posted 02-14-2013 01:42 PM                       

quote: Mike Blakesley

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The 3-plex in Laurel Montana is opening on the 14th with a coffee-house addition. They have chosen the improbable name "The VUE and Brew" (the former name was the Laurel Movie Haus, owing to the town's strong German heritage). I think they have a lot to learn about the movie biz -- such as, only being open 4 days a week is a mistake in my opinion, for a town of nearly 10,000 people -- but they have a good booker (same one we use) so hopefully they'll be OK.

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posted 02-27-2013 02:02 PM                       

quote: Vegas Inc

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Las Vegas Valley moviegoers will get a dash of luxury — and alcohol — next month when a new high-end movie theater opens in Henderson.

The eight-screen Galaxy Green Valley Luxury+ Theatre is scheduled to open March 8 in Green Valley Town Center on East Sunset Road. The multiplex will serve wine and draft beer, and all of its seats will be reclining with powered footrests.

“It's a different experience,” said Rafe Cohen, Galaxy Theatres co-owner and president.

The screening rooms range in size from 60 seats to a couple of hundred seats and have wider rows to accommodate the big chairs. Tickets will have standard pricing, about $10. Reserved seating is available at no extra cost, but patrons need to sign up at least a week in advance, Cohen said.

The theater is in the same location as a former eight-screen United Artist cineplex that closed about eight years ago. Galaxy Theatres, based in Sherman Oaks, Calif., is spending $4 million to renovate the long-vacant space, Cohen said.

The theater is east of Green Valley Parkway in Green Valley Town Center, a retail hub owned by American Nevada Co. The Greenspun family owns American Nevada, as well as VEGAS INC and the Las Vegas Sun. The center’s current anchor tenant is the 21,500-square-foot Barley’s Casino and Brewing Co.

Galaxy’s theater could bring a much-needed boost of foot traffic and tenants to the 70-acre shopping center. As of August, the 117,900-square-foot center had at least 57,000 square feet of empty space.

An Asian buffet is joining the center, and other prospective tenants have shown interest, said Charles Van Geel, vice president of leasing and sales for American Nevada.

“It’s an important step in the revitalization of the center,” he said.

At least one other movie theater in the valley serves alcohol: the 18-screen Rave Motion Pictures at Town Square.

But AMC Theatres recently bought that cinema and is in the process of rebranding it, Town Square Marketing Director Jaime Mapes said. He could not confirm if the theater would continue serving alcohol.

A spokesperson for Kansas City, Mo.-based AMC Entertainment Holdings, which was acquired last year for $2.6 billion by Chinese entertainment conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Co., did not return a call for comment.

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posted 02-28-2013 10:47 AM                       

quote: Michael McGovern

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http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2013/02/27/business/706887.txt

Two naive young fellows with a poor business plan reopened the dump formerly known at Mallview Cinemas in Waterbury, CT. The building is a dump in a bad, out of the way location. The owners did nothing at all to renovate the outside of the building, and it always looked like it was closed because of the fact that their marquee was only half lit, and they never bothered to change the lightbulbs or update it.

The dumbest decision they made was trying to go first run, in a competitive market up against Regal who had all the muscle when it came to booking movies. Towards the end they did have some sense and went second run and seemed to be doing well with Lincoln and Django, but it was too little too late.

They wouldn't have lasted long anyways, they were outfitted for 35MM, and could never afford to put in digital projectors, so they would have run out of films to run by the summer when 35MM prints get even more scarce than they already are.

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posted 03-02-2013 09:35 AM                       

quote:

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The New Montgomery: Entertainment: New movie theater coming: City gives early approval to 13-screen Carmike project
Mar 2, 2013 |

Written by
Brad Harper

A new, state-of-the-art east Montgomery movie theater is one step closer to becoming a reality.

At its Thursday meeting, the Montgomery Planning Commission approved a Texas developer’s proposal to build a 13-screen Carmike Cinemas theater on Chantilly Parkway next to Home Depot.

Those plans call for a facility that will seat 2,800 moviegoers. It also will include one of Carmike’s large-format “Big D” digital auditoriums, with an 81-foot, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall screen and luxury seats for up to 600 people. Carmike operated 14 “Big D” screens as of Sept. 2012.

Robert Smith, the city’s director of planning, said the proposal now faces engineering, fire, water and urban forestry checkpoints before developer Anthony Properties can apply for a building permit and then start construction.

Carmike Cinemas said it expects to open the facility early next year. It’s also building new theaters in Decatur and Opelika.

In announcing the plans, Carmike Cinemas President and CEO David Passman said the acquisition of six properties from Rave Cinemas brought Alabama into its top five states in terms of number of theaters.

Rave has sold almost all of its theaters since October 2012. It sold every theater in Alabama to Carmike except the Rave Festival Plaza 16 on Vaughn and Taylor roads, which was purchased by AMC. That theater, which is about four miles away from the planned Carmike Cinemas facility, currently is the city’s highest-grossing cinema complex.

Anthony Properties principal Jay Anthony praised the area around the proposed cinema, saying that the close proximity to Auburn Montgomery’s campus and the nearby retail and restaurants make the location “ideal” for a new movie theater.

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posted 03-12-2013 02:12 AM                       

quote:

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Yuliya Talmazan, Global News : Sunday, February 03, 2013 12:00 AM
After decades of being a crucial part of Vancouver’s film scene, the Ridge Theatre is shutting down for good.

“It is very sad after 35 years,” says owner Leonard Schein. “Today is the last day of films here. It’s been a hard day for me so far.”

Schein has been with the theatre through the good times and the bad.

He says the time has finally come to say good-bye to the theatre along with hundreds of patrons whose lives it has touched throughout the years.

“People are really sad to see it go -- people who had their first date here, or they were taken her as a child… a lot of people have a lot of memories here.”

The theatre is marking its last day with four showings – a mix of Dr. Seuss classic, two foreign language films, and Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris.’

“I’ve been going to this movie theatre since I was 12, so it’s very emotional today,” one woman told Global News.

“Maybe this theatre is just a cause to consider how many of our cultural institutions we are losing,” said another long-time patron. “Ultimately, the death of this one might be a bit of a shot in the arm for cultural institutions, and spark the debate in Vancouver about whether or not we just passively let development continue to overshadow some of the cultural heritage that we have.”

Schein says much of their memorabilia will be donated to theatres and organizations across the city.

The theatre’s stain glass window is going to the Cineplex Theatre, and the iconic doors will now be part of the auditorium at the Rio Theatre on Broadway.

The Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture is taking the curtains, and Vancouver Planetarium is inheriting the ticket booth and popcorn machine.

“We hope to have items from the Ridge all around this city,” says Schein.

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posted 03-15-2013 12:28 AM                       

quote:

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David Duprey says he plans to take a hands-on approach to scrubbing out Vancouver’s last porn cinema to refurbish it into a venue for live music set to open later this year.

Mr. Duprey, who operates a mix of concert halls and eateries, said he plans to clean out the Fox Cinema himself with a crew en route to re-opening it in partnership with the braintrust behind the Waldorf Hotel, the now-closed hipster hangout in East End Vancouver.

“It’s going to need some scrubbing,” Mr. Duprey said of the Fox on Thursday, standing outside the tattered establishment on Main Street in the neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant with his business partner, Rachel Zottenberg.

“Lots of bleach,” he said, with relish. “When you want to get a job done right, sometimes you have just got to get in there and do it yourself.”

That will mean dragging out 260 seats and other furniture and goods accumulated over the 30 years the Fox screened adult films in a neighbourhood that has evolved into one of the coolest in the city. There’s a life-size painting of 1970s sitcom star Scott Baio in the women’s washroom, Ms. Zottenberg noted.

“And the girl’s washroom doesn’t get used a lot, so [the painting] is in really good shape,” Mr. Duprey quipped.

After dragging out what’s inside, he will focus on cleaning “the living hell” out of what’s left. “We take possession Aug. 1. I’ll be cleaning Aug. 1.”

That means many more afternoons like Thursday.

Inside the cinema – an oddly narrow and confined space – the show went on with a plotless movie on screen for a sparse audience. The routine has prompted community complaints and, at one point, an undercover police investigation that raised allegations of inappropriate activity.

The cinema has been an exception to a streetscape of cafes, boutiques, eateries and clothing stores along one of Vancouver’s busiest thoroughfares.

Rob Siddoo of Siddoo Kashmir Holdings, which owns the cinema and has agreed to a five-year lease for Mr. Duprey and his partners, said it was time for a change.

He said in an interview on Thursday that the existing tenant “has had some issues” but now “we’re happy with the change” because they think a live theatre might be a good use for the property.

Mr. Siddoo said the lease for the existing tenant was coming up, so he was open to new tenants. “Basically the other tenant was done with the business there.”

Mr. Duprey said he has begun talks with the city and province about how the site will operate. He said he expects, at this point, to be able to run a theatre with a liquor license and live music, but whether it will show movies and host a DJ remains unclear at this point.

“Ultimately, we’d love to have this be a multiuse venue that we could have live music, DJs, movies, comedy shows, dance performances. That would be our ultimate goal. Hopefully, the city will let us do that.”

Mr. Duprey and Ms. Zottenberg said they saw the potential of the Fox when it became clear that the venue was up for grabs. “We didn’t decide on the Fox theatre. The Fox theatre kind of decided on us,” said Mr. Duprey, noting few venues in Vancouver could make such an easy transition to live music. “It’s an amazing location and such a great opportunity.”

When they made inquiries, they realized the partners from the Waldorf were interested and agreed to work together. Rather than ditching the Fox’s colourful past, they appear inclined to embrace it. “It’s a fantastic name,” Ms. Zottenberg said.

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