THE Hobbit: There and Back Again, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, X-Men: Days of Future and Transformers: Age of Extinction are four of the biggest movies of 2014 but Dubbo residents will have to leave the city to see them.
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Unless a last minute deal can be brokered, the curtains will shut for the final time at Reading Cinemas on April 30, which would mean the closest cinema would be in Orange.
Iit would also leave people who live west of Dubbo with a much bigger trip to see a movie.
So far this year, the LEGO movie has been the highest grossing film, but the year is shaping up to be a big one in film with the final movie in The Hobbit trilogy coming out in December and installments to several other major franchises.
Forty-four of the 50 highest grossing movies of all time were released during Reading Cinema's 15-year lifespan in Dubbo, including the number one ranked Avatar, all seven Harry Potter movies, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and installments of the Transformers, Twilight, Iron Man and Fast & Furious franchises.
Reading Entertainment Australia has pulled the plug on its five-screen cinema complex in Dubbo.
The last movies will be screened on April 30, staff were told during a meeting on Wednesday night.
From May 1 workers will strip the cinema at Riverdale shopping centre.
"We will be taking everything - the seats, projectors, carpets, fittings and all the computers," a company source said.
"We have to return the building to the way it was when Reading Cinemas got it 15 years ago.
"Everything has to be gone by June 2."
The closure puts 18 staff out of a job and will be a bitter blow for cinema patrons.
"We had an average 175,000 bums on seats annually," the company source said.
"People travelled long distances for the big screen experience. They came from as far away as Bourke, Brewarrina, Walgett, Coonabarabran, Dunedoo, Gulgong and Mudgee.
"The closure announcement has been a shock. The staff are devastated."