Vancouver's Cinemark Tinseltown changes to Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas

Due to a corporate takeover of a local theatre, the range of movies available to Vancouver movie-goers may undergo a change.

The 11-year-old movie theatre, formerly known as Cinemark Tinseltown, at International Village Mall (88 West Pender) perched on the edge of Chinatown, has been taken over by Cineplex Odeon. The theatre is being given the rather lengthy new name Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas.

The change was effective as of Friday, November 26.

Cinemark Tinseltown, the only Canadian theatre owned by the U.S.–based Cinemark, balanced blockbuster releases with a range of indie productions, Canadian films, and foreign releases (particularly titles from Asia, such as China's Aftershock and South Korea's The Man From Nowhere).

It remains to be seen if the programming will continue to include art-house, foreign, and independent selections or not.

The theatre was also a venue for local film festivals, such as the Vancouver Queer Film Festival and the recent Vancouver Asian Film Festival. Whether or not these festivals will be affected also remains to be seen.

VAFF president Barbara Lee said in an e-mail she has not heard anything yet. VQFF executive director Drew Dennis said that they have partnered with the venue since 2002 and that booking and negotiating theatre space for VQFF usually happens in December and January.

Prices listed for regular tickets at the theatre on the Cineplex Odeon website remain the same as Cinemark Tinseltown's, which was $12.75. According to the website, moviegoers will also be able to utilize the SCENE rewards program available at the Cineplex Odeon theatres (run with Scotiabank).

Cineplex Odeon runs the Scotiabank Theatre Vancouver as well as SilverCity venues in suburbs like Richmond and Burnaby.

Comments

4 Comments

Vincent

Dec 25, 2010 at 10:18pm

Best news EVER! the movies offered by Cinemark before were horrible. Finally putting those theatres to good use.

Raymond

Jan 29, 2011 at 12:42pm

I totally disagree with Vincent, this theatre under it's former name has
been here for 11 years showing art house films , indie productions and other
diverse options, now it seems there are showing mostly main-stream distributed
films the one could view easily view at other venues in Vancouver. A big loss to the
community and film makers alike. Film is more than mainstream hype and
a way to address many issues in our world today, to show case film composers scores, costume designer, set designers . Losing those affects everyone opportunity to
look at issues and view the pulse of art presented by young filmmakers evolvng
their craft.

stewart

Feb 27, 2011 at 9:12am

my bum is itchy

Bob

Jan 28, 2014 at 9:19pm

Valid point Raymond, but if they cant bring in enough people to make a profit or at least cover their overhead costs they wont be able to operate anymore. This just means that indie and non-mainstream films are going to have to get a bit more creative :p