Saudi Arabia says a ban on cinemas will be lifted early next year.
The conservative kingdom said the first cinemas were likely to open early next year.
“As the industry regulator, the General Commission for Audiovisual Media has started the process for licensing cinemas in the Kingdom,” Minister of Culture and Information Awwad bin Saleh Alawwad said in a statement.
“We expect the first cinemas to open in March 2018.”
The ban was made in the 1980s in response to Islamist extremism and as recently as January the possibility of lifting it was was still being dismissed by leading clerics.
“Motion pictures may broadcast shameless, immoral, atheistic or rotten films,” said the grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh on TV, according to the Guardan.