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It’s been a tumultuous 2025 at London’s greatest cult picture house, but the Prince Charles Cinema (PCC) could be ending it on a high – with plans for a second venue in east London just announced.
The off-Leicester Square cinema, a beloved fixture with movie-loving Londoners and famous fans like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, is planning a second venue in the space occupied by the now-shuttered Stratford Picturehouse.
‘Stratford has always been a hub,’ the Prince Charles’s head of programming Paul Vickery tells The Guardian. ‘There are plenty of students and loads of new-build properties that have sprung up recently. But it also feels like it’s still trying to find its feet and figure out what it is.’
The PCC was faced with the threat of closure in January when its landlord’s redevelopment plans came to light, but found some protection in being listed as an asset of community value (ACV) in May.
But according to Vickery, the plans for a new venue are unconnected with those legal wranglings. ‘Given what’s happened this year, I understand how it could look like we’re trying to shift operations but that’s not what’s happening,’ he says.
‘We were looking for a pre-existing venue that needed a bit of love which we could turn into a new site. Ideally, we’d want to go on to add a third or fourth space.’
The Prince Charles had previously looked at taking over Edinburgh’s historic Filmhouse cinema, which reopened this summer under new management.
And the PCC isn’t the only London indie cinema looking to expand. Mile End’s Genesis has revealed plans to remodel its existing cinema and is exploring a second site too.
The Prince Charles is starring in London’s answer to Clerks? this month.
Midnight marathons, plastic spoons and shagging rabbits: an oral history of Prince Charles Cinema.