MBO Cinemas has been slowly but steadfastly climbing the steep hill of success especially since the acquisition of Big Cinemas back in 2012. Now one of the top three largest cinema chains in Malaysia, MBO shows no sign of slowing down as it plans to open up more new locations in the near future. Cinema Online recently had the chance to talk to CEO of MBO Cinemas Lim Eng Hee, where he spilled his thoughts on alternative methods of enjoying content amongst the younger generation, customers' convenience and venturing into distribution.
Cinema Online: How has MBO Cinemas grown over the years and what are the future developments in store? Lim Eng Hee: At the start of 2014, we had 26 locations and 185 screens and we shut down 2 of these locations (10 screens) so we closed the year with 24 locations and 175 screens. We have, since end March 2015, opened a new location at Imago Mall so we have 25 locations and 183 screens. We now have presence in almost all the states except for Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Penang and Perlis. Of the remaining states, Penang remains an interesting state for us. Not because I was born there but I do see there are opportunities especially in the future development corridor, where the second bridge lands in Batu Kawan. We're very careful in terms of where we're going to go into; which development and location. We foresee that more cinemas will open in the coming years for MBO. We would like, ideally, to get to having around 300 to 330 screens in Malaysia over the next 5 years. The latest MBO Imago Mall has a distinctively fresh and unique look, is that the future look for MBO outlets? In terms of the look and the theme, we're going forward with a very modern, very fresh, very bright concept. It is relevant to our core target audience, who are between the ages of 13 to 29 years old. Some very specific theme like the LEGO concept at Citta Mall, can still work but that's more skewed toward the much younger set. When you go around looking at international cinema circuits, they tend to have one look only. There's a lot of consistency so the brand recall is very high and people tend to mention the cinema circuit's name when wanting to go watch a movie versus the location. Imago was a very well thought through strategy for us, as we are able to showcase how the new MBO is going to look like. Next one is Sungai Petani, which will have a slightly different look, something we would like to introduce to our cinemas in secondary cities whereas Imago's look would be used for the larger cities locations.
Are there any plans for MBO Cinemas to also venture into movie distribution like how the other cinemas are doing? All the major MPAA studios have their presence in Malaysia and together they bring in close to a hundred titles a year. Then there are already people actively buying independent international films, independent Asian films, or for that matter, all the Asian films because there are no big studios from Asia represented here. Also, you have the Wajib Tayang and the local productions. When I look at the landscape, that's probably 50 percent more distributor than what is needed for this territories. Taking into consideration we only have 52 weeks a year and we are releasing more than 200 titles. It's more than what is needed for a healthy cinema programming and that is why the Box Office cannot grow as healthily as how it grows in China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. There every good film gets a good run but here a film gets bumped off because there is too much content coming through. So we have no intention to be a distributor. I myself have been a distributor and I understand the uniqueness of being a distributor and exhibitor, as well as the challenges. With the plethora of movies in cinemas, which are the ones you are looking forward to? I like "Mad Max" so I am looking forward to that. I've been a comic book fan since I was a kid, so am definitely looking forward to DC and Marvel titles. That will be "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" next year. This year, it's "Ant Man", "Fantastic 4' and of course the recently released "Avengers". The "Star Wars" franchise has always been interesting to me because I grew up during the first movies in the 1970s: episode 4, 5 and 6. Now, they're doing 7, 8 and 9, the images have been quite interesting for me. There are also a couple of animation movies that are interesting. One of them is Pixar's "Inside Out". I have watched the whole movie as it was screened at CinemaCon in Las Vegas last month. It's complex in a nice way. So I will still catch it in the cinemas when it releases in Malaysia.