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Topic: What's the latest theatre to close or open you have heard about? (part 2)
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Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-31-2016 01:44 PM
Ok, I'm getting a little obsessive about this whole Evans Theatre stuff, but we don't have much to deal with in this town.
According to this, the home theatre in Norman, OK,was closed by eviction, before the Montgomery theaters opened.
Meanwhile, the Facebook page mentioned a little earlier, hasn't changed. Also, deeper reading has them talking about getting eight projectors. They never got more than 3 screens open.
I suspect they are toast.
Evans Theatres Norman, OK Closes
quote:
Evans Theatres closes doors after eviction
Owners to remain in Norman, while opening new theater in Alabama
By Mack Burke | Transcript News Editor Oct 11, 2016
The show is over.
After a 10-month stint at 1300 N. Interstate Dr., Evans Theatres Robinson Crossing 6 unceremoniously locked its doors Tuesday after being evicted from the property.
The theater garnered a loyal following for its special events, throwback movie screenings and low prices, but couldn’t keep up with the rent.
Owner Martin Evans said it was a heartbreaking moment, one he tried to avoid.
“We were trying to renegotiate a lease with [landlord Ali Ghaniabadi] to keep the Norman location open and he said he could not and would not,” Evans said. “We were out of options. I had a heart attack recently and I didn’t need the additional stress … We developed a great rapport with the people of this community. They were important to us from the day we opened.
“I would say it’s very indicative of how difficult it is to run a discount theater in 2016. It is extremely difficult. I’ve come into this operation dirt poor. And if I go out of this dirt poor, I’ve really not lost anything except some great friends that we’ve made here in Norman.”
Evans said delivering the news to his employees was a tearful affair and he has received an outpouring of support from community members. He said lower income patrons are the ones who really lose big in this situation and is saddened there will not be another option for them.
“That’s the part that rips my heart out,” he said.
Like an open-ended movie climax, the theater’s demise raises questions.
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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
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posted 02-21-2017 01:59 PM
Bill Warren to build $25 million, 14-auditorium theater in Oklahoma
Sausage Link
(Carrie Rengers, Wichita Eagle, 2/21/17)
Bill Warren’s almost decade-old theater in Moore, Okla., is one of the top 10-grossing theaters in the country, but he says there’s still much more business to be had in the Oklahoma City area.
He’s now finalizing a $25 million deal for a 100,000-square-foot, 14-auditorium theater in Midwest City, which is next to Tinker Air Force Base.
“A developer friend of mine is doing a center there and wanted to have a theater,” Warren says. “Midwest City wanted to have a luxury theater … and that’s what we’re known for obviously in this part of the country.”
He says he’ll incorporate some of the new features from his latest theater, Warren 21 in Wichita. That includes heated and reclining seats and food and alcohol sales. He says he’ll find new features to add as well.
“The fun is if you can top yourself from the last time,” Warren says. “I could save a lot of money if I just kept building the same theater all the time, but there’s no fun in that.”
He says Midwest City is offering a “nice incentive,” but Warren says he can’t share details yet because the deal isn’t done.
“The city really is excited about a Warren Theatre coming there,” he says. “It’s going to be a win-win deal for everybody. We will generate a lot of business for that city.”
Warren expects the incentives to be approved in the next couple of weeks. Construction will take 18 months.
The Moore theater is about a 30-minute drive away.
“Oklahoma City is the second-largest land mass area in the United States,” Warren says. “A lot of people don’t realize how big that city is in terms of total volume of land.”
He says numbers that the movie industry releases show how successful his Moore theater is against others nationally.
“So we know how we rank,” Warren says. “Constantly, we have movies that play there that are the No. 1-gross in the nation.”
He says that’s even though he charges less in Moore than a lot of East and West Coast theaters do.
There’s an IMAX theater at his Moore theater, but there won’t be one in Midwest City.
So how long does it take to recoup a $25 million investment?
“My grandkids will enjoy a paid off – no,” Warren says, laughing.
“It’s a big investment, and you’re talking years to pay it back, but that’s OK. I’ve got time.”
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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!
Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 02-23-2017 10:46 AM
Only three operating cinemas left in Westwood, CA now...
![[Eek!]](eek.gif) ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
From Los Angeles Magazine:
quote:
The Classic Landmark Regent Theatre in Westwood Is Closing After 50 Years
The Classic Landmark Regent Theatre in Westwood Is Closing After 50 Years
It will shut down to make way for two restaurants
February 22, 2017 Chris Nichols Architecture, Business, Dining, Film, Urban Development
The owners of the Landmark Regent Theatre in Westwood have submitted paperwork to convert the 50-year-old movie house on Broxton Avenue into two restaurants. The neighborhood, once bustling with movie houses and a popular place for splashy premieres, now has three remaining theaters: The Bruin, the Fox, and iPic on Wilshire Boulevard.
The Regent was built as retail stores in the 1940s and was a warehouse when Laemmle remodeled it into “L.A.’s Most Beautiful Intimate Theatre” in September 1966. They played art pictures into the 1970s when Mann Theaters, who ran the Fox and the Chinese in Hollywood, acquired it. The Regent upped their cinematic game when Landmark took over in 2002, but this was never a movie palace and the neighborhood seems to have lost interest in movies.
In the last decade or so the Avco Cinema was converted into the iPic, and the Crest, Festival, Plaza, National, Mann 4, and UA Westwood have all gone out of business. People might have shifted their viewing habits, but they’re still hungry. Almost all the former theater sites now house restaurants.
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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
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posted 03-08-2017 01:18 AM
Make that TWO new Warren Theatres for the OKC area.
Bill Warren plans yet another $25 million, 14-auditorium theater
Carrie Rengers, Wichita Eagle
Bill Warren is at it again.
Less than two weeks ago, the Warren Theatres owner told Have You Heard? he’s finalizing a $25 million deal for a 100,000-square-foot, 14-auditorium theater in Midwest City, which is next to Tinker Air Force Base.
Now, he has plans for a $25 million twin complex at Kilpatrick Turnpike and North Eastern Avenue.
“It’s like the commercial thoroughfare,” Warren says of Kilpatrick. “It’s like triple North Rock Road on steroids.
He says he’s been looking for a couple of years in the north part of Oklahoma City and Edmond. Warren says it’s a heavily populated area.
“We think that’s a good area to be.”
In 2008, Warren built a theater in Moore, which is between Oklahoma City and Norman. He added auditoriums over the years, including an IMAX theater.
With this third complex, Warren says he will have all the theaters he needs in the metro area, which has more than 1.3 million people. He says since the city has the second-largest land mass of cities in the United States, there will be plenty of room between his theaters.
“I mean, you’re talking almost a half an hour to drive between any of those locations.”
Warren says there’s a reason it’s taken more than a decade between the time he first started planning his Moore theater and his announcement of his latest Oklahoma City theaters.
“Most people don’t realize when you go out to develop something, it’s not like you drive up … spot a piece of land, buy it and start building on it a couple months later.”
He says just finding land can be a lot of effort.
“You kind of kick a lot of tires, and you weigh the pros and cons,” Warren says. “If you really are doing your homework, it takes some time.”
There will be city incentives with the newest theater. Warren says he can’t discuss them.
“But we’re happy with the deal.”
Warren likely will build both theaters at the same time, possibly with the same contractors. He says he still has to have a bidding process but likely will hire a couple of companies from Oklahoma and a couple from Kansas.
The new theaters will be “very high end, very luxurious,” Warren says.
That includes the reclining and heated seats he recently installed in the new Warren 21 in Wichita.
Warren says those are only two small pieces of a much larger experience.
“What makes the building is going to be the architecture, is going to be the quality, is going to be the service.”
Warren says service is huge to him.
“We operate with far more employees than most companies do.”
He says he looked at someone else’s similar theater that has half the employees he does.
“That kind of struck me.”
Warren says the new theaters are “going to be even more luxurious than other theaters we’ve built.”
And they won’t be his last.
“We’re looking at other deals.”
The potential deals are in other states, but Warren won’t say where.
“Can’t mention that. Not right at the moment. I don’t tell my competitors what I’m up to.”
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-08-2017 05:56 AM
quote:
the Crest, Festival, Plaza, National, Mann 4, and UA Westwood have all gone out of business. People might have shifted their viewing habits, but they’re still hungry. Almost all the former theater sites now house restaurants.
Bullshit, not a single one of them do. The Festival is still sitting empty, the UA is a drugstore, the Mann 4 is a Whole Foods, the Crest is sitting unused, the Plaza is an empty storefront and the National is apartments. So must for fact-checking at LA Magazine.
I'll miss the Regent, I was just in there a few weeks back. It's gotten pretty run down, though, but it is still a blow. I'm still terrified that someday they will come for the Village and the Bruin. Back when I was doing enough professional work in LA to justify having an apartment there, I chose a place near Westwood just to be able to walk to these great theaters.
The inside of the Regent just this past January:
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-08-2017 12:19 PM
quote: Carrie Rengers, Wichita Eagle
Less than two weeks ago, the Warren Theatres owner told Have You Heard? he’s finalizing a $25 million deal for a 100,000-square-foot, 14-auditorium theater in Midwest City, which is next to Tinker Air Force Base.
Now, he has plans for a $25 million twin complex at Kilpatrick Turnpike and North Eastern Avenue.
That location is one mile east of the Broadway Extension freeway and its interchange with the Kilpatrick Turnpike. Broadway Extension is the main drag going North from OKC into Edmond. The location where Warren is proposing to build doesn't have any commercial development. There's a bunch of homes on the North side of the turnpike and a lot of undeveloped space on the South Side.
The only bad thing about Warren's choice is that location is situation East of Broadway Extension when so much development is moving off to the West. Quail Springs Mall and a lot of other retail development if off to the West. AMC has their 24-plex in Quail Springs Mall. They have an IMAX-branded house and will have a "Dolby Cinema at AMC" screen operational soon. I don't know if the 70mm projection rig is still there from running The Hateful Eight.
Bill Warren probably won't build any IMAX-branded houses at either of these two new metro OKC theater locations. But I think he'll have to install at least one or more giant screen houses in each location, maybe along the lines of his balcony-equipped Grand auditoriums. I wouldn't mind more modest-sized rooms with more potent sound systems (preferably with Dolby Atmos capability). However, the Warren locations in Moore and Broken Arrow tend to have their sound system faders turned down to not so dynamic levels. I prefer theater sound systems which sport dynamics that can startle the hell out of you and sub-bass that can thump the air in your lungs.
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