Cinema is another area of hospitality that’s learning one size doesn’t fit all. A combination of digital cinema technology and the popularity of watching films at home on-demand prompted the idea for The(Any)Thing, a network of screening rooms.

Devised for couples and small groups to watch movies together at their own convenience with a new level of personal comfort, The(Any)Thing is the brainchild of Thomas van de Weerd, former CEO and cofounder of Dutch film streaming service Pathé Thuis. It's currently on offer in a multiplex cinema, hotel, and as a standalone destination in the Netherlands, with spaces. We asked him more about how the concept – designed by Amsterdam …,staat – works, and what it can mean for the future. 

Explain the concept behind The(Any)Thing.

THOMAS VAN DE WEERD: Going to the movies is usually a very collective experience, a few hundred seats in an auditorium. Back in 2011, my girlfriend and I missed seeing the latest Harry Potter in the movie theatre because my daughter had just been born. But because I worked for Pathé, I was able to arrange a screening for nine on a Monday morning, just for us. And that's when I realized we could do this for everyone: a private screening where you have the convenience of choosing your own movie, and your own time, with the cinema experience. 

How does it differ from existing private cinemas?

It makes the cinema experience more personal, but also more flexible. Right now, somebody else decides what movies are shown, when and where. We have made the private cinema experience accessible. You can download the app, choose where, with whom, at what time you want to watch the content of your choice. You can choose from over 1,000 films, with most recent cinema titles included. Another benefit of a small screening room is that you can put it in places where people aren’t currently able to experience movies. Movie theatres are becoming bigger and bigger, multiplexes with up to 15 screens. A small screening room can be in a restaurant or a hotel, places where there's already a certain kind of hospitality atmosphere. 

Cover and above: The Hague cinema Pathé Ypenburg hosts five private The(Any)Thing rooms for two people, and one showing area for a group of five.

How did you test the concept?

We built a small screening room for two in our office just to see what the experience would be like. Find the right screen and equipment to create something that was beyond just watching at home. That's when we really started to invest in this idea. People were excited, but it was hard to find somebody to partner with. So we ended up finding our own location in 2021, in a small town in the Netherlands. We built a restaurant with three The(Any)Thing cubes in the back: a two-seater, five-seater and seven-seater. We found out quite quickly that people really loved the idea. A lot of people not going to the movies anymore really liked this way of watching: older people and people in rural areas with a long distance to travel to the cinema, for example. We had a way of connecting people and content differently, giving them a unique, personal and luxurious film experience.

How has the idea developed?

We started getting interest from other locations, like from Hotel New York, a quite iconic place in Rotterdam. We did our second location there and found out that we were most successful with the two-seater, which I didn't expect when we started. What's interesting is that people were coming all day, starting at eight or nine in the morning. There's a big audience who want to see movies in the morning. Our third location is a cinema project in The Hague built by Pathé. Besides a rural area or hotel, The(Any)Thing could also work in a traditional cinema, as an additional service. Then they asked us if it was possible to convert a traditional auditorium that wasn’t being used into several screening rooms. We came up with a design for six micro-cinemas inside a big multiplex cinema. Within the first three or four weeks we attracted the audience that we were expecting to, so we're quite happy about it. 

The(Any)Thing offers a network of private screening rooms that can be incorporated in settings that have more intimate hospitality atmospheres than cinemas.

How did you want the screening rooms to look and feel?

I envisioned a network of screening rooms, also promising variety and choice. We thought we could match the interior to the physical location. And because we built the first location ourselves, we had the option to give it our DNA. We tried to find designs that would really excite people and be totally different from what people know of the cinema: interiors that are really part of the experience, like walking into an exciting hotel room. 

What else can guests control about the experience?

The room temperature, the lights. Not everyone wants to watch in the dark. We also learned that some people don't go to the movies anymore, because the circumstances don’t meet their personal wishes. They might have issues with hearing, be very sensitive to sound or not like the the darkness in the auditorium. That’s why we wanted the temperature and lights to be adjustable within the app. You can also pause the movie if you want to. With the app you can order room service and the drinks and food will be delivered to your The(Any)Thing cube. 

How accessible is the pricing?

They currently range from 49 euros in the morning at Hotel New York, to 99 euros on a Saturday evening. The average price is somewhere between 49 and 79 euros. The prices are a bit higher than in regular cinemas, however we believe that the unique and luxurious experience matches our prices and make The(Any)Thing still accessible for anybody.

The design of the screening rooms is aimed at evoking a sensation similiar to walking into 'an exciting hotel room'.

Where else could these rooms pop up?

One area we could grow is bringing cinema to smaller towns and rural places, also to more hotels. To retail locations, and in future to residential. We're learning that bringing in more standardization to the room is making it more scalable and reliable. The standard size is four by seven meters for a two-seater, and three meters high. This really allows for a wide variety of places where you can do this.

How else could The(Any)Thing grow? 

We’re looking at ways to upgrade creativity in terms of the interiors. Also, film the core proposition right now, but we could add other audiovisual experiences like live music. I do see these screens being used for different purposes as well, in the longer term. In the near future we’re focusing on further improving the entire experience even more and building more The(Any)Thing cubes.