Berlin — Several hundred movie theatres in Germany have refused to screen the new Avengers film in a dispute over rental fees with Disney.
News agency dpa reported that 686 theatres in 193 mostly small towns refused to show Avengers: Age of Ultron, which opened on Thursday. It said the dispute was over a decision to raise the rental fee for the movie to 53% of ticket sales rather than the 47.7% usually charged to small-town theatres.
Karl-Heinz Meier of I.G. Nord, a group representing cinema operators in northern Germany, said it would have been prepared to go as far as a 50% fee. He added: "Disney will have to do without 686 screens on which the film otherwise would have been shown."
Meier says moviegoers have expressed understanding.