Other than that, I haven't heard of Regal's disposing of or closing any properties in Northern California - but they just recently came to this area. They're presence is much stronger in Southern Cal.

The Gateway 4 originally opened in 1967, became a twin in 1974, and became a 4-plex in 1990, and became a second-run theatre in 1991. It was an excellent second-run theatre and was providing very good presentation quality for a second run theatre with $1.50 admission. I really hated to see it close.

In contrast, the Regal 8 was opened as the Cobb Cinema 8 in a building that was originally an A&P grocery store. Regal's chairman, Mike Campbell, might have felt right at home there, since he was a grocer before he got into the theatre business. It was the perfect example of how not to build a theatre. The hallway, about 16 feet wide, ran down the center of the theatre and there were 4 auditoriums (everything rectangular) on each side. Instead of putting the booth directly over the hallway, the booth ran most of the length of the hallway, and its floor was roughly six feet above the floor of the hallway, and it was on the left of the hallway. The portholes for the auditoriums on the left side of the theatre were not in the center (width-wide) of the auditoriums. There were 5 platters per assembly (instead of the usual 3 I've seen), which must have fed 2 projectors. The portholes for the auditoriums on the right were directly above the left wall of the hallway and the beam actually went over the hallway into the right auditoriums (much longer throw than the left auditoriums). This wonderful facility had screens that were 2.00:1 in at least 6 of its auditoriums, with no adjustable masking. The screens were all 10 feet high, and most auditoriums were 24 or 28 feet in width. There was room to put 24 by 10 screens with side masking, but they put 20 by 10s in nearly all of them. Nearly every auditorium had a nice bright exit sign next to one of the sides of the screen, which washed out the image on that side. The seating had no staggering, had the aisle running directly up the center (taking out the best seats), and actually sloped upward toward the screen in the front. I thank Regal for giving this horrible facility a long-deserved death. I refer to it on my site now not as the "Regal 8", but as the "Cobb Cinema 8", a it was before August 1, 1997, since it was Cobb that created this abomination, at a time when Huntsville still had several theatres with 70mm capability, one of which had a 70 foot screen. These older large-screen theatres were slowly killed off by the new postage-stamp multiplex. 1986 was the year that the last "big screen" died. The Cobb Cinema 8 was a first-run theatre from 1982 until 1994, then became a second-run theatre. This Cobb theatre was the beginning of "Theatre Hell" in Huntsville, and to this day, our two Regal first-run theatres in Huntsville are former Cobb theatres, with 1.85:1 screens with no adjustable masking in two thirds of their auditoriums.

The timing (2 closings within 2 weeks) may have been a coincidence, but since the managers didn't have much notice (2 weeks for gateway, and 3 or 4 days for Regal 8) before the closings, I figured it might have been a company wide decision to get rid of 2nd-run theatres.

At least we have a drive-in nearby, in Athens, AL, which opened May 1997. (A NEW drive-in).