Idris Elba has spoken of his ambition to create the “African Odeon” – a chain of cinemas to ignite the cinemagoing experience across the continent.

Elba was speaking at an event at SXSW London in which he spoke to host Clara Amfo in a session called Creativity as Capital for Change. In remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter and Screen , Elba said: “There’s a crazy number across the entire continent – less than about 3,000 cinemas, actual cinemas that you and I have grown up with. I would love to be able to tackle some of that, because I believe that the cinema experience that we all have gone through should be experienced by a new generation. I don’t think it should all be on a phone.”

Elba added: “How do I do that? Building a model of data that shows that actually people do want

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