Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Development and Investment Entertainment Company (DIEC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), will launch the Kingdom’s first public cinema this week in collaboration with AMC Entertainment at a newly created cinema complex in the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), Riyadh.

DIEC and AMC Entertainment will commemorate the historic moment with a gala event on Wednesday, hosting prominent local and international guests, in addition to invited media.

The launch event will be a private screening, showing a Hollywood blockbuster, the name of which will be announced later. It is the first in a series of invitation-only screenings that will be held during April.

The cinema is set to open to the public in May, and tickets to public show times are planned to go on sale later this month through an online ticketing system. A further three screens at KAFD’s theater will open in the third quarter of 2018 and represent the beginning of a partnership that could see 40 or more AMC cinema complexes open in the Kingdom over the next five years.

The partnership between DIEC and AMC Entertainment will advance a key objective of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 to grow the entertainment sector in the Kingdom. DIEC intends to invest up to SR10 billion in entertainment projects by 2030.