German cinemas refuse to show ‘Avengers’ film
Move comes after dispute over Disney’s decision to raise the rental fee for the movie
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.
