The scaffolding on Newbury's new cinema is being taken down giving us a view of what the finished building will look like. The new cladding is slowly being revealed starting from the end nearest to Monty's.
All scaffolding is due to be removed by July 3rd when the road is expected to fully reopen to west and eastbound traffic. The cinema will then be handed over to Vue to fit out the seven screen interior. The cinema complex is expected to open to the public sometime during October.
The new bar and restaurants on the ground floor are not expected to open until January 2010.
Plus the ground breaking sci-fi movie Avatar and St Trinian’s 2009
As soon as the road is reopened, extensive work will be undertaken to renew all pavements in this area of Cheap Street and Market Street. The pedestrian crossing will be relocated from the Bus Station to the southern entrance of the cinema to improve pedestrian links between the Kennet Centre and Cheap Street. The roads will be completely resurfaced and a new taxi rank will be installed outside the Liquid Nightclub.
The cinema is expected to be subsidised by £100,000.00 per annum from the evening car parking charges recently introduced by West Berkshire Council. http://www.newbury.net/forum/m-1245081420/
It's the reason Avatar wasn't released in May. They haven't got enough projectors installed. All over the world they are trying to install the system as fast as possible and the idea is that at least one screen in every multiplex will have one by Christmas.
But it's costly and time consuming. The hope is that it will revolutionise the way movies are shot and viewed......that way they can get some of their 300 + 400 million+ production costs back as soon as possible. (or, it might just turn out to be a complete load of dingos kidneys....)
They had to come up with some sort of viewing gimmick which makes the experience different from watching on BluRay on the digital TV at home.
However, that said I believe 3D TV is almost with us now. It won't take the Niponese long to meet the next market challenge.
I took the grandchildrento the I Max in the science museum at Kensington last year and that was really impressive but it is a huge screen and a very large cinema. I wonder what it will look like in a 200 seater.
Will there be access to the Kennet Centre again, at this point, and are the public toilets still there?
According to the plans there will entrances from Cheap St and Market St - the ground floor will comprise 4 cafe/restaurants and a pub, the cinema will be above. The public toilets have almost certainly have been demolished early in the build. New toilets will be provided (in the area that used to be the walkway up from the bus station).
PS Just looked at the plans as amended in 2007 - where an additional retail unit (kiosk) has been added and the toilets moved under the ramp (ie pretty much where they were) in order to give a better proportioned cafe (Cafe/Restaurant Unit 5). I do like the nomenclature there is 'Cafe Restaurant Unit One' and 'New Kiosk Unit 1'.
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