What's the latest theatre to close or open you have heard about?

[William Kucharski]

It would be great if Alamo would show a classic movie or two in their Big Show theater but I suspect F9 has the usual riders attached about having to be shown only on your largest screens for two weeks,

When I told the box office kids about presentation issues for TNC they just kind of shrugged and one gave me the "we're not allowed to change the volume" spiel.

[Bobby Henderson]

What is alarming is that the showtime listings for Harkins Northfield 18 end in September, while most of Harkins' other theaters list showtimes through the end of the year. Harkins Northfield is the only cinema in Denver's front range that puts on a reliably awesome presentation, as far as I'm aware.

I found out a few days ago Harkins shut down its Southlake 14 theater while visiting the Harkins web site. It turns out the theater closed for good on November 1 due to COVID-19 related business woes. Southlake is an upper income suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth close to the Grapevine area. The Southlake 14 had a Cine Capri screen. The room wasn't as big as the Bricktown 16 Cine Capri in downtown Oklahoma City. But it was a pretty decent venue regardless. Now the OKC cinema is the only Harkins location in this region.

[Geoff Jones]

Bobby, that stinks about the Southlake location. On a positive note, the listings for the Northfield location have been updated through the end of the year, so it seems that was simply a website issue.

It would be great if Alamo would show a classic movie or two in their Big Show theater but I suspect F9 has the usual riders attached about having to be shown only on your largest screens for two weeks,

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy this. Drafthouse locations in other states show classics on their largest screens. The Drafthouse Woodbridge theater is showing T2 and JAWS on their Big Show screen later this month instead of whatever new release will be booked in that auditorium (Probably Space Jam, Snake Eyes, or Jungle Cruise.)

In fact, on Monday, the largest screen at Loudon Drafthouse is running two showtimes of Boss Baby, one of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and one of F9.

Incidentally, their single showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark has sold 83 tickets so far, while the other five new releases playing across 25 showtimes have sold 13 tickets so far.


I've asked it before and I'll ask it again: Has a studio ever come down on a cinema for moving a current release off a large screen in favor of a classic? What were the consequences?

(I'm not suggesting that new releases shouldn't play on the largest screens, btw. Of course they should. I'm just saying that they shouldn't monopolize them.)


Refusing to play classics on the largest screens is leaving money on the table, at least in some markets. It doesn't make any sense to me.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Saginaw Michigan multiplex reopens under new badge

Emagine to reopen former GDX 10 screen in Saginaw

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1...oiowFHoECEcQAw

[Martin McCaffery]

Quentin Tarantino buys the Vista in LA:

Quentin Tarantino Says He Bought L.A.’s Vista Theatre

Ellise ShaferJul 5, 2021 10:13am PTAP
Quentin Tarantino has announced that he purchased Los Angeles’ Vista Theatre.

During the most recent episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Tarantino discussed the future of moviegoing, commenting that some of the big movie chains that have shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic “deserved to go.”

“I never like any theater closing, but some of these exhibitors that are going, they fucking deserve to go. They’ve taken all the specialness out of movies anyway, some of these chains,” Tarantino told Shepard, explaining that he doesn’t believe a movie theater should “recreate my living room.”

But, Tarantino said he thinks boutique cinemas “will actually thrive in this time” — and then announced his purchase of the Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, with plans for it to open around Christmas.

“When we opened up the New Beverly about two weeks ago, in June, we sold out every single show. And I’ll announce one thing here that people don’t know yet: I bought the Vista. We’re going to probably open it up around Christmastime. And again, only film,” Tarantino said. “But it won’t be a revival house — we’ll show new movies that come out where they give us a film print, we’ll show new stuff. It’s not going to be like the New Beverly, the New Beverly has its own vibe. The Vista is like a crown jewel kind of thing. So it will be the best prints, we’ll show older films, but they’ll be like older films where you can hold a fortnight engagement.”
Popular on Variety


Chris Pratt at 'The Tomorrow War' Premiere

Representatives for the Vista Theatre and Tarantino did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.

[David Ferguson]

Good on Tarantino for actually going out and buying (another) cinema, rather than just saying how "important it is to save the magic of cinema". I'm not surprised knowing him that it's going to be film only, but I do wonder how many new movies he'll get, and if they're just digitally shot, digitally edited, and printed to film at the end - what exactly the point is? I guess one good thing is that it keeps Kodak and film labs going, at least for now.

[William Kucharski]

More importantly, I'm still hoping QT and some of his buddies will pool money to buy the Cinerama Dome if not the balance of the Arclight Hollywood complex.

It goes to show how sad the exhibition business is that now that they are no longer prohibited to, not one studio will invest or help invest in a theater dedicated to presenting their product properly.

[Mark Ogden]

properly

There's that word again, and about the Cinerama Dome, no less.

I remember that in 1996 Disney paid Pacific to install a temporary 'scope aspect ratio flat screen in the Dome for the premiere of Evita, because neither the director, or the cinematographer, or Madonna wanted the picture to play on the 80' curved main house screen because of the soft focus, horizon sag and distortion. In their eyes, their film was shown properly, but it didn't stop a shit-fit from happening in Widegauge Magazine (which I of course helped to fuel [Vol. 10, Issue 13, page 4]) over the curtains being closed and the main screen not being used, because it was the historic Cinerama freakin' Dome for chrissakes. The whole thing went to show that when it comes to historic theaters, one person's proper projection is another person's sacrilege.

As a place to see an original three-strip Cinerama production the Dome can't be beat. But for everything else, the projection there has never been anything to brag about. I haven't been in years, but in the film era it was a somewhat dim and not very sharply focused picture, albeit a big one.

[Martin Brooks]

More importantly, I'm still hoping QT and some of his buddies will pool money to buy the Cinerama Dome if not the balance of the Arclight Hollywood complex.

It goes to show how sad the exhibition business is that now that they are no longer prohibited to, not one studio will invest or help invest in a theater dedicated to presenting their product properly.

Absolutely. IMO, the studios should form a joint venture to buy up key in-danger or already closed theaters throughout the country. Even before the pandemic, theaters were in huge trouble. AMC, the largest chain, averaged ticket sales of just 92 tickets per day, per screen. If the average screen had four showings a day, that's just 23 tickets per show. But if the studios won't even save major theaters in their own backyard, I think it proves they just don't give a damn about theaters anymore. But I can't blame the studios or the theaters owners. If people don't attend, they don't attend. With today's high commercial rents, you can't have a business that only does business on weekend nights.

Disney+ streaming grosses about $9.6 billion annually that doesn't have to be shared with theaters or foreign distributors. With numbers like that, they just might not care about theaters anymore. The other studios don't do quite as well, but I bet they look at Disney and salivate at those numbers. In spite of some surprising new builds, I think we're going to lose a LOT of theaters over the next 5-10 years which will just reinforce the studios' notion that streaming, and not theaters, is the future. (AMC lost $2.4 billion in 2020 and another $295 million in the first quarter. The last time they were profitable was in Q2 of 2019, but they lost money in every other quarter that year. They were however profitable in 2018.)

Last week, I attended my first two movies since the pandemic started. It was during the day on a weekday, but there were fewer than five people in each showing in NYC. That's certainly not sustainable.

As far as the Dome is concerned, I saw a revival of Lawrence of Arabia there many years ago when I was in Los Angeles on business. While it was fun being in a large and historically significant theater, I was actually a little disappointed in the presentation. There was distortion on the curved screen and there was slap-back echo on the audio. I thought it looked and sounded better at the Ziegfeld in NYC, even though the Ziegfeld's screen was just 52'.

Having said that and in spite of a LOT of Los Angeles theaters closing over the last 30 years, L.A. still has a fair number of pretty decent theaters. Probably more per capita than anywhere else. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised that almost every NYC (all five boroughs) theater has reopened. I really thought more would not survive the pandemic. But we have lost 36% of the theaters and 16% of the screen count in the last 20 years and due to both closings and lounge seating, we've lost 68% of the seats since 1987. We're down to about 56,000 seats and 50 theaters (22 in Manhattan). I think a lot of smaller cities will wind up with just one or two multiplexes just as they have just one or two legitimate theaters.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

So you want the film companies to own their own theaters.

That type of vertical integration was what led to the law against this very thing as it was considered unfair to competition. A Monopoly.

That is what you would have if the movie companies once again owned the places where their (and probably only their) movies are exhibited. To the exclusion of their movies showing in non company owned theaters:
My Movie
My theater
My money
You go away

How interesting that history might be repeated.

[Martin Brooks]

So you want the film companies to own their own theaters.

That type of vertical integration was what led to the law against this very thing as it was considered unfair to competition. A Monopoly.

That is what you would have if the movie companies once again owned the places where their (and probably only their) movies are exhibited. To the exclusion of their movies showing in non company owned theaters:
My Movie
My theater
My money
You go away

How interesting that history might be repeated.

It was always a mistake. When the Government first considered it, it might have been a good idea, but by the time they executed it, TV was coming and theaters needed all the help they could get. When the studios had to have a place to show a movie, they supported unprofitable theaters. But what happened when they had to spin those theaters off? The big old theaters were largely left to deteriorate and those in old neighborhoods and especially minority neighborhoods were closed or given away. In the case of the Loews Kings in Brooklyn, Loews walked away from the theater because they didn't want to pay the real estate taxes and the City of New York wound up owning the theater, but they did a poor job of securing it. But six years ago, it did get a $90m renovation and restoration and it's gorgeous now, but it doesn't seem particularly successful as a concert venue.

And the independent theaters, which pushed for the consent decree, largely eventually went out of business anyway.

The difference today is that the Dome and a few other surviving single screens excepted, most theaters today are large multiplexes and they couldn't just play the products of one studio because there wouldn't be enough product. Besides, it wouldn't be all theaters, it would be just key theaters that weren't going to otherwise survive. Would you rather see the Dome and Arclight Hollywood completely gone or owned by a studio?

But it's a moot point, because the studios seem completely uninterested, aside from Disney owning the El Capitan and Netflix owning the Paris in NYC.

[Geoff Jones]

Would you rather see the Dome and Arclight Hollywood completely gone or owned by a studio?

Owned by a studio. (The Seattle Cinerama should be included on this list.)

The difference today is that the Dome and a few other surviving single screens excepted, most theaters today are large multiplexes and they couldn't just play the products of one studio because there wouldn't be enough product.

There's more than enough product, if the studios include their back catalogs. In many markets, running catalog films alongside new releases would be easy money.

I wonder if the studios would do a better job with presentation than some of the big chains currently do...

[Martin McCaffery]

Would the studios do a better job? Maybe at the premiere theatre in the cities where the people who matter live. In the rest of the country? It's up to the bean counters and there is no reason to think the studios care more about what happens on the screen than AMC. They aren't in the business of making art, they are in the business of making money. Audiences (in general) will put up with total crap, especially when they don't have great theatres and presentations to compare it to.

[Andy Curtis]

Brand New Regal Stonestown 12 Galleria opened last week in San Francisco CA. Will replace the small UA Stonestown Twin next door to be torn down soon.

Regal has a first for SF a 4DX® auditorium in Theatre #1 with 140 seats and a first also for SF ScreenX® in Theatre #9 at 204 seats and the so called Regal RPX® large screen in Theatre #12 at 296 seats the largest in the new cinema. They have great looking orange/red glow hallo dim lights around the surround speakers and ceiling speakers but when the movie starts everything is turned off too bad.

Nice color lights in the lobby and hall but they skimped on the full recliner seats. Just a few of the spaces have them. You would think in the extra 3 money fee spaces they would have the deluxe Regal orange/pink big electric full leg recliners. Only just the back head part goes back manually in the fancy deluxe 3 spots. What was so strange the large RPX® auditorium I did not think the sound was that good. Century Theatres in SF at their XD large curved screen house has better base sound and surround sound. Same with the AMC Metreon Dolby Cinema® way better sound and a larger true scope curved screen. In fact some of the smaller 130 and 106 seated new Regal 12 rooms had better base sound then the fancy RPX® house did.

.The new Regal 12 screens are not that curved almost flat. I have no idea if Dolby Atmos® was put into the RPX® Theatre #12 as I did see speakers on the ceiling but no Dolby Atmos® logo was shown before the movie Quite Place 2 was shown. No Dolby Atmos® signs outside Theatre #12 entrance. Klisph® speakers are on the side and back walls. So so sound I thought. The manager David told me that the Dolby® tech guys were coming in Tuesday June 1 to set up and tune Theatre #12 what ever that means.

Like so many new theatres no boxoffice. Many of the local older people coming opening week don't even have a computer as they usually buy tickets at the boxoffice from a live person. Many missed the first part of a movie while trying to buy a ticket and look for a seat from few lobby machines. They did have a helper to show how to purchase seats. Next time I hope they come early or buy online Fango someway..

All 12 of the screens looked very sharp and in focus as they have laser projectors I was told. No masking or curtains mostly square type 1.85 screens. All the cinemas just have boring black walls no nice color scone lights. They do have a red LED light aisle railing strip light but It goes off when the movie starts. The rugs are so flat and the same Regal dull pattern that all their theatres have. No glow look with the nice blue lights in the halls. Time for the Cineworld Regal to bring in better rug people

This looks amazing, to be honest. I'm excited to visit it soon!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Just before I moved from Utah to Tennessee, Regal built a brand new 14 screen plex right near my home in Taylorsville. I went on opening weekend when it was just three bucks. I have to say the image quality was excellent if not outright superb, but the sound was extremely lacking in the low end. Like they had no subwoofers at all. I also really disliked the recliners they choose that had the swing away tray built in. I didn't take 5 min fomr someone's kids to start swinging back and forth on them... I never went back again...