The Grounds Cinema Nailed the Industry While UA Cinemas Shut Down During COVID

19 Mar, 2021

Clouds faded in the afternoon, the city became warmer than the morning, couples and families lined up in front of the Grounds Cinema, the only outdoor cinema in Hong Kong. They were waiting for the Marvel movie, Guardian of the Galaxy Vol.2. The cinema was an almost full house with most of the 4 person pods and all 2 person pods sold.

It was the same day when Hong Kong giant cinema company suddenly shut down.

UA employees slowly walked into the pale meeting room, listened to the arrangement of severance payment by the management committee. It was a gloomy morning on 8 Mar 2021, UA employees’ last working day.

While Hong Kong cinemas forced to shut down three times with approximately 142 days in 2020 because of Covid, the Grounds Cinema launched during the pandemic with huge demands on ticketing.

Until 18 Mar, 2021, the cinema launched 40 movies on screen, all tickets of 27 movies were sold out, even though the ticketing fee is around 200 HKD, costs 70 HKD more in the Broadway Circuit at the Admiralty.

The Grounds Cinema has launched its first movie on 1 Nov, 2020. Unlike the traditional indoor cinemas, the outdoor cinema set up white fences for 4 person pods and 2 person pods on a grass field, with the standard social distance of 1.5 meters.

Pete Lai and his wife were carrying his three kids with one sitting in a pram, queuing up at the noon under the huge sunny day in March. This was their second time to go to this cinema, “last time we watched Frozen II, but that day it was a bit rainy, so this time we want to try one more time.”

Lai said that the outdoor cinema gave an extraordinary experience for his family, “I didn’t often bring my kids to cinemas. It was too inconvenient because sometimes they would disturb other audiences.”

For Lai, the movies might not as new as what typical indoor cinema like the UA cinema launched. But he said it did not concern him most.

Lai loved this cinema because of the “panic day” atmosphere. After they got the verification, Lai walked into the cinema with his wife and his three children, laid on the yacht chair, enjoying the sunbathing, children were playing around. Giggles and chuckles all around the pod.

A few meters behind Pete, Herman Chan, a 26-year-old man was in the same queue, he was a bit sweating, waiting for his girlfriend.

Chan and his girlfriend are movie fiends, "I used to go to cinemas for three times a week. I would even go there by myself after working," said Chan, however, during the pandemic, he has not gone to the cinema for a long time.

Unlike UA Cinemas, the Grounds Cinema launched old Hollywood movies and cartoons. Copyright fees would be one of their costs.

Hung Cho-sing, chairman of Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association Ltd, said that it might cost around 500 to 600 thousand dollars for paying the copyright fee of a local movie. Hung estimated that Hollywood movies would be higher than the local ones.

According to Hung, the whole movie industry earned approximately 50 million HKD in the box office in 2020, however, the amount of expenditure of all local cinemas, including salaries and rent, was around 18 billion HKD.

He said the whole industry had to lose 13 billion HKD in the previous year.

Hung indicated that UA had to shoulder more financial burden than the Grounds Cinema, along with the 5-million investments on the brand new K11 Musea cinema.

But the Grounds Cinema might face other difficulties

The local renowned movie star and movie producer Tenky Tin Kai-man said that the attractiveness of the Grounds Cinema was mainly coming from freshness and curiosity, “Freshness of a movie is also the key to the cinema profits. Once the audience lost interest in the venue, the outdoor cinema would no longer capable to sustain."

“I hope that the outdoor cinema can last even if the pandemic is over,” said Lai, however, he said that he would not go to this cinema when summer comes.