A VUE TO A KILL
How boss Tim Richards missed out on a dream of Olympic glory, but made a £50m killing on cinema chain
STANDING in front of a dimly-lit screen in an eerily empty cinema, Tim Richards lets me in on his hot tip for tonight’s Oscars. Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape Of Water, he says, will hoover up the gongs.
‘It’ll definitely win best movie and director,’ says the Hollywood executive-turned-cinema tycoon. ‘How did that movie ever get made?’ he shakes his head, chuckling. ‘Sea monster falls in love then gets in bed with nude woman…’ Put like that, it does sound an improbable pitch.
But as the founder and chief executive of cinema chain Vue and a judge for Bafta, he probably has a better idea than most film buffs what makes a winning movie.
Most frantically busy executives rarely have a free evening to go to the pictures, but the genial 59year-old Canadian reckons he watched nearly 30 films over Christmas in the run-up to awards season.
We’re in the flagship Vue cinema in Leicester Square and he’s showing off the new leather reclining chairs and 4K projectors. ‘I like everything from romantic comedies to the worst horror movies and everything in between,’ he says.
He’s already seen Martin McDonagh’s black comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri three times. He says Steven Spielberg’s newspaper drama, The Post, ‘really delivers’.
He defends the latest Star Wars movie, which was hit by brickbats from some fanatics. ‘I loved that movie. Some of the hardcore fans were absolutely venomous against it but I didn’t get that,’ he says.
The glitzy awards bash tonight is likely to be dominated by talk of the Hollywood sexual misconduct scandal that has rocked la-la land.
As a former inhabitant of that world, what does he think of it all? ‘It’s not unique to Hollywood. This is a universal issue.’ As the father of two daughters, the backlash against male misbehaviour ‘is long overdue’, he says. ‘Like any issues that arise in society, once it’s out in the open and talked about and discussed it’s a good thing.’
He swerves a question about whether he knows some of the Hollywood heavyweights involved in what has become known as the #metoo movement, which sprung up after the allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein.
‘Our business is the bricks and mortar, the boring end of things. We focus on entertaining our customers,’ he says, reverting to the safety of the corporate line.
Richards’ story certainly isn’t dull. He spent the early part of his life in Brazil where his father was trade commissioner before moving back to Canada. He quit school at 16 to pursue his dream of becoming an Olympic skier, but never quite made the grade.
‘That’s my one regret – I didn’t make the Olympics. I wasn’t good enough. I tried. I peaked too late. If I’d been four or five years younger when I reached that level, I might have had a chance. I raced in World Cups and that was about as far as I got,’ he sighs. The love for skiing runs in the family. Richards, who has lived in London for nearly 20 years, owns a chalet in Chamonix with his French wife Sylvie, who has also just got into the movie business as a producer for a company called FilmWave.
He has just flown back from the Italian Alps where he was cheering on his son Alexandre, also a keen skier, in the English Alpine Championships. After deciding against a life on the slopes, Richards studied law at university in Montreal before becoming a lawyer on Wall Street, specialising in takeovers.
The recession prompted his move into movies two years later when he joined cinema group UCI. A few years later he was working for Warner Brothers in Los Angeles as vice-president for business development.
In 1999 he decided to go it alone, setting up his own cinema chain, SBC, with his garage in LA serving as head office. He bought six cinemas with some private equity backing, the first of which was in Livingston, Scotland. After four years operating as a struggling start-up, he struck a deal to buy 36 UK cinemas from Warner Village and with that, Vue was born.
‘It was the first good night’s sleep I’d had in years,’ he recalls.
Fast-forward 15 years and Vue now has more than 200 cinemas in ten countries. Richards believes the cinema industry will in future be dominated by a small number of big global chains – and he intends to be one of them.
He plays down the threat of competition from Netflix and Amazon, pointing out that home viewing is a different market altogether. However, he says he ‘would not discount’ the likes of Amazon getting into the cinema business.
‘I can see Amazon or Netflix or Apple even – they’re all sitting on huge amounts of cash – looking at getting into cinemas. In the same way that historically, the cinema chains were owned by the studios.’
As for his own business, it has been tipped for years for a stock market float. Canadian pension funds bought Vue in 2013 for £935million. Richards made £50million from the sale and he ploughed half of that back into the business.
Along with other members of the management team, he still owns a 27 per cent stake. Estimates suggest the chain could now be worth £1.6 billion. On the subject of a float, he says: ‘We have made no decision and are working hard opening new markets and upgrading cinemas.’
Vue also now hosts computer game competitions, known as esports, at some cinemas and was the first to show pop concerts.
Last year was ‘not a great year’ for Hollywood, but this year and next will be two of the biggest in history, he predicts. That bodes well for operators like Vue – and for film fans like Richards.
I like everything from romantic comedies to the worst horror films... and all in between
I can see Amazon, Netflix or Apple even – they all have loads of cash – getting into cinemas