Tienmu Warner Village premieres

The brand-spanking new Warner Village cinema in Tienmu. PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS

Tienmu Warner Village Cinema (天母華納威秀) opens today and for people who live in the north of Taipei, going to a movie is no longer inconvenient.

The new multiplex, with eight screens and 1,900 seats, is the eighth in a chain of Warner Village Cinemas in Taiwan since the first opened in Taipei's Xinyi district in 1998.

"We are planning to service moviegoers in Tienmu, Shilin and Beitou. As a whole, we look to expand the number of audiences in Taipei and as a result increase movie sales in the region," said Jessie Van Patten (周美惠), general manager of Warner Village.

The cinema chain accommodates nearly 30 percent of the national market and Van Patten said the Tienmu branch would attract 900,000 to 1.2 million moviegoers a year. Thirty percent, it is expected, will be foreigners.

Costing NT$200 million to build, Tienmu Warner Village -- on the fourth to ninth floors of a building on Zhongcheng Road -- faces Tienmu baseball stadium and the Dayeh Takashimaya Department Store.

To fit in with the suburban lifestyle of Tienmu there will not be too many late-night movies and there will be shopping areas on the first three floors of the building, that will open in August.

Six years ago, Warner Village (with Australian-based Village Roadshow) was the first foreign group to bring multiplex entertainment to the country. UCI, SBC Cinema International and Cinemark have followed.

Recently, however, there have been rumors that Warner Village may be selling its interest in its Taiwan cinemas. Van Patten admitted that the costly facilities and high rents had made life difficult and said each of the eight branches had costs of at least NT$150 million.

"But this will not alter our plans to expand and build new cinemas," she said.