The chain, to be called Cinema Park, will be controlled by Interros' Profmedia holding and Mikhalkov's Tri Te studio.
"The money will come from shareholders, loans and reinvested profits," Vadim Guryain, general director of Profmedia, said Monday. "We may also bring in Western investors."
Mikhalkov will be chairman of the board of directors.
The first movie theater to join Cinema Park will be MDM-Kino, which is 51 percent owned by Profmedia.
Cinema Park director Stanislav Pribylov said six 12-screen cinemas would be included in the chain, the majority of which will be built from scratch.
He said locations have been lined up in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan and Novosibirsk.
Competitors said Mikhalkov's involvement in the project will be of great benefit during negotiations with local government authorities.
An official from one movie theater chain who asked not to be identified said he had seen letters signed by Mikhalkov that were addressed to several governors requesting investments or permission to build on plots of land.
Viktor Glukhov, general director of state-owned movie theater company Roskinoprokat, said agreements had been reached to transfer St. Petersburg cinemas Avrora, Prometei and Rodina to Cinema Park.
Pribylov declined to comment. He did say, however, that this was an investment project and the cinemas would not be transferred for free.
Cinema Park, which intends to show both Russian and foreign films, is entering a booming market. Russians are expected to spend $100 million at the movies this year compared with $50 million in 2001.
Leonid Vereshchagin, general director of Tri Te, said part of the profits from the chain will go toward the production of Tri Te films, and the studio will offer its films to Cinema Park first.
Vereshchagin added, however, that Tri Te films would not be favored over those of other studios or countries.
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