Extinguishing Spotlights: the Uncertain Future of Cinematic Heritage in London’s Leicester Square

Abstract

London movie theatres have been considered some of the finest palaces to house the moving image. Even the tiles adorning the Northern and Piccadilly lines at Leicester Square tube station depict the iconic film perforations along its platforms. As the focal point of movie marketing, the fetishisation of stars and directors in the numerous film premieres hosted along the red carpets in the square have been recorded and disseminated worldwide via print and broadcast for decades. Today, the huge hoardings (now digitized) still attempt to entice those milling past to venture inside for the latest Hollywood blockbusters. However, as cinema attendance has waned the square has had to respond to the changes in public demand for a wider choice and different kinds of experience. Many of the former cinemas have now been multiplexed; their singular former grandeur stripped in favour of modernist simplicity and choice. Now in a much more worrying trend, parts of the square (including the Odeon West End) are in the process of being fully demolished. Audience demands for variety and spectacle plus industry developments in digital technologies and new trends in experiences such as giant screen formats, 3D films, and more immersive sound have fuelled the need for change to keep up with demand and profit. Using Leicester Square as a case study, this paper will explore the need of cinema holding companies to evolve in an increasing multi-platform era of choice. The question is at what cost to preservation and heritage is this current strategy having on our national and collective cinematic history?