Karim Atassi, Chief Brand Officer, CinemacityCinema began as ceremony. In the 1920s, a night at the movies was an occasion – people dressed up, theatres were ornate, and going out to see a film felt like taking part in a civic ritual. Film houses were temples of spectacle where architecture, music, fashion and social life converged.
That glamour did more than sell tickets, it framed cinema as a shared cultural event, an art form that invited people to gather and be moved together.
Somewhere along the way we lost that sense of occasion. The industry’s business models shifted toward maximising capacity and minimising cost – more seats, smaller margins, squeezed auditoria, tired carpets, sticky floors, and the slow erosion of service. Cinema became, for many, just another method of consuming pictures – functional, anonymous, and too often uncomfortable. It’s hard to be swept away by a brilliant film when everything around you screams indifference.
How cinema persists
Predicting cinema’s death is nothing new. Each new technology has been proclaimed its executioner: television in the 1950s, VHS and DVD, TiVo, 3D, home theater systems, flat screens, streaming, and now VR/AR. The dogma persists because people like simple narratives, that one format will win and everything else will disappear.
In reality, entertainment is layered and plural. Film is a composite art: production design, cinematography, writing, performance, sound, music, choreography, all superimposed to create an immersive artistic whole. Home viewing reproduces parts of that experience. It does not, and cannot easily, replicate the complete, communal ritual of the theatre.
That’s the essential opportunity for cinemas today. If content can be streamed into a living room, a cinema’s unique value is the additional layers it provides.
It’s the seat that cradles you, the auditorium that surrounds you with calibrated sound and sight, the lighting that cues emotion, the scent and design that set a mood, and the human hospitality that greets you. Put simply: our job is to curate an evening, not merely to play a film.
The most resilient cinemas are the ones that remember and reimagine the ritual. They restore elegance without being anachronistic; they marry comfort and design with hospitality and programming that invites people to linger. Luxury seating and superior acoustics matter, but so does the holistic experience: thoughtful F&B, designer foyers that foster conversation, live pre-show elements, and events that make the screening part of a larger cultural night out. When a theatre becomes a destination rather than a venue, it changes how people value the experience.
Winning the shift in content through unforgettable experiences
It’s also important to recognise the shifting landscape of content. Streaming has democratised distribution, and many indie films find their first or primary home online. That affects our slate of exclusives, but it also expands creative voices and audience appetite.
Cinemas must respond by diversifying programming, not just showing films but curating cultural gatherings: themed nights, Q&As, live music and performance tie-ins, gastronomic collaborations, immersive activations, and interactive events that weave the film into a broader social fabric.
This is where we’re taking the future of Cinemacity. Our mission isn’t to resist change; it’s to amplify what only a live, communal cinema can offer. We design spaces that feel like an evening out: comfortable seating, impeccable sound, bespoke food and beverage, and programming that blends cinema with live and participatory experiences. By expanding the definition of what a cinema does, we create reasons for people to choose theatres not because they have to, but because they want to.
The data and behaviour reinforce this complementarity: heavy streaming audiences aren’t necessarily cinema-averse. In many cases, people who engage with more content at home also seek out special theatrical experiences for major releases, event screenings or communal viewing moments. Streaming and theatres can be partners in a broader cultural ecosystem, each amplifying the other’s strengths rather than canceling them out.
Looking forward, the argument isn’t nostalgia for old glamour but a practical cultural strategy: restore the ritual, rebuild the service, and reinvent the cinema as an experience that can’t be fully replicated elsewhere. When we do that, when the hall is beautiful, the sound is flawless, the seat invites you to stay, and the evening is curated from door to credits, cinema reclaims its role as an indispensable cultural space.
Film will continue to evolve. So should cinemas. The task isn’t to compete with every new format; it is to offer something uniquely collective, sensory and social. If we get that right, we won’t just survive – we’ll again be a place people choose to make an evening of, to meet, to celebrate, and to feel the power of a shared story.
By Karim Atassi, Chief Brand Officer, Cinemacity
