French film distributors will plunge into bitter conflict later this month over rival subscription schemes offering unlimited access to cinemas.
Already more than 100,000 French film fans have subscribed to a card established six months ago by the country's leading multiplex chain which allows cinemagoers to see as many films at UGC cinemas as they want for only 98 francs (£9) a month.
Independent cinemas claim that the card represents unfair competition and is driving them out of business.
Now, in an attempt to fight back against UGC's box-office success, the Gaumont circuit, the independent MK2 chain, and several small Parisian cinemas have joined forces.
On September 27 they will launch their own subscription card, called Le Pass, also costing 98 francs a month, and giving unlimited access to their cinemas in the Ile de France region.
Gaumont and the independents took this step after urging the government in vain in March to outlaw the UGC card.
Marin Karmitz, head of MK2, said they decided to take joint action after the office of fair trading rejected his call for UGC's card to be banned.
The Gaumont chairman, Nicolas Seydoux, added: "We have had to overcome our reluctance and must take action or risk going the way of the dinosaurs."
Jean Henochsberg, who runs two art houses in the Latin Quarter of Paris, which will take part in the Le Pass scheme, said his cinemas had suffered a 10% fall in ticket sales since the UGC card was launched. He claimed to have no choice but to fight back. "I can't pay my bills any more. And the authorities have done nothing to help."
Pathé, the third French distribution giant after UGC and Gaumont, may also join the Le Pass scheme later this year.
UGC currently claims about 40% of Paris box-office takings, Gaumont 30% and MK2 10%. Pathé is based mainly in the provinces.
UGC's subscription scheme has provoked a passionate de bate among film fans on multiplex giant's website. One correspondent wrote: "Real cinema lovers will count the cost of this card which will kill the little cinemas. They will also kill that which makes cinema an art: its diversity. Where will one be able to see old films then?"
Another complained that there were so many subtitled Hollywood films on at his local UGC multiplex since the subscription card was introduced that he was getting terrible headaches and eye strain. Perhaps UGC might consider more dubbed films or, just maybe, showing more French pictures in their multiplexes, he suggested.
Others have praised UGC for tailoring the card to their filmic obsessions, one saying tshe was delighted that she would be able to see the same film dozens of times a month thanks to the UGC card.
Melanie, 69, from Lyon, was typical of the scheme's enthusiasts "Thanks to this wonderful card, I go to the cinema three or four times a week and I've given up my subscription to cable TV," she wrote.
Opponents of UGC's scheme argue that the multiplex giant is trying to maximise profits by filling its cinemas with blank-eyed philistines all digesting Hollywood blockbuster pap.
And the current top 10 films in French cinemas gives some support to this view: only two films (Sade, starring Daniel Auteuil and based on Serge Bramly's novel The Terror of the Bedroom, and Harry, un Ami Qui vous Veut du Bien, a comedy by Dominik Moll) are French.
The rest, although they include such accomplished films as the Coen brothers' O Brother where Art Thou? and Stephen Frears' adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity, are American.
According to Le Monde, the battle of the subscription cards will be the "cinematic soap opera of the autumn".
But that spectacle will be of little consolation to the independent cinemas who are unable to join Le Pass.
Their profit margins have already been hit by UGC and are likely to suffer even more during the autumn as the price war intensifies.
