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

[Marcel Birgelen]

In most jurisdictions, the term "Bankruptcy" is indeed closer to what Chapter 7 bankruptcy entails, although most modern economies do have some similar provisions as a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy that gives a failed company some time to reorganize and some kind of protection against its creditors during the time of restructuring. Usually, a majority of the existing creditors need to agree to the restructuring plan, in order for the company to emerge from its failed state.

The Chapter 11 procedure has gotten quite some critics over the years, as in, that it's too easy for companies to simply use this strategy to shed some costs and debs. Similar procedures all over the world have obviously been abused for similar purposes.

[Don Furr]

For you theatre owners who lease their property to another operator, this is something you need to do. When we retired we leased our remaining two theatres to a single operator. Our attorney informed us that a UCC filing was in order to protect our property interest (equipment, etc) in the event the operator went Bankrupt. In fact our leasee filed Bankruptcy on one of our theatres and the court wanted to take control of our property to dispose of our equipment. I presented our UCC to the judge and control of the theatre's content was returned to us which we later sold to another operator. So if you lease your property, insist that your attorney fill a UCC with the state to protect what belongs to you.

A UCC filing is a legal notice a lender files with the secretary of state when they have a security interest against one of your assets. It gives notice that the lender has an interest, or lien, against the asset being used by you to secure the financing. The term “UCC filing” comes from the uniform commercial code.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

For you theatre owners who lease their property to another operator, this is something you need to do. When we retired we leased our remaining two theatres to a single operator. Our attorney informed us that a UCC filing was in order to protect our property interest (equipment, etc) in the event the operator went Bankrupt. In fact our leasee filed Bankruptcy on one of our theatres and the court wanted to take control of our property to dispose of our equipment. I presented our UCC to the judge and control of the theatre's content was returned to us which we later sold to another operator. So if you lease your property, insist that your attorney fill a UCC with the state to protect what belongs to you.

When I worked at GTS we actually did that on a brand new theater and install.... 8 screens.... Had the owner not paid us in full as agreed to we could have shown up and taken all the new gear back out without any warning. That owner got the property owner to purchase the gear, but he did eventually go bankrupt and reorganize.... By then we had been paid. Had we not filed it, GTS would have been dragged into the bankruptcy.

[Martin Brooks]

I must have missed it, but the City Cinemas/Reading East 86th Street 4 in NYC closed around May of 2019.
The remaining City Cinemas are now being programmed (and maybe operated) by the Angelica.
Movieworld Douglaston in Queens, NY has permanently closed.

I think because of COVID, a lot of other theaters are "tenuous". About 70% of NYC theaters have re-opened or have announced dates.

Theaters that haven't reopened yet (and some possibly may never, although hopefully that won't be the case):
Manhattan:
Roxy (1)
Regal Essex Crossing (14)
Cinemart Cinema Village 12th St (3)
CMX East 62nd Street (6)
Cinépolis Chelsea Cinema (9)
Regal E-Walk Stadium & RPX (13)

Queens:
Cinemart Forest Hills (5)
Brielle North Shore Towers (1)
Regal Atlas Park (8)
Regal Midway (9)

Brooklyn:
Alamo Drafthouse (7)
BAM Rose Cinema (4)
Regal Court Street Stadium & RPX (12)
Cinemart Alpine (8)

Bronx:
National Amusements Concourse Plaza (10)

Staten Island:
Regal Staten Island & RPX

Theaters that were under construction when COVID hit and never opened, but still might:
Alamo Drafthouse Lower Manhattan (12)
Regal Tangram 4DX Flushing (7)
Alamo Drafthouse Staten Island (10)

In other news, Regal Union Square upped the screen count from 14 to 17 and the AMC 34th Street is open, but going through a renovation of some sort. With the COVID restrictions, the screens at the Union Square have as few as 9 seats.

[Mark Ogden]

The remaining City Cinemas are now being programmed (and maybe operated) by the Angelica.

City and Angelica are both owned by Reading. They just dropped the City brand and merged everything under Angelica.

In the northeast, BowTie Cinemas continues to shed screens, closing a recently remodeled four-plex in Caldwell, New Jersey and the eight screen Wilton Mall Cinema in Saratoga Springs, New York.

[Mike Blakesley]

It hasn't opened yet, but I have heard that the Montana Theatre in Miles City MT has been sold. It was built in 1936. It closed at the start of the pandemic and has never reopened since. So far there's been no announcement about an opening date, but it is now sporting black plastic over the windows. It needs a lot of work. I hope the new owners know what they're doing -- and I wonder if their booth equipment has been run at all over the past year.

[Bill Brandenstein]

Hello everyone (late to the party but first post at the new site - finally!).

I'm delighted to announce that the local monopoly by Regal in the Santa Clarita Valley is officially broken. After several months of COVID-related delays, small independent exhibitor Laemmle is opening a modest 7-screen facility today, April 9, in Newhall, CA. Our local city government has done a great job of revitalizing the historic commercial district in this area, and this theater is yet another step in the direction of freshening things up and giving people something worth getting out of the house for.

As a film lover, I have mixed feelings about an all-digital, boothless facility. At least it exists! The "booth" is behind the concessions counter and is visible before you even enter the door. (pictured) The smallest auditorium, at 31 seats, is smaller than some of my largest backyard 16mm shows.

They're opening at greatly reduced capacity, of course.

IMG_9185 reduced.jpg

IMG_9189 crop rdcd.jpg


Our local paper did a nice writeup yesterday at https://signalscv.com/2021/04/laemml...-doors-friday/:

Cassie Gratton knows how to open a Laemmle theater. The general manager of the Newhall Laemmle, which will open its doors with a ribbon-cutting this Friday, also helped to open Laemmle’s Glendale and Claremont locations.

“I feel pretty privileged that they asked me to open this theater,” said Gratton, a 20-year Laemmle employee who worked her way up the ranks of the family-owned theater group.

When The Signal met Gratton on Wednesday for an early look at the new, spacious theater, she was training her new team.

“I don’t have another theater to train my staff,” Gratton said of her team, which started preparing for Friday’s grand opening Monday. Before the pandemic closed theaters, staff would receive training in an open theater.

Despite the atypical circumstances created by the pandemic, Gratton said she trusts her team.

The team is preparing to operate a fully digital theater, a feature that becomes clear to moviegoers shortly after walking into the theater.

Behind the front desk, a tall dark tower with small flashing lights houses sound processers that control the viewers’ experience in the theater’s seven auditoriums, which range from 31 to 120 seats.

The two-story theater features two auditoriums on the first floor and five on the second floor, which also includes an outdoor space. All auditoriums are equipped with an overhead 4K projector and JBL 7.1 surround sound speakers.

Gratton said the theater is taking various measures to ensure moviegoers’ safety.

Her team is equipped with sprays to disinfect auditoriums before and after showings. In addition, Gratton said sanitizing wipes will be available for patrons who want to wipe down their seats, while hand sanitizing stations will be placed throughout the theater.

The theater will provide face masks to any moviegoer who doesn’t have one and the structure’s heating and cooling system is equipped with air filters recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Gratton.

“We’re operating at reduced capacity,” said Greg Laemmle, who runs the chain of art-house theaters bearing his name. “And whatever the state guidelines say in terms of percentage of seats can be filled, the reality is we also need to provide distancing between groups.”

While the state currently permits theaters to reach 50% capacity, Laemmle said, “We actually can’t get to more than 25% because we’re providing 6-foot spacing between groups.”

Providing that adequate distancing will mean moviegoers will need to reserve their seats in advance, a practice that is new at Laemmle, which will reopen five other locations on Friday. Additionally, the theater will not feature late shows.

Laemmle described the opening of Laemmle Newhall in three words. “It feels awesome,” he said of the project, which began taking shape in 2016 as part of the Newhall Crossings development.

Theater construction, located at the intersection of Lyons and Railroad avenues and anchoring Newhall Crossings, faced several delays.

“These are the kinds of things that happen when you have a complicated project, and this was a complicated project,” Laemmle said. “But we made a commitment to the city and citizens of the Santa Clara Valley to get this project done and we did it.”

Among the first movies being screened at Laemmle Newhall is “Kong vs. Godzilla.” The theater will also show art films, according to Laemmle.

“These are just entertaining films,” Laemmle said. “They might happen to be documentaries. They might happen to be in a foreign language. They might happen to not feature big-name actors. But they’re still entertainment. And it’s still just a night out at the movies.”

A night out at the movies starts with Friday’s in-person ribbon-cutting at 11 a.m. at the theater. While the event is open to the public, Laemmle encouraged those wishing to observe the occasion to do so through a livestream on the theater’s Facebook page.

“It’s going to be outdoors, but even then, we still have to be careful about numbers,” Laemmle said, citing the need to maintain social distancing during the ribbon-cutting.

[Don Furr]

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/a...aF7GLVhXe6hGAc


Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres will close down, a victim of the coronavirus pandemic that brought movie going to a standstill. The news comes as things were beginning to look up for the hard-hit exhibition industry and serves as a reminder of the economic devastation wrought by a public health crisis that upended cultural life.
“After shutting our doors more than a year ago, today we must share the difficult and sad news that Pacific will not be reopening its Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres locations,” the company said in a statement. “This was not the outcome anyone wanted, but despite a huge effort that exhausted all potential options, the company does not have a viable way forward.”
The closure means that some of the most prominent and popular movie theaters in the heart of the film industry will be shuttered, including the iconic Cinerama Dome, which has hosted movie premieres and had cameos in everything from “Melrose Place” to “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” The announcement resulted in paroxysms of grief across social media, as film fans weighed in on Twitter and other platforms to express their dismay that these marquees may remain dark even after COVID-19 abates.
“To all the Pacific and Arclight employees who have devoted their professional lives to making our theaters the very best places in the world to see movies: we are grateful for your service and your dedication to our customers,” the company continued. “To our guests and members of the film industry who have made going to the movies such a magical experience over the years: our deepest thanks. It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve you.”
It is possible, of course, that another company could assume these leases and reopen the theaters. That might involve some tough conversations with landlords. A recent report on IndieWire stated that Pacific Theaters Exhibition had not paid $181,900.40
in March 2021 rent for its Culver City Arclight location and could owe on the order of $2.2 million for a full year. Other theaters have had a difficult time of surviving the past year of closures and movie delays. Alamo Drafthouse has filed for Chapter 11, while major chains such as AMC Theatres reported some $4.4 billion in losses related to the COVID era.
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[Leo Enticknap]

I wonder what will happen to the Samsung LED cinema wall at Pacific Winnetka. If another company doesn't take over the theater as a going concern, I guess Decurion will be looking for someone to buy it and relocate it, and that Samsung will also be keen for that to happen.

[Bill Brandenstein]

Arclight dead? This is a nightmare. For those of us who love a great movie, care about presentation, and have some amazing memories in these venues (especially occasional 70mm or Cinerama revivals at the Dome over the course of three decades), this is a HUGE blow. Moviegoing done right is officially dead. There are some other fine venues around, but little compares to the memories of what I've seen in the Dome and how great it was. And of course, that Cinerama booth is chock full of all the right equipment to show just about anything. And racks containing Cinerama prints. I wonder what will happen to those?

[Mark Ogden]

Terrible news. I have no doubt that these theaters will reopen under new owners, but I will miss the Arclight operating model; no ads, no more that three trailers, and some very good projection and sound. And the caramel corn, Jesus, I'll miss that.

I'll predict that the Pacific Grove will reopen by late summer under somebody, Cinemark or Regency maybe. There is no better situated multiplex in America and it's a pivotal draw for the whole Grove complex. That ain't gonna sit empty.

And racks containing Cinerama prints. I wonder what will happen to those?

I don't know if it's still the case, but there was, as of a few years ago, still a "Cinerama, Inc." that was run by John Sittig, the former head projectionist for Pacific/Arclight. I presume that he holds the rights to the films and whatever is left of the process.

[William Kucharski]

ArcLight was the last chain left that seemed to truly care about presentation other than Alamo Drafthouse.

Reserved seating before it was common, ushers, announcements before movies, no late admissions, and in my experience the two most important things, nice bright, in focus projectors and volume levels consistently set at 7.0 as intended. The only venue I've been to that was better was the large Paramount screening room on their lot.

Of course the Dome is irreplaceable and I am so grateful I got to see It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World there from a pristine print and How the West Was Won twice, for perhaps the last times ever, in three strip Cinerama.

I suspect the Americana and Grove theaters will be purchased by AMC, Cinemark or Regal and end up as more generic screens with slightly out of focus projectors and the volume set to 5.5 or below.

[Steve Guttag]

I don't want to get political and I don't think it does but I don't see how a government can shut down an industry, like it did and not also shut down the consequences of their action. That is, any business that is mandated to shut down should not have to pay ANY rent/lease (and no back rent either when it opens) and it should roll right on up the line, landlords shouldn't be paying any banks on those properties nor any taxes...etc. Nobody should be making out here but, at the same time, nobody should be extra-penalized (forced to pay for a business that is being forced closed or not allowed to operate at profitable capacities).

And, for all of the well-intentions, I still don't think there has ever been a traced spreading to any cinema, anywhere in the world.

[Marcel Birgelen]

That's the sad truth indeed...

Here in the Netherlands, there have been some trial-events in the last few months and the latest conclusion was: There seems to be no quantifiable risk in passive sit-down events at 50% of seating capacity... So the general advise is to allow those kinds of events, which obviously includes cinema, to happen again, as soon as possible. The fact that no "super-spreading" event until now has been traced back to a cinema until now, only seems to back this up.

Meanwhile, cinemas in many areas around the globe have been closed for a year straight or at least many months in a row. Those that have been open have been largely devoid of any relevant product to show...

But I don't know a single government, even none of the more "social" governments, that's willing to pay the real costs of all this, while it is them who mandated the closure. I can understand that any government will say: We can't pay the FULL impact of this, in the end, we all have to carry our part in this, but at the very least they should carry a substantial part of it...

[Steve Guttag]

What seems completely unfair is a business like cinemas that are not only forced to shut down but are, even if allowed to suspend paying rent, can be forced to pay back-rent for when they were closed. That is absurd. We are no longer carrying our part because landlords are now significantly less-harmed than the businesses they collect from. Mind you, I don't think landlords should be compelled to pay their banks (if they own anything on the properly) nor the government be able to collect taxes (or back taxes). If one has a mortgage of some sort, the easy way out this is that there is zero "back" payments but merely tack those months onto the end. But for renters...that money should just be gone...just like the business was just gone. The burden should be as close to equally shared as possible. Leaving utilities and those, should be born by the government...which ultimately are the taxes people pay.