Vince Guzzo, president and CEO of Quebec-based theatre chain Guzzo Cinemas, had been exploring expansion opportunities in New York for some time before an appearance in Dragons’ Den made him change course and look domestically.

The family company, founded in 1974, has grown to include 141 screens (nine of them IMAX screens) across 10 theatre locations in Quebec, with two additional locations set to open next year. His view at the time was that there were limited growth options within Canada and looking south of the border seemed to be a logical next step, Guzzo said.

But after appearing as a “dragon” in the 13th season of the CBC series, the entrepreneur says land developers and landlords from across Canada began reaching out to him about the possibility of expanding Guzzo’s theatre business into domestic markets outside Montreal.

This caused him to reassess the market and Guzzo is now looking to enter a number of smaller markets in Western Canada. Namely, markets in and around Vancouver and Calgary – especially ones that have seen significant population growth in recent decades but were never targeted by Cineplex or its former rival, Famous Players.

“Markets that previously had between 40,000 and 50,000 people have grown in size, and therefore they’re badly serviced – some of those theatres are very old and outdated,” Guzzo told Playback Daily. “We’re trying to bring the same concept we brought to small-town Quebec to small-town Canada,” he said of expanding Guzzo’s historical business model, which saw the company establish cinemas in under-served markets within Montreal, into new jurisdictions.

There have been a number of significant shifts in the exhibition space in Canada over the past couple of years, with new foreign-based companies entering the space and domestic players expanding their operations. In September 2017, Belgium-based Kinepolis Group acquired Landmark Cinemas, which operates around operates more than 40 cinemas and 300 screens throughout Western Canada, while indie theatre chain Imagine Cinemas acquired Rainbow Centre Cinemas in May 2016, taking ownership of seven new locations in Ontario and increasing its total cinema count to more than 85 across the country. Meanwhile, Cineplex has continued to diversify its revenue streams with investment in live entertainment and gaming.

Guzzo added that the growth in the North American box office over the past two years (the combined box office in U.S. and Canada, according to Guzzo Cinemas) hit USD11.1 billion in 2017) has fueled his confidence in taking the company into new markets. As well, the concern that the rise of streaming services would damage global box-office revenues has been unfounded.

“I think everyone has finally realized that the Netflixes of this world are nothing else but regular TV. So they’re going to exist in the same way TV exists, and movie content has not shifted,” he said.

While Guzzo declined to disclose the specific markets he is looking at, he said negotiations are active in four markets, with a goal of opening new cinemas within the next two years.

In particular, he said he is targeting shopping malls with unused space. “For example, there’s a shopping mall with an empty 40,000 square feet, because retail is being cannibalized [by e-commerce]. So they think, ‘you know what, we can put a theatre in here.’ When it comes to the bricks-and-mortar business, everybody’s looking for a better mix. Instead of just fashion or just retail, they’re all looking for some entertainment venues,” he said.