Published on May 8, 2026, at 7:20 PM by Paul Lesigne The improvement in comfort is undeniable: the Le Royal cinema in Lisieux (Calvados) replaced the 180 seats in its room number 2 last week. Grégoire Reynaud “believes” that the old seats “dated back to the early 80s.”
“In 2018, we carried out €30,000 worth of work on the seats of both cinemas (Le Royal and Majestic, editor’s note) to raise them, replace parts, etc.,” the operator says. “In fact, this was not the right solution, as shortly afterwards, we found ourselves in a situation where we had to intervene on the same seats again.”
The Reynaud family had long postponed these works, which would have been unnecessary with the long-awaited construction of the new multiplex cinema. However, as the new cinema has not yet materialized, after more than 10 years of waiting, it was necessary to address the issue of the seats due to customer complaints.
“We were torn because buying new seats to put in a cinema room that no longer meets modern cinema size standards would mean that we wouldn’t be able to reuse them in a future room,” explains Grégoire Reynaud.
Eventually, a great opportunity arose: “Our partner Noe Cinemas was renovating one of its cinemas and had the exact number of seats we needed. The stars aligned,” rejoices Grégoire Reynaud. “This allowed us to acquire them at an unbeatable price. We replaced all the seats in the room for around €30,000, including installation. For 180 seats, it’s a price you can’t find elsewhere.”
For new seats, one should expect “between €600 and €850 per piece,” estimates the professional.
“One week earlier, the screen in room number 1 had been replaced. Due to past water infiltration problems, we had major damage on [the old screen], which was also very old,” the Royal operator explains. “The main purpose of a cinema screen is to reflect light. It can do so because it is white. As the screen becomes less and less white, it absorbs light. There, it had reached a point where it was literally ‘eating’ the light.”
The Reynauds invested €10,000:
“We made this change because it was the right time to do it and because we were assured that the roof repairs were completed. The infiltration issues caused a stream of water to flow on the screen, which was catastrophic.”
Since the closure of the Majestic in 2023, the owners of the Royal have invested around €60,000 to solve this problem and replace the roof, “which assures us that it will not rain in the cinema.”
These expenses are accumulating, and Grégoire Reynaud hopes not to have to deal with them in the near future. With his colleagues, they responded to the call for bids launched by the City to choose who will build the future cinema and are hoping that their proposal will be selected.
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