Establishment Odeon Cinemas was created in 1928 by entrepreneur
Oscar Deutsch. but it had been used for cinemas in France and Italy in the 1920s, and the word is actually
Ancient Greek ᾨδεῖον, Ōideion, meaning "a place for singing". The word "
Nickelodeon" was coined in 1888 and was widely used to describe small cinemas in the US. The first cinema opened by Deutsch was located in
Brierley Hill,
Staffordshire, England in 1928. The building has long since been demolished, but as of 2006, the former
UCI cinema (built in the 1980s as an AMC multiplex) at the
Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Brierley Hill was refurbished as an Odeon cinema. However, its style is more functional than that of original Odeon cinemas. The first cinema that opened under the Odeon brand was in 1930, located in
Perry Barr, Birmingham. It was designed by
Harry Weedon using maritime-inspired
Art Deco architecture. The frontage was remodelled following damage sustained during the
Second World War and, having been a bingo hall, has since been converted into a conference venue.
Expansion , London which opened in 1937 In 1932, Deutsch acquired more sites and planned the construction of a chain of cinemas; commissioning Weedon to design his future buildings, with five opening in 1933. Each Odeon cinema had a character different from most other cinemas in the UK, often having a unique and spectacular interior.
George Coles was also one of their principal architects, remodelling a partially complete assembly hall in
Portslade and designing his first purpose-built cinema in Upper Wickham Lane,
Welling,
Kent which opened on 22 October 1934 and closed on 22 October 1960. It is currently a bingo club in the Mecca chain. It featured central linear lighting, a feature that became characteristic of his work. 15 other Odeon cinemas opened in 1934. , London opened in 1944 In 1936, 35 more Odeons opened and in 1937, the
Odeon Leicester Square opened in
Leicester Square, London, which became the chain's flagship cinema. Another 35 Odeons also opened in 1937, with the chain concentrating on bigger cities. They also took over County Cinemas and George Singleton Cinemas in Scotland. Odeon Theatres Limited was formed to consolidate the chain of 250 cinemas into one public company. After his death, his wife sold his shares to Rank, giving Rank control of both Odeon and the rival
Gaumont-British chain, which the
Rank Organisation had acquired earlier in the year. In 1948, Rank merged the management and booking operations of Odeon and Gaumont. In 1953, Odeon brought
3D films,
widescreen and
CinemaScope to the UK. The
Odeon Marble Arch showed
Bwana Devil in 3D in March 1953. Later in the year, Odeon showed
Tonight We Sing in widescreen at the Odeon Leicester Square and demonstrated CinemaScope at the Odeon Tottenham Court Road to the trade and to the public with
The Robe at the Odeon Leicester Square. In 1989, they built their first multiplex with an 8-screen site in
Stoke-on-Trent. Odeon eventually operated a wholly owned Canadian subsidiary, Odeon Theatres (Canada) Ltd., with more than a hundred cinemas in Canada, coast-to-coast. The head office of Odeon Theatres of Canada was in
Toronto, and later, the north Toronto suburb of
Willowdale. This business was sold in 1978 to the Canadian Theatres chain and became Canadian Odeon Theatres, then was sold again in 1984 to
Cineplex Corporation, forming
Cineplex Odeon, then later became known as
Loews Cineplex Entertainment. It also owned fifty per cent of an Australian subsidiary, Greater Union Organisation, based in
Sydney, with dozens of cinemas across Australia. The Rank Organisation's share of Greater Union Organisation was sold to Amalgamated Holdings Ltd., an Australian company, also in 1984. Greater Union is now known as
Event Cinemas.
Present day which opened in 2001 Since the turn of the century, Odeon has undergone a series of sales after the Rank Group needed cash injections to reduce their debt, firstly to
Cinven in February 2000 for £280 million which merged Odeon, with 75 cinemas at the time, with Cinven's
ABC Cinemas, which comprised 60 cinemas. In 2004, the chain was purchased by
Terra Firma and merged with
United Cinemas International to produce the largest cinema chain in Europe. As a condition of the merger (imposed by the
Office of Fair Trading), Odeon's
Newcastle upon Tyne,
Sutton Coldfield,
Poole,
Quinton,
Hemel Hempstead and
Bromley cinemas were sold to
Empire Cinemas. Many smaller, older cinemas such as Odeon Grimsby on Freeman Street were closed to keep market share within legal limits. The remaining UCI cinemas, including Thefilmworks brands, were rebranded as Odeon by early November 2005. UCI cinemas in Ireland have also joined the Odeon chain, and while they initially retained the UCI brand name, evidence of the merger became apparent, for example when booking tickets by credit card, the name "Odeon" appeared. The Odeon in-house film review magazine,
Onscreen, was now also distributed in the UCI cinemas, retaining the Odeon logo font throughout. In August 2007, UCI launched a new Irish website with an identical layout to odeon.co.uk. This website stated that the Irish cinemas were sold to an Irish group, Entertainment Enterprises, in September 2006. This transaction went unreported in the Irish media. It also stated that the cinemas remained part of the Odeon chain under a management contract.
Rank/Odeon previously ran cinemas in Ireland (including the flagship, the Savoy Cinema in
O'Connell Street) until 1982, when they were purchased by
Ward Anderson. In April 2008, Entertainment Enterprises announced that it purchased the Irish assets of Storm Cinemas, and as with the existing UCI chain, would be contracting the running of the cinemas to Odeon. On 31 May 2011, Odeon announced that it had bought back the UCI chain in Ireland (including the Storm Cinemas-branded locations) from Entertainment Enterprises. Odeon rebranded all of its Irish cinemas under the Odeon brand during 2012; the first rebranded cinema reopened on 27 March 2012. In February 2007, the UK became home to Europe's first DCI-compliant fully
digital multiplex cinemas with the launch of Odeon
Hatfield and Odeon
Surrey Quays (in London), with a total of 18 digital screens. In 2007 Odeon acquired ten cinemas in Italy. It is now the largest cinema chain in Europe. In March 2012, the Odeon and UCI Cinemas Group under Terra Firma's control reported a £70 million loss for the year 2011, as posted on
Companies House. In 2015, Terra Firma announced that it planned to sell Odeon and UCI Cinemas for around £1 billion. In April 2015, the company agreed to sell its cinemas in
Gerrards Cross,
Esher,
Muswell Hill and
Barnet to its smaller rival
Everyman Cinemas for £7.1 million. In July 2016, the company was bought for $921 million by the American company
AMC Theatres, which is owned by Chinese conglomerate
Wanda Group. The deal received approval from the European Commission on 17 November 2016, and was completed on 30 November 2016. In 2018, AMC Theatres bought Norwegian chain SF Kino and renamed it
Odeon Kino. On 17 March 2020, Odeon closed all of its cinemas due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. On 11 December 2020, Odeon revealed they were losing $125 million a month due to the closure, and that the emergency funds that had been provided were running out. On 5 May 2023, Odeon announced the closure on 5 June of five sites, including two of the dwindling number of original Odeons, Ayr and Weston-Super-Mare and also the 1998 10-screen multiplex in Blackpool. On 18 August 2024, Odeon Surrey Quays was closed permanently as part of
British Land's redevelopment of the surrounding
Canada Water area. There remain six "Oscar Deutsch" Odeons in operation:- Bristol (totally rebuilt internally), Exeter,
Harrogate, London Leicester Square, Swiss Cottage and Worcester. ==Rank Screen Advertising==