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

[Martin Brooks]

More importantly, I'm still hoping QT and some of his buddies will pool money to buy the Cinerama Dome if not the balance of the Arclight Hollywood complex.

It goes to show how sad the exhibition business is that now that they are no longer prohibited to, not one studio will invest or help invest in a theater dedicated to presenting their product properly.

Absolutely. IMO, the studios should form a joint venture to buy up key in-danger or already closed theaters throughout the country. Even before the pandemic, theaters were in huge trouble. AMC, the largest chain, averaged ticket sales of just 92 tickets per day, per screen. If the average screen had four showings a day, that's just 23 tickets per show. But if the studios won't even save major theaters in their own backyard, I think it proves they just don't give a damn about theaters anymore. But I can't blame the studios or the theaters owners. If people don't attend, they don't attend. With today's high commercial rents, you can't have a business that only does business on weekend nights.

Disney+ streaming grosses about $9.6 billion annually that doesn't have to be shared with theaters or foreign distributors. With numbers like that, they just might not care about theaters anymore. The other studios don't do quite as well, but I bet they look at Disney and salivate at those numbers. In spite of some surprising new builds, I think we're going to lose a LOT of theaters over the next 5-10 years which will just reinforce the studios' notion that streaming, and not theaters, is the future. (AMC lost $2.4 billion in 2020 and another $295 million in the first quarter. The last time they were profitable was in Q2 of 2019, but they lost money in every other quarter that year. They were however profitable in 2018.)

Last week, I attended my first two movies since the pandemic started. It was during the day on a weekday, but there were fewer than five people in each showing in NYC. That's certainly not sustainable.

As far as the Dome is concerned, I saw a revival of Lawrence of Arabia there many years ago when I was in Los Angeles on business. While it was fun being in a large and historically significant theater, I was actually a little disappointed in the presentation. There was distortion on the curved screen and there was slap-back echo on the audio. I thought it looked and sounded better at the Ziegfeld in NYC, even though the Ziegfeld's screen was just 52'.

Having said that and in spite of a LOT of Los Angeles theaters closing over the last 30 years, L.A. still has a fair number of pretty decent theaters. Probably more per capita than anywhere else. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised that almost every NYC (all five boroughs) theater has reopened. I really thought more would not survive the pandemic. But we have lost 36% of the theaters and 16% of the screen count in the last 20 years and due to both closings and lounge seating, we've lost 68% of the seats since 1987. We're down to about 56,000 seats and 50 theaters (22 in Manhattan). I think a lot of smaller cities will wind up with just one or two multiplexes just as they have just one or two legitimate theaters.

[Mark Ogden]

properly

There's that word again, and about the Cinerama Dome, no less.

I remember that in 1996 Disney paid Pacific to install a temporary 'scope aspect ratio flat screen in the Dome for the premiere of Evita, because neither the director, or the cinematographer, or Madonna wanted the picture to play on the 80' curved main house screen because of the soft focus, horizon sag and distortion. In their eyes, their film was shown properly, but it didn't stop a shit-fit from happening in Widegauge Magazine (which I of course helped to fuel [Vol. 10, Issue 13, page 4]) over the curtains being closed and the main screen not being used, because it was the historic Cinerama freakin' Dome for chrissakes. The whole thing went to show that when it comes to historic theaters, one person's proper projection is another person's sacrilege.

As a place to see an original three-strip Cinerama production the Dome can't be beat. But for everything else, the projection there has never been anything to brag about. I haven't been in years, but in the film era it was a somewhat dim and not very sharply focused picture, albeit a big one.

[William Kucharski]

More importantly, I'm still hoping QT and some of his buddies will pool money to buy the Cinerama Dome if not the balance of the Arclight Hollywood complex.

It goes to show how sad the exhibition business is that now that they are no longer prohibited to, not one studio will invest or help invest in a theater dedicated to presenting their product properly.

[David Ferguson]

Good on Tarantino for actually going out and buying (another) cinema, rather than just saying how "important it is to save the magic of cinema". I'm not surprised knowing him that it's going to be film only, but I do wonder how many new movies he'll get, and if they're just digitally shot, digitally edited, and printed to film at the end - what exactly the point is? I guess one good thing is that it keeps Kodak and film labs going, at least for now.

[Martin McCaffery]

Quentin Tarantino buys the Vista in LA:

Quentin Tarantino Says He Bought L.A.’s Vista Theatre

Ellise ShaferJul 5, 2021 10:13am PTAP
Quentin Tarantino has announced that he purchased Los Angeles’ Vista Theatre.

During the most recent episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Tarantino discussed the future of moviegoing, commenting that some of the big movie chains that have shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic “deserved to go.”

“I never like any theater closing, but some of these exhibitors that are going, they fucking deserve to go. They’ve taken all the specialness out of movies anyway, some of these chains,” Tarantino told Shepard, explaining that he doesn’t believe a movie theater should “recreate my living room.”

But, Tarantino said he thinks boutique cinemas “will actually thrive in this time” — and then announced his purchase of the Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, with plans for it to open around Christmas.

“When we opened up the New Beverly about two weeks ago, in June, we sold out every single show. And I’ll announce one thing here that people don’t know yet: I bought the Vista. We’re going to probably open it up around Christmastime. And again, only film,” Tarantino said. “But it won’t be a revival house — we’ll show new movies that come out where they give us a film print, we’ll show new stuff. It’s not going to be like the New Beverly, the New Beverly has its own vibe. The Vista is like a crown jewel kind of thing. So it will be the best prints, we’ll show older films, but they’ll be like older films where you can hold a fortnight engagement.”
Popular on Variety


Chris Pratt at 'The Tomorrow War' Premiere

Representatives for the Vista Theatre and Tarantino did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Saginaw Michigan multiplex reopens under new badge

Emagine to reopen former GDX 10 screen in Saginaw

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1...oiowFHoECEcQAw

[Geoff Jones]

Bobby, that stinks about the Southlake location. On a positive note, the listings for the Northfield location have been updated through the end of the year, so it seems that was simply a website issue.

It would be great if Alamo would show a classic movie or two in their Big Show theater but I suspect F9 has the usual riders attached about having to be shown only on your largest screens for two weeks,

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy this. Drafthouse locations in other states show classics on their largest screens. The Drafthouse Woodbridge theater is showing T2 and JAWS on their Big Show screen later this month instead of whatever new release will be booked in that auditorium (Probably Space Jam, Snake Eyes, or Jungle Cruise.)

In fact, on Monday, the largest screen at Loudon Drafthouse is running two showtimes of Boss Baby, one of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and one of F9.

Incidentally, their single showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark has sold 83 tickets so far, while the other five new releases playing across 25 showtimes have sold 13 tickets so far.


I've asked it before and I'll ask it again: Has a studio ever come down on a cinema for moving a current release off a large screen in favor of a classic? What were the consequences?

(I'm not suggesting that new releases shouldn't play on the largest screens, btw. Of course they should. I'm just saying that they shouldn't monopolize them.)


Refusing to play classics on the largest screens is leaving money on the table, at least in some markets. It doesn't make any sense to me.

[Bobby Henderson]

What is alarming is that the showtime listings for Harkins Northfield 18 end in September, while most of Harkins' other theaters list showtimes through the end of the year. Harkins Northfield is the only cinema in Denver's front range that puts on a reliably awesome presentation, as far as I'm aware.

I found out a few days ago Harkins shut down its Southlake 14 theater while visiting the Harkins web site. It turns out the theater closed for good on November 1 due to COVID-19 related business woes. Southlake is an upper income suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth close to the Grapevine area. The Southlake 14 had a Cine Capri screen. The room wasn't as big as the Bricktown 16 Cine Capri in downtown Oklahoma City. But it was a pretty decent venue regardless. Now the OKC cinema is the only Harkins location in this region.

[William Kucharski]

It would be great if Alamo would show a classic movie or two in their Big Show theater but I suspect F9 has the usual riders attached about having to be shown only on your largest screens for two weeks,

When I told the box office kids about presentation issues for TNC they just kind of shrugged and one gave me the "we're not allowed to change the volume" spiel.

[Leo Enticknap]

Interesting that others seem to have encountered poor presentation at the Harkins Tuesday night classics. We went to some of them at the Redlands, CA, theater, before the pandemic, and I was pleasantly surprised at most of them. My only (very minor) gripe was that they weren't able to close the masking to 1.37 for Meet Me In St. Louis, but the audio was at a decent volume: given that it's a mono movie, I was expecting the worst. But all the others were presented very nicely, I thought. And the $5 admission was an absolute bargain.

[Mike Croaro]

(CA) Cinemark vacates Palo Alto Square Cinema. Office complex to seek new operator of twin cinema. Mike

https://www.almanacnews.com/news/202...y84RuHvE-T4nxg

[Geoff Jones]

I stopped going to Harkins Northfield because of presentation issues.

It was usually with their Tuesday Night Classics presentations and was usually bad framing and sound turned down way too low; they had to be running their 650s in the 4s.

I'm sorry to hear that. I don't bother going to the Tuesday Night Classics unless they are on the big Cine-Capri screen (I can already watch classics on a decent screen at home), and everything I've ever seen on the Cine-Capri has been terrific. I hope you told someone about the issues. They are pretty responsive.

There’s just no content

There's plenty of content. That's the whole point. There are hundreds of movies that people love and want to experience again (and share with their children who have never even seen them). These titles regularly outperform new releases (on a limited basis and in certain markets). There's a 7 billion dollar industry built around the fact that customers want to revisit their favorite movies with excellent picture and sound, but some exhibitors seem willfully ignorant of this fact, despite the data from their own ticket sales.

At the Alamo Drafthouse Westminster location, over the last few days, there have been crammed showings of Blade Runner 2049 on small screens while the Big Show auditorium sat nearly empty showing F9.

It's safe to assume they've lost sales to classic films due to people looking at the seating chart and thinking, "There aren't any good seats left," and I know for a fact they've lost sales due to people looking at it and thinking "That screen doesn't look much bigger than what I've got at home." This happened repeatedly before the pandemic and based on how they are programming the Westminster location, it appears it will continue, almost certainly with Raiders, Jaws, T2, Pulp Fiction, and more. Maybe even Austin Powers.

And sadly, Harkins seems to have dropped the ball as well. Back before the pandemic, they were showing some of their Tuesday Night Classics in their premium auditoriums and they were consistently drawing larger crowds than whatever new release played there the night before or the night after. Now, they are running them on small screens again, while their premium screens sit nearly empty. Sometimes literally empty.

[William Kucharski]

Sorry to hear of the slow sales for Alamo Westminster, though honestly they haven’t been showing anything I wanted to see until I saw Jaws hit their schedule for July and Austin Powers for August.

I did go to the Scorsese series in the small theater at Sloan’s Lake.

There’s just no content; Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is a future rental at best, not worth premium prices.

Depending upon the timing I can see going to the Big Show screen for Top Gun: Maverick and the new Ghostbusters, and just maybe the new Bond.

There are still lots of rumors the Aspen Grove Alamo will never reopen, as Aspen Grove may become yet another mixed use retail/housing development and Alamo doesn’t fit with that new concept since an apartment complex could be built where it sits now, and Alamo certainly wouldn’t mind the cost reduction.

[William Kucharski]

I stopped going to Harkins Northfield because of presentation issues.

It was usually with their Tuesday Night Classics presentations and was usually bad framing and sound turned down way too low; they had to be running their 650s in the 4s.

[Geoff Jones]

These aren't closings, because they never got built, but references to the new Harkins Colorado locations announced for Aurora and Northglenn have been removed from their Theater Openings page. They still have listings for new theaters in Laveen and Tucson. This is disappointing, but unsurprising.

What is alarming is that the showtime listings for Harkins Northfield 18 end in September, while most of Harkins' other theaters list showtimes through the end of the year. Harkins Northfield is the only cinema in Denver's front range that puts on a reliably awesome presentation, as far as I'm aware. The AMCs, Regals, Cinemarks, and Drafthouses are fraught with sound problems, small screens, constant-width screens, stray light issues, etc. Hopefully, someone is just behind on updating their website...