As the former Hoyts' cinema in the Octagon is stripped by contractors, the future tenants have already started asking prospective staff to get in touch.
Hoyts' New Zealand general manager of operations, Matthew Garelli, said contractors were on target to have the decommissioning of the Dunedin Hoyts cinema finished by the time Hoyts' lease expired on September 23.
The building needed to be returned to the state it was in when Hoyts signed the lease in 1993.
The decommissioning included the removal of seats and carpets, he said.
Hoyts had no immediate plans to open another cinema in Dunedin.
''We don't have anything on the table. A few things have come across - people have offered us a few things - but there has been nothing that would be suitable for what we are looking at,'' Mr Garelli said.
Reading Entertainment managing director Wayne Smith, of Melbourne, said the company, which would take over the lease and refurbish the building, was in the design process.
He said it had some ''exciting'' plans for the cinema complex.
Reading Entertainment had already begun advertising jobs on its website.
''We need a full complement of staff for Dunedin and, to get the ball rolling, I'd requested our team to put a contact prompt on our website so people interested can send us their resume.''
More details on the jobs would be made available in ''a month or two'', he said.
