The venue could hardly be less like a multiplex: a small town hall dating back to the 19th century, rather than a vast building on an anonymous leisure park.
What Malmesbury town hall in Wiltshire and the nearest multiplex do now have in common, thanks to a National Lottery-funded pilot scheme, is the ability to show the latest releases in a cinema-style digital format with booming surround sound.
Across the country, there has been a huge increase in the number of village and town halls putting on screenings, but they usually have to wait for the DVD release of a film.
At Malmesbury town hall, and other small venues in Wiltshire and Hampshire, the White Horse Pictures project is using state-of-the-art digital equipment to draw in audiences with the latest releases.
"It's gone down incredibly well," said Malmesbury town councillor John Lawton.
"People are coming expecting a low-quality, grainy kind of picture and are quite astonished to get a perfect picture on a large screen with surround sound."
Ticket sales went well for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and for the George Clooney film The American and all 500 tickets for the run of The King's Speech have been sold.
Black Swan, the 50th anniversary revival of Breakfast at Tiffany's and Burlesque will also be screened and the town hall is hoping to be able to show 3-D films before the end of the year.
"People are really pleased they don't have to travel into Swindon or Bristol to see these films at the multiplexes," said Lawton. "We could have sold double the number of tickets we had for The King's Speech, which isn't bad for a town of 3,500 or 4,000 people."
Nursery nurse Anne Gould, a cinemagoer and volunteer, said: "You get all ages there from youngsters, who don't have to rely on their parents to take them to Swindon, to older people without transport who would have to try to get a bus to the cinema. It's wonderful to see these films sitting alongside your neighbours."
The official launch of the project took place on Friday night, with Oscar-winning film-maker Julian Fellowes as guest of honour to introduce a screening of his film From Time to Time, a ghost story starring Maggie Smith.
Fellowes, a champion of rural cinema projects, said some mobile cinemas suffered from poor projection: "Here people are getting clear and brilliant sound and vision without having to slog off to some huge multiplex.
"This sort of venue also provides a very friendly ambience. It's lovely to see a film in the local community where you are among friends."
White Horse Pictures is one of three rural projects
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