Despite efforts from independent cinema operators, the science-fiction film Star Wars: the Force Awakens is going to take a little longer to awaken on the Sunshine Coast.
Scheduled to open across Canada on Friday, December 18, the new Star Wars film won’t be shown locally until mid-January at the soonest.
“You have families with the idea that they are going to get together at Christmas to see the new Star Wars,” said Ann Nelson, owner/operator of Patricia Theatre. “It is quite disappointing that we are unable to make that vision come true.”
As a single-screen, independent theatre servicing an area with small population, Nelson said the theatre was unable to run the movie for four concurrent weeks as required by the the film’s distributor, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Canada.
The requirement to show the movie for a four-week run is impossible, claims Nelson, and makes it difficult for independent movie theatres like hers to operate.
“Blockbusters are our bread and butter,” said Nelson, “but we have to have them within the first four weeks, otherwise people go to see them elsewhere.”
For Star Wars fans hoping to see the film in December, heading to the Lower Sunshine Coast also might not be an option.
The film is not scheduled to be shown at Gibsons Cinema, and at Raven’s Cry Theatre in Sechelt, operator Doug Proby said the issue of having to guarantee a four-week run is also keeping the film from opening at his single-screen, independent theatre on December 18.
“We’d be running in the dark,” said Proby. “We would run out of population to show it to in about a week and a half.”
Nelson said although a January date is possible for the Patricia, she can’t guarantee it at this time.
