Charente-Maritime: for the founder of the CinéWest group Daniel Taillandier, “in the medium or long term, all cinemas will have a premium theater”

The Atlantic Cinema of Saintes is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In 2006, you and your wife were E.Leclerc members and managed the two stores in Saintes. How was your desire to start a career in cinema born?

We went to the cinema a lot. It’s one of my great passions. In 2004, I found that the Saintes cinema, the Olympia, was in very bad condition, it was raining inside. I’ll skip the details, but it was a disaster. At that time, I bought the business and I proposed to the City to build a multiplex instead or in addition, at the time I didn’t know. We opened the Atlantic Ciné on May 10, 2006. The Saintes cinema went, during the time of the Olympia, from 90,000 admissions to a little over 200,000 in the first year. It rose to 300,000 and even 400,000 entries.

We don’t have to gain weight to gain weight.

It was much later that CinéWest was finally born…

In 2018, we handed over the E.Leclerc store to our son Pierre. One or two years before, I had thought about retraining in cinema. My idea was to make cinemas in the West. Hence the creation in 2018 of CinéWest. We took over the cinemas in Royan (Le Lido) and Cognac (Le Galaxy), which opened in 2018 and 2020. This had an impact on attendance at the Atlantic Cinema in Saintes, it’s logical. What was not logical was for people from Royan to go to the cinema in Saintes. We went down to around 280,000 entries, which is very good for a city the size of Saintes.

Today, CinéWest has 13 multiplexes. How did the group grow and eventually look east?

Immediately after Cognac (Châteaubernard), there was Ploérmel in Morbihan and Mont-de-Marsan (Saint-Pierre-du-Mont) in Landes. Afterwards, I realized that there were perhaps other opportunities elsewhere. Covid has gotten us used to working via video. We had the IT resources to work with cinemas that were further away. We went from three cinemas in Poitou-Charentes to 13 across France.

Do you think even bigger?

We have a size that is, in my opinion, sufficient for a group like ours, but I remain open to certain opportunities. But we don’t have to gain weight to gain weight.

What city model would these opportunities correspond to?

This would correspond to towns of 18,000 to 25,000 inhabitants, where cinema either exists and interests us; either the potential is not taken, we try to take back cinema and adapt it to what customers expect. In Saintes, Royan and Cognac, there were cinemas before we arrived but we have increased the number of cinemas by three. We have 280,000 entries in Saintes, 280,000 entries in Royan. In Cognac, there are almost 200,000. Our smallest cinema is Les Balcons de Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes), it has three rooms. For now anyway. It’s right next to another cinema that we have in Mouans-Sartoux, which makes five. We manage 8 rooms in two neighboring communities. Our usual format is more like six to eight rooms.

What is the future of cinemas, in your opinion?

A cinema is culture, but it is also a business. We have every interest in giving spectators what they expect. Cinema has existed for over 120 years and in my opinion, it still has a bright future ahead of it. When cinema was born, it was the only image offering. And then came TV, computers, tablets, etc. We now have cinemas that are exceptional. We have greatly improved the comfort, the quality of projectors, screens and sound. Cinema remains the best way to see a film. Cinema is the premium of the screen.

Comment se materialise le « premium» au sein de Ciné West ?