German cinemas refuse to show ‘Avengers’ film

Several hundred movie theatres in Germany have refused to screen the new Avengers film in a dispute over rental fees with Disney.

News agency DPA reported that 686 theatres in 193 mostly small towns refused to show Avengers: Age of Ultron, which opens in the UAE on Thursday. It said the dispute was over a decision to raise the rental fee for the movie to 53 per cent of ticket sales rather than the 47.7 per cent usually charged to small-town theatres.

Karl-Heinz Meier of I.G. Nord, a group representing cinema operators in northern Germany, said they would have been prepared to go as far as a 50 per cent fee. He added: “Disney will have to do without 686 screens on which the film otherwise would have been shown.”

Meier says moviegoers have expressed understanding.