#BlackPanther to break Saudi Arabia's 35-year cinema ban

Saudi Arabia's first cinema in more than 35 years will open on April 18 in Riyadh, and the first screening will reportedly be Marvel's superhero film Black Panther.

Forty cinemas will be opened over the next five years by AMC Entertainment Holdings, and they will not be segregated by gender like most other public places in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom. Saudi Arabia had some cinemas in the 1970s but its powerful clerics closed them, reflecting rising Islamist influence throughout the Arab region at the time. In 2017, the government said it would lift the ban as part of ambitious economic and social reforms pushed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He is currently touring the US seeking investments to help broaden the economy and lessen its dependence on oil. Saudi Arabians are avid consumers of Western media and culture. Despite the cinema ban, Hollywood films and recent television series are widely watched at home and discussed. The first cinema will be opened in the King Abdullah Financial District in a building originally intended to be a symphony concert hall, AMC confirmed.

Yay, Wakanda forever!!!