Cineplex butters people up for Centre Cinema makeover

Canada's largest movie theatre chain has spoken, and it is not a fan of reviving Saskatoon's amusement tax.

"I just wanted to signalhow big of a deal this would be for us," said Anne Fitzgerald, chief legal officer for Toronto-based Cineplex Entertainment.

Fitzgerald traveled to Saskatoon Monday to speak to city councillors in person.

The city has floated the idea of bringing back its amusement tax,axed in 2007, as a way of shaving down the projected 2018 property tax hike to 4.51 per cent from 4.96 per cent.

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But if the city does that, plans to upgrade one of Cineplex's two Saskatoon theatres the aging Cineplex Odeon Centre on Eighth Street could be called off, Fitzgerald hinted.

"We have been looking at redeveloping our Centre Cinema and building a more state-of-the-art facility," she said.

Theatre is 'worn out': rival

The Odeon was built in the mid-1990s by competitor Magic Lantern Theatres, which eventually sold it to Cineplex.

Tom Hutchinson, the president of Magic Lantern Theatres, has called that theatre "no longer state of the art" and "worn out."

While Cineplex is staying mum on whatexactly it would do to spruce up the Odeon, the company says new theatres commonly boast UltraAVX auditoriums with wall-to-wall screens and digital sound (like at Cineplex's downtown Scotiabank Theatre), recliner seats in every auditorium and some screening rooms tailored especially for families with young kids.

"The amusement tax is such a big concern to us that we would re-evaluate those plans because it makes that big of a difference. Attendance is everything at movie theatres," said Fitzgerald.

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Those plans come as Magic Lantern Theatres prepares to open what will be Saskatoon's only suburban megaplex, a seven-screener, in the east-end Brighton area.

Cineplex didn't want to build downtown

Fitzgerald was blunt when talking about Cineplex's opening of its flagship Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Saskatoon in 2005.

The company was partly convinced to locate the theatre downtown thanks toan agreement with the citythat sparedthe Scotiabank from an amusement tax "in perpetuity."

"We didn't have to come downtown," said Fitzgerald. "What is now Scotiabank was not interested in building downtown."

Fitzgerald also spoke about the wide range of things competing for people's attention, chief among them Netflix. She said attendance at movie theatres across Canada has remained flat over the last six to seven years.

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"We're competing with the expansion of theSaskTel Centre, we're competing with Persephone [Theatre], now even the [Remai] museum, which is beautiful," she said.

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Fitzgerald said Regina remains the only city in Canada to charge an amusement tax and that it's been "challenging" to fight that over the years.

City councillors sitting on the city's finance committee had no questions for Fitzgerald.