Cineworld Cinema - Poole (Tower Park)
Tower Park, Mannings Heath,
Poole,
BH12 4NY
Tower Park, Mannings Heath,
Poole,
BH12 4NY
3 people
favorited this theater
Related Websites
Cineworld Cinemas UK (Official)
Additional Info
Operated by: Cineworld
Previously operated by: AMC Theatres, Empire Cinemas UK, UCI Theatres
Functions: Movies (First Run)
Previous Names: AMC, UCI, Empire Poole (Tower Park)
Phone Numbers:
Box Office:
440871.471.4714
Nearby Theaters
Located in the Tower Park Leisure Park, 3 miles northeast of Poole. First opened on 15th December 1989 as a 10-screen AMC theatre with 2,080 seats. It was quickly changed to UCI when CIC purchased AMC in the early-1990’s.
It was later owned and operated by Empire Cinemas.
A full refurbishment was carried out in November 2008 when six small ‘Studio’ screens were added. Stadium seating was installed in all screens and the foyer was completely re-designed.
In July 2016 it was one of five Empire Cinemas purchased by the Cineworld chain. The other four were the Empire, Leicester Square, London, Basildon, Hemel Hempstead and Bromley. It was announced on 10th December 2024 that the Cineworld Cinema - Poole (Tower Park) would be closing on 19th January 2025. It will be taken over by Vue Cinemas chain.
Contributed by
Neil Goulding
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Recent comments (view all 12 comments)
Now operated by Cineworld.
Just the two larger screens (Nos 5 and 6) have full 2.39 Scope screens. The other 8 in the original cinema plus all 6 of the more recent ‘Studio’ cinemas just have 1.85 screens necessitating that Scope films be shown “letterboxed” centre screen and, as is normal practice nowadays, there is no top/bottom masking. This was confirmed to me in an E-Mail by Empire cinemas a while back.
An unusual feature of the cinema in its early UCI days was that many of the medium seize auditoria were L-shaped with a section taken out of the back for the projection booth which it shared with the auditorium next door.
When Empire took over and refurbished the cinema, the L-shape was removed. Whether just the upper part of the ‘L’ was taken out of use or whether the size of the projection area was reduced, I don’t know. It could be the latter as digital projection can take less space than 35mm.
The overview of this cinema (above) refers to one of the screens being IMAX. I can see no reference to IMAX on the Cineworld web-site, so that comment may not be true.
Either way cinema goers in Poole have a poor choice when wanting to watch Scope films as this cinema, in my opinion, is basically just a very large TV set.
PhilipWW: The Empire Cinemas-operated venues with IMAX auditoria are/were Leicester Square, Basildon, Hemel Hempstead, Birmingham Great Park, and Swindon, of which the first three are now operated by Cineworld.
I’m flummoxed by the CT description* as, in 2008, Empire did not operate any locations with IMAX screens, nor had they launched their own “premium large format” IMPACT screens. (I would have said “PLF brand,” but the IMPACT geometry is actually patented.)
Maeve Contractors has published a case study on their work at this venue for Empire Cinemas (refurbishment/new auditoria.) They describe the project as a “Two phase strip out and refurbishment,” and state that the contract value was £5m.
*(“A full refurbishment was carried out in November 2008 when six small ‘Studio’ screens were added, and one of the screen was converted into an IMAX screen.”—Quoted so that this post still makes sense should the description be updated.)
Thanks to CT for updating the page. :–)
Announced for closure on 10 December 2024 as a consequence of their financial troubles.
No closure date given.
Closure date has been announced as January 19th, but not for long: it has already been announced Vue will take over this site. https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/24788305.tower-park-teases-new-arrival-cineworld-closes/
It has been announced that this site will be taken over by Vue when Cineworld leaves.
As mentioned below, in its Empire days only 2 out of the 16 screens were fully Scope. I doubt if that changed at all when it was run by Cineworld.
Now that it is to be run by Vue, I hope that they can do something to remedy this situation as watching films being “letterboxed” on what is no more than a giant size TV screen hardly makes for a good viewing experience.
Vue has some very good multiplexes with great Scope screens, so somehow I hope that they can make a big improvement here.
Grand opening ad:
UCI 10 at Tower Park opening 15 Dec 1989, Fri Daily Echo (Bournemouth, Dorset, England) Newspapers.com
the two main large screens 5 and 6 sound dreadful , not how i recall it when projectionist there 1989 SPL dB levels was only designed for 90dB peak , its way more than that now ( used to be now its closed ) empire cinemas £millions spent made it sound worse , you not hear screen 5 filtering into screen 6 can feel it in the wooden floor placed over the concrete floor , distracting ! SPL dB needs to be on the amplifiers gain turned down !
it sounded better with experimental overhead surrounds than it does with rubbish redo i think 1999 where original overhead surrounds , EV speakers was removed and the cinema slowly becoming a dump and when empire cinemas took over became a real dump that i never cared to going back to listening to the film in the next auditorium and certainly not cinworld with screen 5 last film , excuse me i mean DCP with one of the stage channels mis aligned balanced on that trash movie , challengers , that i walked out on while ranting to thev rest of the audience that maybe deaf for hearing how bad that auditorium sounded !
vue taking over ? lol the more things change , the more they stay and remain the same , nope i never support uk british cinemas ever again , cinema is a dying breed , been there done that couldn’t care less for it anymore