Final touches being made to luxury cinema as venue gets set to welcome first filmgoers

Reclining seats, cocktails and top notch sound and picture quality will await cinema fans when the North East's newest venue starts to screen the latest Holllywood blockbusters.
The Odeon Luxe will open its doors next month.The Odeon Luxe will open its doors next month.
The Odeon Luxe will open its doors next month.

Odeon Luxe will welcome customers to its first films on Wednesday, June 5, as part of the £30 million Riverwalk development on the site of the former Gates shopping centre in Durham.

Bosses promise a wider range of food and drinks than other venues, with cocktails, hotdogs, chicken strips, lattice fries, Tango Ice Blast, Prosecco, spirits and a Coca Cola Freestyle machine with over 100 different flavours to try to join the usual popcorn, sweets and nachos.

The Odeon Luxe will open its doors next month.The Odeon Luxe will open its doors next month.
The Odeon Luxe will open its doors next month.

It will also have its own Costa and Oscar's bar.

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The cinema's six screens offer a total of 403 padded and reclining seats each with their own table and three times the leg room of an average picture house.

A total of 189 speakers have been used across the screens

One of those is an iSense screen, which has 94 seats and a 4k projector and 3D Dolby Atmos sound system for a "a truly immersive, ultra-high-definition cinema experience."

Builders are busy finishing off the construction work inside the building.Builders are busy finishing off the construction work inside the building.
Builders are busy finishing off the construction work inside the building.

The business, which will be a neighbour to a host of new restaurants and bars, will create 38 new jobs for the city, with recruitment carried out within the Durham area.

The finer details, including its cocktail menu, are still being confirmed alongside its ticket prices, but Odeon does offer a £17.99 a month limitless membership to customers.

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Its listings are still been drawn up, but the firm has already said it will be showing X-Men: Dark Phoenix from Friday, June 7, Men in Black: International from Friday, June 14, Toy Story 4 from Friday, June 21, the remake of Lion King from Friday, July 19, the next Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, from Friday, August 9, and the next installment of the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which will be shown from Thursday, December 19.

General manager Miranda Harding has been working alongside the team as members have been trained at the Silverlink and Metrocentre sites.

General manager Miranda Harding puts the reclining seats to the test.General manager Miranda Harding puts the reclining seats to the test.
General manager Miranda Harding puts the reclining seats to the test.

She said: "I've worked all around the country and come from the North East, so to come back to open Odeon Luxe Durham is pretty special.

"Bringing an Odeon Luxe here is part of Odeon's strategy and there are already a few in Edinburgh, Glasgow, two in Leeds, and it wants to offer a better experience.

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"It benefits from a retail stand for food and drink that offers more than just popcorn, lots of different options, and the screens themselves offer that immersive experience all the way through.

"The seats are just so comfy too and what better location than Durham, it's such a beautiful city."