As a student at HBS, movie buff Matthew Heyman (MBA '93) used to ask classmates what the theaters were like in their hometowns. When two classmates from Mexico City told him the theaters there were terrible, Heyman sensed an opportunity, the New York Times (July 15, 2001) reported.

Without speaking a word of Spanish, he set out for Mexico City and found that the theaters there were indeed "the worst — they were old decrepit buildings that would never operate in the United States." With his two Mexican partners, Miguel Angel Dávila Guzmán (MBA '93) and Adolfo Fastlicht (MBA '93), Heyman launched his first theater in 1995. Today, with 317 screens, privately held Cinemex averages 90,000 viewers per screen, one of the highest levels in the Americas. Heyman, who is director general of Grupo Cinemex, S.A. de C.V., expects that by the end of this year, his company will control 51 percent of the cinemas in Mexico City, one of the world's most-populated urban areas.

To reach the working poor, Heyman decided to cut ticket prices by about half in low-income neighborhoods while building the same luxurious theaters that Cinemex was constructing in wealthier areas. At first there was skepticism on the part of local people unaccustomed to such lavishness in their neighborhoods. "It looked like Disneyland," Heyman admitted. "But we delivered first-world service, and it took them eight to twelve months to figure out that, 'Hey, this isn't a scam; they really built it for us.'"

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