This is kind of sad news. I have not been a regular filmgoer since the stroke happened and have only seen the inside of a cinema a handful of times since then (with The Babadook in 2014 being the last actual new release I’ve seen on the big screen; everything else has been home viewing)… but back in the days when I was, the Verona was a reasonably regular haunt of mine (I remember seeing Hugo Weaving in the queue there once), it always had interesting stuff on. Even if I haven’t been there for about 15 years, I shall miss it.
On the other hand, though:
When the Verona closes in February, the chain plans to simultaneously reopen a venue that Hoyts operated as Cinema Paris until just before the pandemic at the Entertainment Quarter.
“We’ve been asked by our customers for many years ‘can we please have a Palace cinema in Sydney with ample parking?’,” Zeccola said. “We were looking for exactly that when we remembered there’d been a four-screen cinema at the Entertainment Quarter that had fallen into disuse.”
Palace plans to rent that cinema, spend $500,000 to move in and refresh the amenities then reopen it as Palace Moore Park.
Glad to know that Cinema Paris is going to be a thing, cos I also saw a bunch of interesting stuff there too way back when (if I remember correctly, that was where I saw Bringing Out the Dead and I was the only person in the cinema). The only thing I have against this plan is that, well, it’s not the most accessible cinema in town, is it? Even back in the days when that wasn’t a concern for me, it still took more effort to get to than most cinemas, cos it was some way off a main road; fine if you’re going by car, but going by public transport involved a fair bit of walking from Anzac Parade. I mean, the Verona did too but it never felt like it somehow cos you were still on a major road… Entertainment Quarter, frankly, always took more effort, and evidently still will. But I’m happy to know it’s still going to be around.
