In my short time writing articles there are subjects I’ve covered that I could never have seen coming, like the articles I wrote about the MCU, the treatment of follow-up films and the Barbenheimer trend. I bring this up because I don’t think I ever could have predicted that I’d type the words “Empire Cinema is now defunct” and yet that’s exactly what I’ve just done.
For those of you reading this who maybe don’t know, Empire was one of the many cinema chains in the UK along with Showcase, Vue, Odeon and of course Cineworld. They had branches in several places in England with only one in Scotland, in Clydebank.
Speaking of the Empire Clydebank, that was the one I went to from when I was five to twenty-two. Naturally I have many memories of that cinema that include going to see such films as Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Ratatouille and how could I possibly forget going there for a night-time showing of Johnny English Reborn on its release day when I was eleven. I also have clear memories of pacing up and down the lobby waiting to go into films like Megamind and Skyfall. I especially recall the latter as it was my first 12A in a cinema and as it was the new Bond, the cinema had the themes of previous Bonds booming from the speakers. I’ve also thought of that as a pivotal moment in my experience as a cinemagoer and it’s nothing short of luck that Empire got to be the cinema that gave me that experience; while one of the memories of seeing Megamind is that on the day I went to see it there was a lot of snow outside (that I’d already slipped on) and it was my first time trying Häagen-Dazs ice cream.
I continued to go to Empire as I got older and more filmgoing options became open to me. I went on to see a lot of well-regarded films there, but it was like any other cinema, sometimes I would see a great film there, a good one, or in some cases a truly terrible one.
I could talk all day about the business trouble the pandemic caused, but what I don’t think has been taken into account is, what about the businesses that already weren’t doing as well as others before the pandemic? I’m sure such a question is no doubt being asked by someone somewhere but it is my belief that Empire Cinema was such a business.
Having looked into the history of the business, it seems they were in considerable trouble all the way back to 2016. I don’t know about anything specific but it did result in Empire having to sell up to five of its cinemas in England; Clydebank was lucky, it stayed unharmed. To some this may not have been too bad but one of the cinemas being sold was unfortunately their flagship branch in Leicester Square. I’m not a businessman but when a flagship branch is threatened, I would imagine those who could, would want to cherish it and try to hold to it as a mark of its identity. I regret to say that didn’t happen, the flagship branch closed and it was down to the others to survive.
After the closures they did go on, and things may have looked bleak in 2020 but like the other cinema chains in 2021 they opened back up and did what they could to fix the damage caused by the long period of closure.
To the cinema-going public everything may have looked fine but I’m sure that changed for some in July 2023 when it was announced that the Empire Cinema had collapsed into administration. This saw the immediate closure of some of their branches – they either closed permanently or some luckier ones became something else. During the 2016 closures Cineworld appeared to be a rival chain that rescued what they could, but this time the ones that have been able to stay open have become branches of a cinema chain mainly based In Ireland called Omniplex. I’d never heard of them until recently but it’s their name that now stands tall on the building of what was Empire’s Clydebank branch. Which I really couldn’t have predicted.
Now with what has happened I feel it is important that those who run the other big cinema chains to look at Empire and learn from it, so they can perhaps do more to avoid a similar fate. As I think it over, there was very little that other cinemas do that Empire didn’t also do. They showed live performances on the big screen and maintained a magazine with relevant film-related information (and no, I’m not thinking of the magazine that also happens to be called Empire, the cinema chain’s magazine was called Escape). Perhaps other cinema chains could put more emphasis on things like re-screenings; having been to a handful of them I can say they get audiences and sometimes provide a much easier- to-enjoy experience then a modern film has given for some time.
I don’t say this to sound disparaging of Empire, but in the game of the UK cinema chain they were something of a small player. They didn’t have the wide reach of Cineworld and as they only started life back in 2005 they didn’t have the long history of Odeon on their side either. They didn’t even manage to reach twenty years of business which is something that for some reason has given me pause whenever it has crossed my mind. It could be said that the odds were against them and while I don’t think people like me or the general public will know for sure, I would hope that Empire went out fighting to stay alive. I don’t know if it was fate – or if other cinemas have just been lucky in a way that Empire wasn’t?
Cinemas rely on people; not just to run them but also to go into them and see the films. I could go on about how people complain about cinema prices for various items, how noisy they can be and how streaming and watching films at home is just easier than going to the cinema, but I won’t. I went from someone who was a frequent visitor to Empire to someone who, since 2020, only went once a year. I haven’t been to any cinema as much as I did before the pandemic, but after seeing what’s become of Empire I think I feel a touch of complicity in its demise. I know it’s a strange thought, but for me it’s one I find hard to avoid. It might be worthwhile for the other chains to look at the fate of Empire, not as a warning but as motivation to keep going.
If it hasn’t happened already I will try not to get sentimental about all this. Empire Cinema is now gone and I accept it. I don’t feel sad about it, but it was a part of my formative years and just as a peculiar little footnote, I only ever saw two Empire branches with my own eyes, the one in Clydebank and one in Poole that a car I was in just happened to be passing. I remember seeing its purple letters shining in the dark.
I will always remember the memories I made at Empire and as for the cinema chains that are still open, perhaps cinemagoers, including me, will show a renewed sense of admiration for them. If that is Empire Cinema’s legacy then so be it, and at least this way their death as a business and cinema will not have been in vain.
