Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: History of Cinemark

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Posted by Stephen Jones 1 (Member # 114) on 04-03-2003, 12:39 AM:

I wasn't sure how many of us reside in Cinemarkland. I have managed two Cinemark theatres that are older than most of my employees. Does anyone know the first theatre that Cinemark built and if it's still around? I'd be interested to see which theatres are considered the first generation.

Does anyone know the correlation of the theatre numbers? I know it's not totally by date.

Back when they used to have District Offices, were these inside existing theatres and are those old offices still there?

Just curious...

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 04-03-2003, 01:12 AM:

Alright, I have been with Cinemark since May of 1992. As we know the majority of cinemark locations are in Texas. I do not know what the first actual cinemark build was under that name or if it still exists. Brad may know. From what I understand the company used to primarily consist of discount theaters. It seems to me that I remember reading that Mr. Mitchell's father had the company prior to 1984 and sold off the theaters, but Leroy retained the name or something along those lines. The company got one of its big breaks when it bought out premier cinemas from Regal founder Mike Cambell. The rest of the growth has been pretty much from building. As far as the number structure it doesn't really have a distinct order. We have two theaters here that were opened at the same time back in 1990 and one is number 25 and the other is 122. As for district offices. They were pretty much located in theaters. Prior to getting rid of the district leader offices the region office for the southeast was not located in a theater. Now since the region offices are all there is it is located in a theater.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 04-03-2003, 06:11 AM:

Does anyone know the status of the Cinemark theatres that were spun off into some quasi-independent status a few years ago? There were no changes done to the theatres except to remove all references to the Cinemark name?

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 04-03-2003, 09:53 AM:

They are still Cinemark theaters but they are opperated under the Charlie Funk Name. THere is a lot of reasons going around why this is but since I am totally not sure why myself I am not going to post those reasons. I do believe that the northeast region office is located in one of those sites.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-03-2003, 10:51 AM:

Cinemark built a 12-screen (#116) here in 1990, to great publicity and fanfare. It was a big deal then for this market. Then in 1999 Cinemark built a new 17-screener (#235) in the same mall and turned the 12-screener into a discount theatre. The 17-plex is *very* nice and a big improvement. Both locations seem to do very well.

Posted by Stephen Jones 1 (Member # 114) on 04-03-2003, 01:51 PM:

In regard to the Funk theatres: From what I understand, they are still owned by Cinemark and by Charlie Funk. The deal was made because some of these "Funk" theatres were not turning a profit. A deal was set up and many of the non-profitable theatres along with some profitable theatres we put under the Funk "Interstate Theatres" name. I know they still receive paychecks from Cinemark. These theatres generally run on the tight side, focusing on lower payroll costs. Some of the theatres are nice. I know they have their own corporate structure with District Leaders, Region Leaders, Booth techs, and other operational members that are seperate from Cinemark. I've heard that this was supposed to be a temporary deal set up when so many other chains were folding. I don't know if they'll be "reunited" with the other Cinemarks.

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 04-09-2003, 01:11 PM:

Brad? Adam? Any guesses as to Cinemark's first location? I'm darn curious to know.

Also -- what about Starplex Cinemas -- aren't they a Cinemark Spin-off? That one in Irving sure did look EXACTLY like a Movies 10.

Being from California I know very little of Cinemark's history.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 04-09-2003, 01:23 PM:

My understanding of the number of the theater is determined when the land or building was purchaced/leased.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 04-09-2003, 06:01 PM:

the land for the 2 theaters here in town that I mentioned above was purchased at the same time by the same developers at the time.

I have never heard the starplex theatres name mentioned within our company.

Posted by Bill Mantz (Member # 754) on 04-09-2003, 11:55 PM:

The reason starplex theaters look the same is because Leeroy Mitchell daughter owns and run those theater that is the only link to Cinemark. Cinemark has no share in that theater the only link they have is the daughter.

Posted by Nicholas Roznovsky (Member # 861) on 04-10-2003, 12:03 AM:

Although I'm sure she's a very nice lady, Leroy's daughter has nada to do with Starplex. Her uncle does though.

Starplex Cinemas is owned by J.C. Mitchell, brother of Leroy "Mr. Cinemark" Mitchell. The Irving location (our first one) was built by Starplex, but "drew heavily" [Wink]

on the designs established by Cinemark. All of our theaters since then have also sported a pseudo-Cinemark design scheme. Our newest theater, slated to open this winter, is designed to be our first break away from that copycat design.

Most of our interior equipment is also amazingly similar to that found inside a lot of Cinemark joints. We've rented some of Cinemark's locations and sold other ones to them.

Coincidence? [Confused]

I think not! [Smile]

So, to answer the question, Starplex is not a Cinemark spin-off. More just like an underappreciated little brother. Kind of a Bobby Brady living in the shadow of Greg Brady kind of thing.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-10-2003, 05:15 PM:

Wasn't Hollywood Theaters originally a Cinemark offshoot (before it went bankrupt and got acquired by the slumlord Wallace chain)? The Hollywood Spotlight 14 in Norman, OK looks very much like a 1990's Cinemark build --but just with a few corners cut here and there. It still has the same cartoony look.

Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 04-11-2003, 01:35 AM:

Cinemark theatres in Houston was not well known in the mid 1980's, I forgot the name of the theatre chain, in the early 80's a local company with about 5-7 theatres, they was going under due to they built these theatres too fast & too many with little money, with at that time the projection equipment was Cinema Film System, Raven sound systems, Cinecita projectors, although the equipment was new out of the box it was still junk !! Always off the screen & crappy mono sound that kept burning up the speakers, since people stop coming to the theatres they were going under, Cinemark with their new name brought these theatres in 1984 & started building like crazy in the 90's...Now I only know about the Houston area only, several of their theratres were name Hollywood, I know of at lease 4-theatres in Houston with the same name, then something happen & they started naming the theatres Cinemark, Leroy had a shares in a now defunk Dollar Cinemas in Houston & Las Vegas, sold his shares & started the mega-theatres...

The Hollywood theatre in Norman Oklahoma has nothing to do with Cinemark, it was own by a local company in Dallas that did the same thing, built too many too fast & went under & Wallace brought them out...Hollywood theatres was the name of the company in Dallas...

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 04-11-2003, 03:00 AM:

Cinemark started calling there theaters different things to get away from using the generic term Movies this Movies that. First they came up with the Hollywood term then they switched to Tinseltown then Legacy was going to be the new term but building started slowing down and they don't build the massive plexes right now so they are back to using Tinseltown. As far as the look that some theaters have that can look like Cinemarks is because they probably took there ideas from Cinemark. Regal had a big habbit of doing that at one time.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-11-2003, 11:36 AM:

Cinemark 17 here (#235) was originally announced as "Tinseltown 17" and that's what the "Under Construction" sign said. At some point, they must have decided to go with the newer art-deco theme and it eventually opened under the name "Cinemark 17". Everything in the place has the new art-deco style, except in the auditoriums, there's a mix of the older Tinseltown look along with the new art-deco look -- kind of a hybrid.

Posted by Stephen Jones 1 (Member # 114) on 04-16-2003, 10:27 PM:

After doing some asking around, I found out that Lee Roy Mitchell actually had a chain called Cinemark and sold the chain retaining the name Cinemark. He used to be in the business of building and selling theatres. Most Cinemark's opened up as discount houses. In many areas, Cinemark built brand-new discount houses that upstaged the first run competition. Through better agreements with film companies, Cinemark started showing newer first run movies.

In fact, I heard of a deal when Paramount was trying to enforce a $1.50 minimum on film rental as most Cinemark's admission was $1.00. Cinemark took them to court and won. In the lawsuit, Paramount argued that Cinemark offered discounted admission lowering distributor profit, but did not offer discounted concession. Prior to the suit, Cinemark had and permanently implemented the Movie Meal and free refill on large popcorn to counter the Paramount argument. Kind of interesting...

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 04-17-2003, 01:01 PM:

Any luck yet in determining the first theatre of Cinemark? Or what the oldest location currently open is?

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 04-18-2003, 07:24 PM:

Scott -

The oldest one still operating was part of the initial group of theatres Lee Roy bought to start up the chain ...

Movies 8, Palmdale, CA

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 04-21-2003, 07:37 PM:

Really? I've BEEN to the Movies 8 in Palmdale. Yahoo.

*DOES A LITTLE DANCE*

[thumbsup]

Posted by Daniel Fuentz (Member # 1684) on 04-21-2003, 07:49 PM:

Bummer. I didn't see any pictures of this place on Cinematour... [Frown]

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 04-23-2003, 09:09 PM:

My pictures are buried somewhere in the stacks and stacks of ACTUAL photos I'd need to scan and send to Adam. I'll find them sometime around the time I find my desk underneath all this crap.

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 04-23-2003, 10:38 PM:

Carefull Scott. If you dig deep enough you just might find Jimmy Hoffa.

Posted by Stephen Jones 1 (Member # 114) on 04-25-2003, 01:38 PM:

Mike,

I know there were many theatres bought by Lee Roy after starting the company. Do you know the first one that HE actually built under the Cinemark name?

[ 01-19-2004, 10:28 PM: Message edited by: Stephen Jones 1 ]

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 04-30-2003, 05:25 PM:

I'm not 100% sure, but I do believe Movies 8 Palmdale WAS built by Lee Roy, not bought with the original group.

Posted by Robert D. LaValley (Member # 1867) on 01-04-2004, 12:10 AM:

With designs of theatres staying around the same, the one regal in orchard park ny was cool cuase it was an 18 screen theatre that inside looked everything like everything else they were building during the boom.. but the outside has this cool brick kinda castle look too it.. so it's kinda neat... As for the only cinemarks in NY that I know they both are cookie cutter designs .. Quite boring.. and What was with cinemarks crazy colors?!?!? orange , purples, greens..
Ugly!
I like cinemarks big plexs becuase of the size but the decor needs work.. Regals color scemes are at least pleasing to the eye..
I did visit a 20+ plex in orlando florida (cinemark) that was really cool, however kinda an odd place to build that big of a theatre since it is attached to a mall that isn't even finished being built yet... I think last time I knew it was still a level 2 theatre .. Which is REALLY slow for a theatre that big.

oh well that was my 2 cents and some intrest.

Posted by Kelly Skaggs (Member # 1780) on 01-04-2004, 12:10 PM:

What I was told when I worked for Cinemark in the early 90's when I went to run a location in Moreno Valley, Ca. that was the first none Texas location he bought, it operated under the "Sunnymead Theaters" corporation name. It was closed, then I transferred up to Palmdale Movies 8, I was not aware that it was one of the originals.

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 01-07-2004, 12:37 PM:

What was the name of the theatre in Moreno Valley? Was that the Moreno 4 on Allesandro Blvd? Because I took pictures of that place (closed) last year sometime. It looked like it had been operated by a local -- but it would fit the mold of some of the older Cinemark converted locations I've seen.

Posted by Kelly Skaggs (Member # 1780) on 01-11-2004, 06:32 PM:

That is the one. They kept sinking money into it for sentimental reasons. Cinemark closed it in 91, some one else may have tried to reopen it, I am not sure. When "Colors" was out there was a huge gang fight out in the parking lot.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-12-2004, 11:57 PM:

Barf, Puke, Fart....I can't really believe that any of you are REALLY interested in Cinemark,,, Some of their sites out here are pretty worn out, in particuluar the site at Layton Hills Mall. I went there once a couple of years ago and at that time said to myself I'd never go to another of toeor locations. In general they are certainly a VERY GOOD reason to wait for what ever to appear on DVD!
Mark

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 01-13-2004, 01:38 PM:

The newer building at Layton Hills didn't strike me as anything too shabby. Of course ye Olde Movies building looked a little worse for wear.

I'm interested in every chains' history. Cinemark is one though that started recent enough where we won't be talking about Movie Palaces like with Loews or UA. And they haven't changed hands 20 times like Regal.

Posted by Jeff Joseph (Member # 511) on 01-14-2004, 02:43 AM:

Movies 8 in Palmdale is possibly the worst multi-screen theatre that I've ever been to.... it should be avoided at all costs. It was a dump when it was new.

Until the Palmdale Mall opened, however, it was the only place in town. I would say 4 shows out of 5 that I saw there had something go wrong. A few of my favorites:

1. In one theatre, the surrounds came out the front and the front came out through the surround speakers. I complained... and a month later, that's the way it still was.

2. The movie started and I see a big...splotch...on the screen. What is it? Did someone throw something on the screen? No.... someone had replace the bulb....incorrectly... and there was the biggest frickin' arc burn I've ever seen...throughout the entire print of the film... and, oh yeah, the print went out of frame at the last reel.

3. The image is jittery; the gate is likely not closed properly. I complain, and am told "that's the way the movie is". OK.

Really. You don't want pictures of this place.

Jeff

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 01-14-2004, 10:34 AM:

Oh but really I do Jeff. REALLY... I do.

Perhaps I'll drive up from Santa Clarita to Lancaster/Palmdale while I'm hanging out down there.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 01-14-2004, 12:15 PM:

Cinemark opened a few weeks ago a new theatre in Long Beach, California, I believe the company's first in Southern California (unless you count Palmdale and Victorville as being in Southern California).

(Is Cinemark's mascot still Frontrow Joe, and is Backrow Ho still his girlfriend? [Smile]

)

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 01-14-2004, 04:45 PM:

From what I hear, Cinemark is attempting to reintroduce Front Row Joe and the gang. Check out the cheesy new watches most Cinemarks are selling for $.25. Something tells me FRJ is not going to help some of these theaters in dire need of help though.

AJG

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 01-14-2004, 05:20 PM:

The new Cinemark in Myrtle Beach, SC is slated to open mid March if it opens as planned iwth the rest of the mall...

Looks to be pretty nice from the outside.. will have to get with my electrician buddy to go in a check out the rest of it...before they get much further along...

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 01-14-2004, 05:53 PM:

if everything goes as planned and on scheduel the booth install should be coming up pretty soon. They have a manager on site now.

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 01-14-2004, 08:06 PM:

Hey Darryl,

Would you happen to have access to a Cinemark Company Roster? Trying to find out if any of the old Cinemark folks I worked with are still in the company anywhere.

And Actually Front Row Joes girlfriends was Popcorn Penny even though she may have been a Backrow Ho. The two troublesome cats where Elton and Clyde. Can not remember if the 3 dancing cats had names or not. Doug Willming could probably answer that questiion for us.

Posted by Kyle Caudill (Member # 1252) on 01-15-2004, 11:36 AM:

I'd consider Cathedral City (cochella valley) southern california. Cinemark has one there.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 01-15-2004, 11:39 AM:

Kyle,

when are you gonna have that screen back up and running? I saw the pics you sent to the theater. What a mess.

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 01-15-2004, 12:26 PM:

Jason, did you hear about the new theatre built in Summerville, S.C? i think it might be a cinemark, not sure, since they are building one in myrtle, they might be trying to wedge a name in s.c.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 01-15-2004, 12:30 PM:

The one in summerville is not a cinemark and from what I understand the summerville 8 screen we have there is holding it's own against the other location. Myrtle beach is the only new build we have going in that state.

Posted by Kyle Caudill (Member # 1252) on 01-15-2004, 12:44 PM:

Who the hell knows? There is some indecision (what a surprise) between the landlord, us, and the contractor. Maybe we can cross our fingers and pray by the time I Move [Smile]

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 01-15-2004, 01:37 PM:

thanks Darryl, i guess it might be an eastern federal.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 01-15-2004, 02:19 PM:

Eastern Federal Movies at Azalea Square

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 01-15-2004, 03:14 PM:

thanks adam,

Posted by Stephen Jones 1 (Member # 114) on 01-19-2004, 10:48 PM:

Does anyone happen to know when the Palmdale Cinemark opened? Also, I hear the new Front Row Joe trailer will be hitting Cinemark screens this year. Should be interesting to say the least...

Posted by Franklin Armstrong (Member # 1448) on 01-25-2004, 04:33 AM:

quote:
I did visit a 20+ plex in orlando florida (cinemark) that was really cool, however kinda an odd place to build that big of a theatre since it is attached to a mall that isn't even finished being built yet... I think last time I knew it was still a level 2 theatre .. Which is REALLY slow for a theatre that big.

This theater was built in late 1999 the mall was not built at all it was ony dirt !!! this theater # is 284