The Hollywood blockbuster Black Panther has made history by becoming the first film to be screened in a public cinema in Saudi Arabia since 1983.

The film was shown on 18 April to a mixed audience at a newly developed theatre in Riyadh’s King Abdullah Financial District owned by the Development & Investment Entertainment Company, a subsidiary of the country’s Public Investment Fund in collaboration with the US company AMC Entertainment.

Riyadh hopes to open approximately 350 cinemas with 2,500 screens in the kingdom by 2030, generating anticipated revenues of about $1bn a year.

AMC Entertainment recently announced that it plans to open 40 cinemas in 15 different cities around Saudi Arabia in the next five years.

According to the World Bank, Saudis spend more than $20bn a year on trips abroad, usually to neighbouring UAE and Bahrain, where the entertainment industry has been expanding dramatically over the past few decades.