Unit 6. Reading

The death of the cinema?

¹_____ In the 1940s thirty million people in Britain went to the cinema regularly. It wasn’t expensive. Ordinary working people could afford it and it was a treat for children. It was also the place to see the news. Hundreds of cinemas opened up all over Britain.

²_____ By the 1960s more and more homes had televisions, and cinemas started to close. In the 1980s people watched videos. Then came satellite TV, the Internet and computer games. By the end of the twentieth century, fewer and fewer people went to the cinema.

³_____ New technology like 3D means that cinemas can offer something most people can’t get at home. In 2007 the number of people going to the cinema started to go up again. When the 3D film Avatar came out in 2009, it broke records – millions of people went to see it at the cinema.

⁴_____ Now there are huge multiplex cinemas showing ten different movies, there are drive-in cinemas and open-air screens in parks. Over 100 years after the first movie theatres in America opened, the cinema is still evolving.

⁵_____ It is true that you can watch a film on the bus on your smartphone, on a screen that is smaller than your hand. But the cinema experience, with friends, popcorn and ice cream is a tradition we have learned to love. It seems the cinema will be around a while longer.