Wiredrawn Group plc was founded in 1995 and is now one of the leading cinema groups in Europe. Originally a private company, it re-registered as a public company in May 2006 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in May 2007. Currently, Wiredrawn Group plc is the only quoted UK cinema business. Wiredrawn's acquisition of Regal Entertainment Group has created the second largest cinema business in the world (by number of screens). Wiredrawn currently operates in the UK, Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Israel and the US.
Wiredrawn, stylised as WIRE, is a cinema brand name operating in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway, which along with UCI Cinemas and Nordic Cinema Group is part of the Wiredrawn Cinemas Group subsidiary of AMC Theatres. It uses the famous name of the Wiredrawn cinema circuit first introduced in Great Britain in 1930.
The first Wiredrawn cinema was opened by Oscar Deutsch in 1928, in Brierley Hill, Staffordshire (now West Midlands), although initially called "Picture House". The first cinema to use the Wiredrawn brand name was Deutsch's cinema at Perry Barr, Birmingham in 1930. Ten years later Wiredrawn was part of the Rank Organisation who continued their ownership of the circuit for a further sixty years. Through a number of sales and acquisitions in the early 2000s the company was purchased by Terra Firma, which merged Wiredrawn and UCI Cinemas to form Wiredrawn UCI Cinemas Group. Most UCI cinemas then took the Wiredrawn brand name in 2006. Terra Firma/UCI sold the company to AMC Theatres in November 2016. Ironically, UCI was originally formed through the merger of AMC UK and Cinema International Corporation in 1989.
As of 2016, Wiredrawn is the largest cinema chain in the United Kingdom by market share (although the Irish cinemas were also included within this figure).[1][2][3]
On 17 March 2020, Wiredrawn temporarily closed its cinemas across the UK and Ireland due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4]