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

[Geoff Jones]

SIFF taking over the Cinerama is the best exhibition news I've heard in a very long time.

Prior to the shutdown, it was the only U.S. cinema (afaik*) that got everything right.

• Regular showings of new releases.
• Frequent showings of classics.
• All on an immersive 60+ foot wide screen (except Cinerama showings every few years, which were on the deeply curved 90' wide screen).
• Top-of-the-line audio and projection technology (both old and new).
• Comfortable seating with unobstucted sight-lines.
• Excellent auditorium acoustics.
• Proper screen masking.
• No pre-show ads.

And judging from the seating charts at the time, the 800-seat auditorium was regularly "full" if not actually sold-out.

Based on their press release, it sounds like they intend to operate the theater the way it was operated before, sans the "Cinerama" name. Fingers crossed!

* If another cinema is meeting those criteria, I'd love to hear about it.

[Jim Cassedy]

Well here’s some welcome news! Seattle International Film Festival has
acquired the Seattle Cinerama and plans to reopen it later this year. .

I hope the new owners flatten out that nasty curve they've got in their screen. ..

[Scotty Wright]

Well here’s some welcome news! Seattle International Film Festival has acquired the Seattle Cinerama and plans to reopen it later this year maintaining its 35mm and 70mm capabilities!

[Steve Guttag]

The 3rd location for Warehouse Cinemas, Rotunda (Baltimore, MD) has now opened. It is at the same location as the former Cine Bistro. There are 7-screens. Warehouse Cinemas change the exterior and did extensive lobby changes to be more consistent with their style of cinemas. The theatres themselves received minimal changes other than electric, heated, recliner seats. This is the first site for Warehouse Cinemas to have "stadium seating." As such, it does not feature any of their patented "SkyVue" screen systems.

This is just the 1st phase of their renovation plans but there is no ETA for the next phase.

https://rotunda.warehousecinemas.com/home/

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[Jesse Skeen]

In Davis, CA, where I worked for 9 years, the newer theater on G Street originally called "Signature Stadium 5" has abruptly closed having opened February 14th 1999. When I first saw the plans for it I really wanted to tell them "don't do it"- there were only 5 screens while other companies were opening places with 16, and each had fewer seats than the smallest at the Holiday Cinema, opened in 1989 and remaining open now. Additionally all screens were pitifully small and top-masked for scope making them even smaller, and policy was to have the masking go up for the stupid ad slides in between showings. An older single-screen theater (which is now a Raising Cane's Chicken) closed the day before this one opened- I didn't buy the argument that single-screens weren't viable but a 5-screener was. I felt this was a very bad move by the company and one of my main reasons for leaving in 2000 (they were then bought out by Regal a few years afterwards.)

No word on what will happen to the site now. Since the screens are the wrong ratio, I wouldn't want to buy it.

[William Kucharski]

PLEASE POST LINKS TO ANY AUCTIONS of CINEMA EQUIPMENT. THX.

Does it have to be THX or is any equipment OK?

[Martin McCaffery]

It appears the Eastdale Mall 8 Cinemas (Montgomery, AL) have closed again, as of 4/3/23. Comscore has them listed as Temporarily closed, but there they've been deleted from the GQT website, and their facebook page says they are closed. Their phone number rolls over to corporate.
They never did enough business to support themselves. The one time I went they had 1 person working the whole show, and she spent most of her time delivering nachos to her boyfriend in the theatre I was in.
Mostly they existed because the group that bought the mall also bought Quality Theaters. I assume the kept the theatre operating to appease the other tenants in the mall.

[Chris Haller]

Regal closed down Regal Greece Ridge Stadium 12 in early March over here in Rochester after rejecting the terms of the lease in hopes that the landlords would flinch and give them a better deal. It was part of that group of 39 closures that got announced in January.

It was a decent theater in its day, but its been largely neglected as cinema trends shifted towards premium theater formats and the Greece Ridge Mall has declined. I never had much to say about seeing movies there except that it felt moderately dated. I was sad to see it go, more for the loss of 12 screens in the region, and for the loss of a West Side movie theater.

Now it seems they're coming for Regal Henrietta Stadium 18 as well. They announced a sudden closure last Thursday for Sunday, April 16th. I suppose it brought the landlord back to the table, as they've staved off closing until Thursday, although they did tell all RCC and Regal Unlimited Club members an email saying it was closing on the 16th. If it goes, it will essentially declare Regal's exit from the Rochester region; they'd have one left in driving distance, though its attached to a mall that's 30 minutes away and outside of Monroe County.

[Allan Barnes]

PLEASE POST LINKS TO ANY AUCTIONS of CINEMA EQUIPMENT. THX.

[Vern Dias]

Regal Cinemas closes a favorite theater for Denver moviegoers




When I moved to Colorado in 1989, I fell in love with the Continental. It was literally my favorite place in the world. Sitting on the 5th or 6th row, the 78' wide D-150 would envelop me and transport me to other worlds.

The first movie I saw there was The Abyss (in 70MM). Four years later, I caught The Abyss: Special Edition (in 35mm) on the same screen. (Only two prints of the SE were struck, period.) A minute of footage was missing from their print (Bud swimming back to Deepcore after getting trapped in the crashed submersible with Lindsey). I asked theater employees to address the problem, but they only shrugged. Through a connection, I contacted James Cameron's brother Mike and told him about it. The footage was reinstated within a week.

As a single-screen theater, I watched the Continental suffer due to contractual obligations, where it was often stuck with a single title for weeks on end, and very few people in attendance. In the summer of 1993, they played So I Married an Axe Murderer for 87 weeks.

Then I rejoiced when Regal added on new screens without screwing up the original screen or auditorium. They didn't chop it in half. They preserved it!

Unfortunately, a few years later they made massive changes to the original screen and auditorium. My understanding was that digital projection (especially the initial 2k resolution) simply wouldn't hold up on a 78-foot-wide screen. The deep curvature was probably an issue as well. The new, smaller screen provided a decent big-screen experience, but it wasn't anything special. The last film I saw there was Dune. The configuration of the Atmos speakers was problematic. I heard ceiling sounds behind me that were supposed to be coming from something at the top of the screen.

The only film I ever saw in any of the added auditoriums was The Hateful Eight, in 70MM, on a small screen directly behind the original. Green light from the exit signs shone across the screen. I complained afterwards. Six years later (after watching Dune) I peeked in the auditorium where I'd watched H8. The green light was still there. I peeked in a bunch of other auditoriums. Every one of them (other than the main house) had green light shining on a screen.

Sadly, it seems that Regal got what it deserved with regards to the Continental. As the Vulture article pointed out,

So sorry to hear this. It makes me feel sad and even older, remembering when I did relief work in Denver.

The Cooper, the Continental (and the Village in Boulder) with their deep curved screens were my favorite theatres to pull shifts at, back when I was an IATSE member doing shifts as a relief projectionist, I remember running "Grease" at the Continental back in 1978.

[William Kucharski]

Damn it, the best theater left in Denver.

I guess I'm stuck watching home video now.

[Paul H. Rayton]

With Regal, while they're closing the place in Colorado (see Geoff Jones' post, above), another one is announced to open, one of the ex-Arclight venues, in Pasadena. It's a bit of a head-scratcher: Regal took over the ex-Arclight Sherman Oaks with a lot of hoopla about 2 years ago, and that one has been announced as closing [both previously reported in this thread], although as of today that venue is still open here.

Source article in Deadline: https://deadline.com/2023/04/regal-r...na-1235325022/



The former Arclight Pasadena in the Paseo Shopping Center Getty Images Regal took a beat from closing theaters, announcing today it’s entered a lease agreement with Onni Group to operate the former ArcLight theatre at The Paseo in Pasadena.

The 14-screen theater was shuttered by Covid in March of 2020 and never returned to business. Regal will be announcing details soon including promotional offers and an official opening date for Regal Paseo.

The Paseo development with, shopping and dining, “has long been the entertainment destination for Pasadena; however, since 2020, it has been missing one important element, a state-of-the-art theatre.” said Mooky Greidinger, CEO of Cineworld, parent company of Regal that is currently trying to emerge from bankruptcy. “In collaborating with our new partners at Onni Group, we are proud to be the new operators of Regal Paseo with exciting upgrades to the theatrical experience forthcoming for this destination location.”

Regal operates 6,215 screens in 457 theatres across the U.S. Parent Cineworld filed for Chapter 11 in the Southern District of Texas last fall and has been working through the process, including shutting some theaters and renegotiating leases on others. It’s closed about 50 locations since bankruptcy. A hearing is set for May 26 for the judge in the case to approve a restructuring plan submitted last week.

[Sam Chavez]

Sad to see that one close. Did a preview or two there back in the '80's. Also Century 21, a Mann house. And the Cooper. All now gone.

[Geoff Jones]

Regal Cinemas closes a favorite theater for Denver moviegoers

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Three months after Regal Cinemas' parent company announced it would close 39 movie theaters across the United States, a popular location in Colorado has shut down.

As of Friday, the Regal Continental, at 3635 S. Monaco St., listed no movie showings going forward on the Regal website. A sign on its door says: "Thank you! It has been our pleasure to serve you at this threatre. Regal Continental is now closed."


This comes after Regal parent company Cineworld announced in September it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In January, Business Insider reported that the company would close 39 movie theaters in the U.S., which would help Cineworld save $22 million per year.

On the list of closures were Meadows Stadium 12 in Littleton and SouthGlenn Stadium 14 in Centennial. Both of those theaters were still open as of Friday.

But in addition to the Continental, the Regal Cinebarre Greenwood Plaza had no movie showings listed on the Regal website.

9NEWS has reached out to Cineworld and has not received a response as of this publication.


Credit: KUSA Related Articles

• Regal to close 39 movie theaters, 2 in Colorado

According to CinemaTour, the Regal Continental is the only Continental theater left of three that were built in the 1960s. It's known for its giant, 800+-seat auditorium and has been the site of numerous big movie premieres over the decades, from "Star Wars" to "Lord of the Rings."

Cineworld said on Tuesday it had filed a plan to reorganize its business and that shareholders wouldn't recover any funds. The company's stock dropped 36% on Tuesday to an all-time low, CNN reported.

Cineworld operates 747 locations in 10 countries, with 500 of those theaters in the United States including those under the Regal banner.

"The pandemic was an incredibly difficult time for our business, with the enforced closure of cinemas and huge disruption to film schedules that has led us to this point," Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger said in September.

When I moved to Colorado in 1989, I fell in love with the Continental. It was literally my favorite place in the world. Sitting on the 5th or 6th row, the 78' wide D-150 would envelop me and transport me to other worlds.

The first movie I saw there was The Abyss (in 70MM). Four years later, I caught The Abyss: Special Edition (in 35mm) on the same screen. (Only two prints of the SE were struck, period.) A minute of footage was missing from their print (Bud swimming back to Deepcore after getting trapped in the crashed submersible with Lindsey). I asked theater employees to address the problem, but they only shrugged. Through a connection, I contacted James Cameron's brother Mike and told him about it. The footage was reinstated within a week.

As a single-screen theater, I watched the Continental suffer due to contractual obligations, where it was often stuck with a single title for weeks on end, and very few people in attendance. In the summer of 1993, they played So I Married an Axe Murderer for 87 weeks.

Then I rejoiced when Regal added on new screens without screwing up the original screen or auditorium. They didn't chop it in half. They preserved it!

Unfortunately, a few years later they made massive changes to the original screen and auditorium. My understanding was that digital projection (especially the initial 2k resolution) simply wouldn't hold up on a 78-foot-wide screen. The deep curvature was probably an issue as well. The new, smaller screen provided a decent big-screen experience, but it wasn't anything special. The last film I saw there was Dune. The configuration of the Atmos speakers was problematic. I heard ceiling sounds behind me that were supposed to be coming from something at the top of the screen.

The only film I ever saw in any of the added auditoriums was The Hateful Eight, in 70MM, on a small screen directly behind the original. Green light from the exit signs shone across the screen. I complained afterwards. Six years later (after watching Dune) I peeked in the auditorium where I'd watched H8. The green light was still there. I peeked in a bunch of other auditoriums. Every one of them (other than the main house) had green light shining on a screen.

Sadly, it seems that Regal got what it deserved with regards to the Continental. As the Vulture article pointed out,

If a movie theater can’t perform its most basic function and deliver a sharp, well-lit image with the right colors and contrast, then we might as well knock it down and put up a bank.

[Martin McCaffery]

Crescent Theatre, Mobile, AL
https://www.al.com/life/2023/04/i-gu...r-is-gone.html

‘I guess that’s it’: Barring a last-minute miracle, Mobile’s Crescent Theater is gone

By

• Lawrence Specker | lspecker@al.com

The Crescent Theater on Dauphin Street in downtown Mobile has been a haven for film fans for more than a decade.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com
Downtown Mobile’s Crescent Theater has been dark since a March 24 screening attended by a lone viewer, and barring the arrival of a white knight with about half a million dollars in hand, it appears the beloved venue’s 14-year run is over.

The single-screen, independent Crescent has had its share of crises since owner-operator Max Morey launched it in 2008. The nonprofit Crescent Theater Film Society was formed just a couple of years later to supplement its operations with donations and grants. In 2012, it took an $85,000 Kickstarter drive to provide the projection equipment the four-year-old theater needed to survive the industry’s inexorable transition from film to digital. In 2017, Morey issued an online call for $72,000; the drive’s success guaranteed the theater could keep going for another two years. In 2020, the Film Society raised $20,000 via GoFundMe to offset the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like a cat, the venue always seemed to have another life left in it. In September 2022, however, the Film Society announced that the Crescent would be closing at the end of the month because the theater’s rent, which ticket sales and donations had barely kept covered, was about to increase steeply.

That prompted an effort by attorney Buzz Jordan and other potential investors to try to piece together a deal to purchase the property occupied by the Crescent. Not the whole three-story building at 208 Dauphin St., but the first floor containing the approximately 100-seat theater.

For the next few months, it appeared to be business as usual. In retrospect, that might have just been the time it took the last few grains of sand to run out of the venue’s hourglass. The day that probably was the Crescent’s last came and went with no fanfare, no last-minute pleas for donations. It was followed by the slow spread of awareness that the doors hadn’t been open for a while.

“I guess that’s it,” Morey said late Monday. “Coca-Cola’s on the way tomorrow morning to pick up the coolers. I think that’s it.”

Morey expressed frustration with the way negotiations had gone. So did John Switzer, the building’s Pensacola-based owner. So did Jordan.

“I made an offer, it was rejected, that’s all I could do on my end,” said Jordan.

Note: Jordan isn’t a newcomer at this. He previously bought another downtown landmark, the A&M Peanut Shop across the street from the Crescent. So he’s got experience running a legacy business whose fortunes are tightly linked to the ebb and flow of downtown life. “As downtown Mobile goes, the Peanut Shop goes,” he said. “I’m happy with it.” Mobile attorney Buzz Jordan stands with Deborah Gibson DeGuire inside the A&M Peanut Shop in downtown Mobile. Jordan recently struck a deal to buy the shop, a landmark in downtown Mobile since the 1950s, from DeGuire.
“I like Buzz, I thought Buzz made a strong effort, I think people didn’t want to support Buzz, I guess. I don’t know,” said Switzer. “But it’s going to be a sad day when that movie theater does close.”

Some of the points of dispute in play during the last six months sound like any real-estate negotiation: Fussing over offers and counter-offers, disagreeing on whether the AC needs an upgrade, trying to negotiate how building fees factor into a sale price, getting an appraisal and so on. But for Switzer, there’s a particular sticking point: He hasn’t collected any rent on the theater since the end of September, he said, and if the Crescent is going to continue, he wants $18,000 in back rent. So as negotiations have gone on, month by month, the price has gone up.

Switzer remains disgruntled by the Crescent Theater Film Society’s announcement back in September that the theater would have to close because the landlord was doubling the rent. He was raising it from $3,000 to $5,000, he said, so “doubling” was an exaggeration. And the jump, he said, was just bringing it up to fair market value.

“I tried everything in my power, that I was able to do, to keep that theater open, but I was constantly losing money, and bleeding, and hemorrhaging,” Switzer said. “They had been paying only $12 a square foot for the last four years, the Film Society. And the average square footage cost for commercial property in downtown Mobile is $18. They’ve been getting a sweet deal for the last 14 years. And of course, that sweet deal, I was their biggest donor. I was their biggest charitable donor and yet I got treated like a red-headed stepchild.”

“I had to borrow to pay my property taxes on that building,” he said. “Those rents normally would have covered a portion of those property taxes due in December.”

Hunter said that property rates can vary a lot from one type of business to another, so an average might be misleading. But she said she agrees without a doubt that Switzer deserves credit for keeping the rent below market value, particularly in recent years.

“He is not a bad guy for wanting to get as much rent as he can for his property,” she said. When he decided last fall that he had to hike the rent, she said, the price was too high for the Film Society, which opted not to renew its lease. Switzer’s decision to let the theater operate for months after that, rent-free, as negotiations continued was “remarkable,” she said.

Switzer has divided the building into three units subject to separate sale, condo-style, but says he’d happily take $1.805 million for the whole thing. At the moment, the upper residential floor is being rented; and the second floor, also residential, is under contract.

The magic number for the commercial space on the first floor is $540,000, he said, implying there was a little room for negotiation but not a lot. He’d had a couple of offers, he said – one from someone who wanted to operate a theater, one from a party who had other plans – but that neither had come to fruition.

Morey said he’d give the Crescent, meaning ownership of the business and equipment, to anyone who could afford the space.

“It’s doable,” he said. “If you buy the first floor, you get the movie theater for free.” (Once catch: You’d probably have to agree to keep Morey and his staff on board, at least for a while.)

Switzer said that April 18 is the day when he’ll tell Morey it’s over and the theater fixtures have to go. Morey will then have until the end of the month to remove them. Switzer would be as pleased as anyone to see a buyer emerge, he said, and he thinks a theater could do well in the space.

Morey, whose passion for movies has been on display in everything the Crescent has done for 14 years, certainly feels that way. He remains bullish despite everything: The transition to digital, the rise of streaming services, the impact of the pandemic. Max Morey has been a fixture at the Crescent Theater, sharing his passion for movies with patrons for 14 years. (Press-Register, Mary Hattler)Press-Register
“Let me say this,” he said. “The future for movie theaters is huge. There was around 5,000 screens [in the nation], there’s 3,000 now … But the future is beautiful for movie theaters.” The major studios are re-committing to putting quality movies in theaters, he said, so there’s more product in the pipeline.

“There is content out there,” he said. “Including Wes Anderson’s movie and Harrison Ford in ‘Indiana Jones’ and this movie ‘Air.’ The future looks wonderful for movie theaters. If anybody wanted to come in, they could really make a nice bundle in the future.”

“The studios are putting their movies back in theaters,” he said. “That’s a fact.”

“We were considered one of the most successful single-screen theaters in the nation,” Morey said. “By the studios, not by me. We made as much money as any other theater in town because of our patrons.”

“Thank you for the run, thank you Mobile,” he said.

Hunter said she’s still trying to come to terms with what the loss of the Crescent might mean for downtown. Its opening certainly had a powerful impact, she said.

“It has meant everything to downtown,” she said. “Fourteen years ago when they opened, there was no happy-hour scene.” People finished work and went home, she said, leaving little activity until the late-night scene fired up hours later.

The Crescent’s daily screenings provided a reason, rare at the time, to be downtown at 6 p.m. That became the seed of something that grew, Hunter said. Now you could have dinner or drinks before or after a movie. There was “an anchor for that shoulder time of day.”

“Slowly you saw a transition into that after-work scene,” she said. “It was very slow at first, but it grew.”

“I don’t know what the impact will be if it’s gone,” she said. “I haven’t really faced it.”

Hunter said that around 700 donors have contributed to the theater over the years. For many of them, she said, the Crescent wasn’t just a place to go, it was the hub of a community. “They’re devastated,” she said.

She’s trying to remain hopeful, she said. “You know, downtowns are always in transition,” she said. “They’re dynamic places. … There’s always something new.”

The Crescent’s website still lists Coming Attractions that might have been. “Air,” a Ben Affleck film dramatizing the culture-changing union of Nike and Michael Jordan. “Somewhere in Queens,” comedian Ray Romano’s directorial debut, with a cast that includes fellow comedian Sebastian Maniscalco. “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” in which Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen and Candice Bergen go to Italy; “About My Father,” a comedy that Maniscalco filmed in Mobile with Robert De Niro. And yes, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” The Crescent Theater is seen in downtown Mobile on Sept. 11, 2012. (Michael Dumas/AL.com)Michael Dumas
Those are might-have-beens. The Crescent’s last reel was something else.

Morey said that on March 24, the day Switzer told him he had to shut the doors, the Crescent was due to start a run of “The Lost King.” It’s the dramatization of a true story about an amateur historian’s efforts to find the burial site of King Richard III, which lead to a dig that finds his remains under a parking lot.

“It was in the projector, we had sold tickets,” said Morey, who then goes off on a classic Max Morey rhapsody: “The movie’s lovely, Steve Coogan and Sally Hawkins, and we waited and waited – I called IFC, that’s the studio, I called them almost a year ago and yeah, they said, ‘You can play it, Max, but we don’t know when we’re going to release it.’ And we waited a year and got it.”

And he had to close the doors. “So I closed them, but I was on the inside, and I sat in the front row and watched a movie by myself for the first time in 15 years and cried all the way through it,” he said. “I went and got a dispenser, a napkin dispenser. I’m eating my own popcorn and soda, crying my eyes out, and a wonderful movie by the way, stunning movie, and that was the end of it, that was the last movie we played, me sitting in there watching it. I mean, I went through the whole box [of napkins]. Very emotional. Very emotional. Big chapter in my life. Wonderful chapter.”