shifting the games to a bigger theater after its smaller room was at full 40-person capacity for the first U.S. match, the Virginia cinema is expecting attendance to fall.

"It appears to me, from what I've seen so far, that the United States isn't going to make it through to any of the later rounds," Old Town's Fons said. "I think I'll get smaller crowds, because the United States isn't going to be there."

Source: REUTERS

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