WITH THE film award season underway, The Regent Cinema in Christchurch are celebrating some screen accolades of its own over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The Regent Centre achieved its fastest ever sell out on in its entire history of live shows and screened events for its screening of Les Miserables – The Staged Concert.

It took just three hours to sell out all 480 seats for the live satellite broadcast on Monday December 2.

Less than a fortnight later, the last three screenings of Downton Abbey on Friday December 13 and Saturday December 14 took the popular film into poll position as the most seen film at the Regent since the Centre re-opened in 1983.

This followed a run of 52 screenings between Friday September 13 to Thursday October 10.

Gary Theobald, Film Programmer at the Regent Centre, said: “I would like to thank all the Regent staff, volunteers, the Board of Directors and most of all our loyal cinema customers who have collectively made our on screen success possible at the Centre.

“We are all very proud to have had the Regent highlighted to Universal’s studio bosses in Hollywood and we are looking forward to many more film successes in 2020.”

Over 12,000 patrons have been to see Downton Abbey at the Regent so far, which was undoubtedly helped by the fact that Downton Abbey was the first film to be shown on release at the Regent since the town’s original Regent cinema had closed in July 1973.

The Regent Centre was also the UK’s No 1 Independent Cinema in the UK and Ireland for the first weekend of release box office figures for Downton Abbey from Friday September 13 to Sunday September 15.

In beating other multi-screen cinemas around the country, The Regent was mentioned in despatches by the distributor’s London office in their weekly report to the Studio bosses in Hollywood.

All three films and the Les Miserables live broadcast at The Regent all came from the same Hollywood Studio – Universal Pictures UK.

Having let the London office know the good news, the Regent received a congratulatory email from Universal’s Managing Director, Rob Huber: “Love seeing those records! I feel sure there are some further mutual successes to come.”

The Regent Cinema started this year in much the same fashion recording the highest attendance for the screening of Andre Rieu’s King of Waltz.

For the fifth year running, the cinema beat 600 other cinemas across the UK and Ireland for its screenings on Saturday January 4, Sunday January 5 and Friday January 10.