MONTEGO BAY — Less than a month after opening its doors, Palace Multiplex at Bogue in Montego Bay has become Palace Amusement’s number two revenue earner.

Palace Amusement’s managing director, Douglas Graham, declined to say how much revenue the 845-seat theatre has earned since it opened on December 12, but he said that its earnings are now only second to the Carib 5 theatre’s figures.

Palace also operates the Cineplex, Island, Portmore and Harbour View theatres.

“(The multiplex is) doing very well, it’s living up to expectations,” Graham told the Observer yesterday.

The holiday season was the litmus test for the newly opened facility, which has four different screens and is the first multiple screen facility outside of Kingston. According to Graham, Palace Amusement is now devising a marketing strategy for its newest cinema which cost roughly $100 million to build.

“We have to get into a serious promotional drive because it’s a big theatre, it has a lot of space. We have to promote it in outlying towns, and also in Montego Bay proper. Those plans are being worked on now. We don’t have any special plans but what we do know is that it has to be promoted to express its potential,” he said.

The theatre, which is on the outskirts of the city along the well-traversed route to Negril, is also expected to attract movie-goers from the various communities in Hanover and Westmoreland. It is also close to the residential areas of Pitfour, Bogue, Catherine Hall and Westgreen in St James, as well as the upscale Freeport villas.

Meanwhile, owner of the Blue Diamond Cinema in Ironshore, Lachu Ramchandani, is hoping that his regular clientele from the other side of town will be enough to keep him in business. He will officially take over the operation of the cinema on January 10, and according to him, things have not been going well at his single screen cinema since Palace Multiplex opened its doors.

Ramchandani said he relies on Palace Amusement for his supply of movies and now has to wait until they have played at the Multiplex before he can show them. For the last two weeks, he said, business has fallen dramatically and on Christmas Day there were only three patrons in the house.

He finally got the Martin Lawrence comedy Black Knight on New Year’s Day and managed to attract a good crowd for the first time in weeks.

“The last two weeks have been very slow because of the new cinema and we didn’t have any good movies here.

“(New Year’s Day) was better than what we had done in the last two weeks put together,” he said.

Ramchandani said he will decide over the next three months what direction his cinema will take.