Cinema City Mammut I & II

In the Buda area of Budapest, opposite Széna Square, the Mammut (“Mammoth”) Shopping and Entertainment Centre opened on 28th August 1998. There were 180 retail spaces - but no cinema. So the investors looked across the street, where they wanted to build a 16 screen multiplex, to be operated by Budapest Film.

A year later, in August 1999, Budapest Film and the Centre reached a revised agreement to build an eight-screen cinema on the roof of the parking garage in the existing building. On 14th June 2000 the Buda Cinema Centre opened, with a seating capacity of 1,300.

The auditoriums were intended to represent eight separate cinemas, and were named after different parts of Buda: 1:Bécsikapu, 2:Hűvösvölgy, 3:Krisztina, 4:Pasarét, 5:Aquincum, 6:Kiscelli, 7:Gellért and 8-Gül baba. Boxes were situated in the back row, with paired seats suitable for couples.

There were also plans to create “VIP” screens, but these were not realised. The spacious lobby contained a replica of the street clock from Old Buda, providing a rendezvous point.

Meanwhile, construction began on the adjacent Mammut II. This became home to an additional five screens, which opened on 28th September 2001.

These auditoriums were also given separate names, but now based on locations on the Pest side, although Screen 9 was named after the national radio station (9:Danubius, 10:Körönd, 11:Liget, 12:Oktogon, 13:Vigadó).

Initially, this proved to be a successful venture, and it was still making a profit in 2005, when Budapest Film decided that their main task was to operate art cinemas and provide cultural services, not to operate multiplexes. So the cinemas were put up for sale.

They were acquired by Palace Cinemas on 3rd November 2005. Aside from replacing the Coca-Cola dispensers with Pepsi, their main change was to replace the auditorium names with rather blander numbers.

In January 2011, Cinema City bought part of the Palace Cinemas network, including the Mammut multiplex, although a disagreement over the lease, between the cinema operator and the landlord, resulted in the Palace branding being retained.

That lease expired in 2016 and the landlord held discussions with several circuits. Negotiations with Cinema City were unsuccessful, so the cinema closed on 11th September 2016, even though that circuit had plans for creating VIP screens and renovating the entire cinema.

Instead, the landlord reached an agreement with Cinema Pink, a Turkish company, and Mammut became its first cinema in Hungary - and, indeed, in Central Europe.

The re-opening was planned for December 2016, but it was delayed until 20th April 2017 (construction rules in Hungary being somewhat more stricter than in Turkey!) and then only Mammut II re-opened (with its screens re-numbered as 1 - 5). By now projection was fully digital, with Sony 4k equipment. Apparently to the joy of many patrons, Coca-Cola made a re-appearance!

The eight-screen cinema in Mammut I subsequently re-opened on 28 June 2018 - but then both cinemas were closed on 8th May 2019 when the landlord terminated the lease due to non-payment of rent.

Very quickly, Cinema City stepped back in and, after carrying out a full refurbishment, Mammut II re-opened on 12 December 2019.

The re-opening of Mammut I was scheduled for early summer 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed this until 24th September 2020, when five screens re-opened. On 1st October three VIP screens, created out of existing auditoriums, opened.

So Mammut I has eight screens, three of which are VIP screens, while Mammut II has five screens. These are on the third floor of each building, connected by a glass bridge over the road that separates the two centres.

Screens 1 to 5, in Mammut II, are identical, with each one thought to have 201 seats.

Seating capacities for Mammut I are: Screen 6:297, 7(VIP):48, 8(VIP):50, 9(VIP):50, 10:240, 11:63, 12:95 and 13:73.

(As a postscript, Budapest Rooftop Cinema, founded in 2013, has presented film shows on the Mammut II roof terrace. However, it is not clear whether these are continuing.)

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