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

[Lyle Romer]

The Vue and Brew, a 3-screen combination theater and coffee shop, in Laurel MT, population 6000, is discontinuing showing first run movies. They're planning to stay open, but they'll only show sponsored matinees and private shows. They opened about 10 years or so ago, but they have been operating on only one screen for several months now (I'm sure expensive repairs are needed on the other two projectors) with inconsistent showtimes.

Laurel used to have a single screen theater called the Laurel Movie Haus, with a German pub theme. It was really a cool place. But it burned down and they were without a theatre for a few years until the Vue and Brew opened. According to a post on their FB page, they've been averaging an unsustainable 9 people per showing over the past few months. I don't know what went wrong.

Is Laurel closer to Billings than you are? I guess I could play with google maps but where is the fun in that?

[Mike Blakesley]

The Vue and Brew, a 3-screen combination theater and coffee shop, in Laurel MT, population 6000, is discontinuing showing first run movies. They're planning to stay open, but they'll only show sponsored matinees and private shows. They opened about 10 years or so ago, but they have been operating on only one screen for several months now (I'm sure expensive repairs are needed on the other two projectors) with inconsistent showtimes.

Laurel used to have a single screen theater called the Laurel Movie Haus, with a German pub theme. It was really a cool place. But it burned down and they were without a theatre for a few years until the Vue and Brew opened. According to a post on their FB page, they've been averaging an unsustainable 9 people per showing over the past few months. I don't know what went wrong.

[Bobby Henderson]

The stadium seated theater building boom of the mid 1990's put the cinema industry into uncharted territory. Plenty of bad things resulted from it. All those 24 and 30 screen builds put AMC into bankruptcy. Newer stadium seated theaters killed off a lot of arguably better premiere-class theaters boasting bigger screens, higher seat counts, better equipment and better skilled crews. The theater chains got obsessed with having multiplex sites boasting the most screens rather than the best screens.

Today the race to bottom is in another stage with all the damned recliners. It's commonplace now for a multiplex to have rooms with well under 100 seats and a NOT-impressive sized screen to match the tiny scale.

I don't think it's a bad thing for a multiplex site to have a couple or so smaller houses with modest seat counts. But I think the industry needs to get back to building huge auditoriums for the event movies when they open. It's a different feeling walking into an auditorium that has 1000 or more seats and a scary-good sound system to go with it. I'd certainly skip the living room couch to see a movie in that kind of environment. In the past I've driven 200+ miles each way to Dallas to see movies in that kind of setting. I can't make myself drive to the other side of town to watch a movie on a not-all-that-big screen.

[Lyle Romer]

Off-topic from Alamo, but this is devastating for the Northern Virginia side of the DC area:

https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/06/14/th...tarting-monday


Regarding overscreening in general, AMC is the worst example. They built so many 24 and 30 plexes in the megaplex boom of the late '90s and early '00s and now they can't begin to fill them. They've been walling off most of these by half, so a 30 becomes a 17 (they keep the four big ones in the middle), a 24 becomes a 14, etc. But those are still too big. Any newly built theater never has more than ten screens or 1500 seats, because it's just impossible to fill more than that.

In hindsight it was crazy for AMC to build those megaplexes. However, at the time it made some sense. It allowed things like running 5 or 6 prints of the big releases to even out the flow of customers for more efficient staffing and also allowed them to hold things for several weeks in the smaller auditoriums. In those days, smaller plexes would have to cancel shows (either by scheduling or suddenly having "technical problems") so that they could interlock the blockbusters on multiple screens. As the industry has changed it makes no sense to have more than 10 screens. For a new build, it makes no sense to me to build an auditorium that doesn't at least have a 40' screen. With large TVs being the only product that doesn't suffer from crazy inflation (actually they seem to deflate), why would anybody spend money to watch a movie on a postage stamp screen when they can watch it at home on a huge TV in a few weeks?

[Ian Puffenberger]

Off-topic from Alamo, but this is devastating for the Northern Virginia side of the DC area:

https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/06/14/th...tarting-monday

Icon is absolutely the best theater in the region: the best collection of screens with 9 out of 14 scope including four huge PLFs with Dolby Atmos. Their presentation has always been top notch. Obviously there's no way of knowing what will change or how long they'll be closed but a "newer smaller chain" doesn't imply any more confidence than if it was one of the behemoths. Tysons is a very busy area but it's heavily screened, with 38 in about one square mile including an AMC at the Tysons 1 that's the busiest in the region. And the rent at Icon's location has to be astronomical.

Back to Alamo, in the mood I'm in I'd just expect the worst. They're run by the same person, for now, but now he has bean counter bosses. Of course they'll play more Sony movies, probably starting with anime. Of course prices will go up and quality will go down, probably with the food first as that's secondary to what people go there for. There will probably be less local beer and more Sapporo-owned stuff. They might try and force the franchise locations to either sell or be cut off to do their own thing. And of course other studios will try to get in the game now.

Regarding overscreening in general, AMC is the worst example. They built so many 24 and 30 plexes in the megaplex boom of the late '90s and early '00s and now they can't begin to fill them. They've been walling off most of these by half, so a 30 becomes a 17 (they keep the four big ones in the middle), a 24 becomes a 14, etc. But those are still too big. Any newly built theater never has more than ten screens or 1500 seats, because it's just impossible to fill more than that.

There was discussion that it would take much of this decade to see the full fallout of the pandemic in the cinema world, then Spidervengers and Top Gun came along and everyone forgot about it. Well guess what: we're sure as shit starting to see the fallout now.

[Mike Blakesley]

The Sony verbiage about no changes at Alamo is verbatim from every acquisition press release, ever.

That's for sure. My day job is, I run an independent Carquest auto parts store. When the Carquest parent company was bought out by Advance Auto Parts a few years ago, they told us over and over that nothing major would change, it would be business as usual, and we would now have access to Advance's warehouses as well as our own, making us by far the largest supplied parts chain in the country.

Then they immediately started making changes, swapping product lines for cheaper ones, closing distribution centers, shedding company stores, consolidating or eliminating corporate jobs, tightened return policies, raised costs on services, made us buy case lots of hundreds of things we used to buy by the 'each,' and basically implemented every bogus "enhancement" in the book, each of which was touted to make things better for us, but in reality just cost us more money and/or increased our workload, or both. The whole operation is being run by a bunch of algorithms. And their stock has been tanking lately.

So I do fear for the future of Alamo Drafthouse (A Sony Company), and Carquest.

[Bobby Henderson]

Interestingly, in NYC, the average number of screens has been dropping a bit as theaters close. It peaked at 8.74 screens per theater in 2022 and it's now 8.32.

Highly populated cities like New York City, and Manhattan in particular, are in a uniquely troubled situation. While there is more than enough of population to support commercial cinemas the property values too damned high. A commercial cinema operation either can't afford the lease. Or the landlord refuses to renew a theater's lease, opting to get a different business into that spot, a business that can pay much more money.

Cinemas are increasingly being priced out of city centers. The cost of that is the movie industry loses more and more high profile, showcase locations. Things like world premiere events at flagship cinema locations help build the marketing buzz before a movie is released to the general public. There is a big difference between holding a red carpet event at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood versus doing it at a mall off I-15 in Ontario.

Does everything come full circle?

In this case, not quite. When movie studios and cinemas were vertically integrated the general public had far fewer choices of entertainment. Broadcast television was still in its infancy in 1948 when the Paramount Decree was put into effect.

Today people have so many more choices of entertainment. The major movie studios of today are small compared to the major studios of the past. They produce fewer movies per year. Of the ones they do produce, they're often co-produced and co-financed by other production companies.

There is still a moral hazard of sorts with a company like Sony pushing its studio product thru Alamo Drafthouse locations. But I think even they would understand it would be a suicidal idea for those theaters to show only Sony Pictures content. They're not making enough movies to keep a rotation of fresh product moving through the screens of a multiplex. I want longer theatrical release windows, but the days are long over when a movie could keep playing on a single screen for several months or even a year.

I think the biggest danger with major studios taking over theater chains is they could collude with each other to shut out cinema screen access to smaller independent production companies. It already feels like that is the case when you visit any mainstream suburban multiplex. You have to visit a specialty theater in a big city to be able to see art indie content on any dependable basis. It's either that or catch the show via a streaming service like Netflix.

[William Kucharski]

Also, kiddies, in 1999, SONY opened what was (and still is) the largest multiplex cinema in
downtown San Francisco. (16 Auditoriums + IMAX) Somewhere I have pictures I took in
the original booth, which was almost a city block long. The name SONY THEATERS was
emblazoned in big letters on the front for about 6 years before they jumped ship on that
venture, although I'm not sure why they left, since it pretty much has the highest box office
numbers in SF every week. (despite the occasional stabbings and gang fights there)

Credit where credit is due though - they do an absolutely incredible job when they run 15/70; I suspect they use contract staff for that.

The Sony verbiage about no changes at Alamo is verbatim from every acquisition press release, ever.

In most cases, it changes within one financial quarter, if not within a few weeks.

Look for changes to their menu, too.

[Jim Cassedy]

The question is, will Sony go for the dollars and drop Alamo's
"ejected without a refund" policy for talking/texting? Will they allow repertory
showings of non-Sony product going forward? For that matter will they show
new non-Sony product?

Both these topics, and more, were addressed in an Alamo internal communications memo sent to
all employees in which they said that "there will be no change in Alamo's 'culture" or policies',".
they also said: "this acquisition will not change how we partner with our other film studio partners
or affect the variety of films we play".

Now, having worked for several large corporations that have undergone mergers or acquisitions,
I've learned to take all of these types of statements with a dose of skepticism. Lets face it, Sony
doesn't exactly have the greatest track record of long term commitments to cinema related stuff.
(ie: SDDS, The elimination of their professional cinema business, etc)

Also, kiddies, in 1999, SONY opened what was (and still is) the largest multiplex cinema in
downtown San Francisco. (16 Auditoriums + IMAX) Somewhere I have pictures I took in
the original booth, which was almost a city block long. The name SONY THEATERS was
emblazoned in big letters on the front for about 6 years before they jumped ship on that
venture, although I'm not sure why they left, since it pretty much has the highest box office
numbers in SF every week. (despite the occasional stabbings and gang fights there)
When Sony left, LOEWS ran it for a while, and a few years later, it was acquired by AMC.

On a personal note, not long after they opened in 1999, I went there and interviewed for a
job, even though I was already employed elsewhere. At that time it was all 35mm platters,
with small SONY (of course) projectors used for pre-show advertising slides. The job
interview with their HR guy went well, and the next week they called me back in for a 2nd,
interview with their Projection Manager, and a few days later they actually offered to hire me.
Well, let me tell you, in all the jobs offers I've gotten in my adult life, this was the only one that
actually offended me. The salary they offered was insulting- - and this wasn't an 'entry level'
position. . you had to know more than the average platter monkey to handle that place. I said
I'd think it over and get back to them - - but I never did. They tried contacting me a few times
after that- - but I never returned their calls. . . and that's my Sony story.
.

[Martin Brooks]

Was thinking more along the lines, did the number of screens decrease with the number of locations. Or did they increase as fourplexes were replaced by 24 plexes. And while we're at it, did the audience decrease with the decrease in locations? Ie: Did more screen attract more people?

By every measure - box-office, tickets sold, per-capita admissions, % of people going to a movie per week, etc., the industry is in big trouble.

In 2002, North American box-office was $9.16 billion ($15.99b in current $$), 1.576 billion tickets were sold, there were 30.3 million weekly admissions, 9.5% of the population saw a movie each week and per capita movies was 4.94 per year per person.

In pre-pandemic 2019, North American box-office was $11.257 billion ($13.8b in current $$), 1.229 billion tickets were sold, there were 23.63 million weekly admissions, 6.44% of the population saw a movie each week and per capita movies was 3.35 per year per person.
In 2023, box-office was $8.9 billion ($9.16b in current $$), 848m tickets were sold, there were 16.3 million weekly admissions, 4.37% of the population saw a movie each week and per capita movies was 2.28.

If the rest of this year continues as the first 23 weeks has, we'll come in at $6.37 billion box-office and 591m tickets. In the first 23 weeks, 2.99% of the population saw a movie each week and the prorated per capita movies is just 1.56 per year. If that doesn't change, a LOT of theaters are going to close.

As to whether fewer theaters caused lower box-office or lower box-office caused fewer theaters to survive, that's a chicken-and-egg question.

What we do know is that in pre-pandemic 2019, AMC, the largest chain, averaged ticket sales of just 92 per day per screen and they lost $149m that year. In 2023, they averaged ticket sales of just 59 per day per screen and they lost $397 million. In Q1 of 2024, they averaged 53 tickets per day per screen and they already lost $364 million. This is quite obviously not sustainable. No consumer business could survive so few customers. If there's four shows per day, we're talking an average of 13.25 tickets per show. Customers are simply not showing up.

Interestingly, in NYC, the average number of screens has been dropping a bit as theaters close. It peaked at 8.74 screens per theater in 2022 and it's now 8.32.

[William Kucharski]

The question is, will Sony go for the dollars and drop Alamo's "ejected without a refund" policy for talking/texting? Will they allow repertory showings of non-Sony product going forward? For that matter will they show new non-Sony product?

[Ryan Gallagher]

I wonder if we'll see other big studios, such as Disney and Warner Bros, buy stakes in theater chains or buy them completely. Maybe if the studios have some skin in the cinema game it might encourage them to lengthen those theatrical release windows.

Does everything come full circle? In the historical arc of motion picture exhibition... wasn't studio owned cinemas very early in the real brick&morter incarnation of cinemas, the Cinema Palace era... (after the travelling projectionist era and nickelodeons and a handful of independents proved it was workable)

Back then they definitely showed predominantly their own pictures I think. Not sure I see a reason for THAT to change outside of filling gaps in a schedule.

It's worth noting it was a 1948 Anti-Trust suit that broke up the vertical monopolies of the "Big Five". Now I feel like it has to be a monopoly of ONE or TWO before it is even a blip on the anti-trust radar.

[Bobby Henderson]

I guess Sony buying Alamo Drafthouse could be a good thing. At least it might get those closed Alamo locations re-opened. It looks like two private equity companies were involved in the previous ownership structure. Having an actual movie studio involved in theater ownership could actually be an improvement. But what's going to happen with the whole franchise arrangement? Is that going to stay in place?

Will Sony's ownership affect the kinds of movies Alamo is able to show? Or will Sony push more Sony movie studio product into Alamo theaters?

I wonder if we'll see other big studios, such as Disney and Warner Bros, buy stakes in theater chains or buy them completely. Maybe if the studios have some skin in the cinema game it might encourage them to lengthen those theatrical release windows.

[Scotty Wright]

Sony bought the Alamo Drafthouse chain

[Bobby Henderson]

The situation here in Lawton with its only remaining first run multiplex looks like a mixed bag.

One thing on its side is the Patriot Cinemas is newer than other former Carmike locations AMC acquired. It opened in November of 2015, just a couple or so months before AMC announced plans to buy out Carmike (the deal took until 12/2016 to get finalized, due to an anti-trust lawsuit from the DOJ). The Patriot Cinemas has the second largest IMAX digital house in Oklahoma (after the Moore Warren screen in Moore, OK). Funny thing: to this day, there has never been any chain-specific branding signage installed on the building. The exterior signage just mentions Patriot Cinemas and IMAX.

A factor that makes me pessimistic about the theater's future is how AMC has operated and maintained the cinema over the past several years. Staffing is minimal, even by Carmike's old standards. Anything that's broken can stay broken for a long time. I don't know what the life span is for digital projection systems, such as a pair of 2K IMAX xenon lamp projectors. I don't have high hopes for any big laser upgrades, although the big IMAX house would do pretty well with new projectors and a 12 channel sound system.

When the Patriot Cinemas first opened the Lawton market was arguably over-screened. There was a little 12-plex theater in Central Mall, operated by Starplex (which was acquired by AMC). Our old Carmike 8 theater was operating as a bargain theater. And we had the old Vaska Theater, a single screen theater that's still operating on a wing and a prayer.

It didn't take long for AMC to shut down the old Carmike 8 theater; it has been boarded up for the past 6 years. AMC had to spin-off the 12-plex mall theater to New Vision Theaters. That chain got liquidated in 2020; the mall theater has been closed ever since. That left Lawton with just the Patriot Cinemas and Vaska.

I think the old Carmike 8 building will eventually be demolished. Locally there was talk several months ago about a church renovating the building, but nothing has happened. The theater was battling mold issues during its first-run years. It's probably utterly riddled with mold now and beyond repair. Our old 1970's style mall has only one remaining anchor tenant, JCPenney. 20 years ago that mall would be packed on the weekends. Now it's like a ghost town. The former Dillard's and Sears spaces have been renovated into facilities for defense technology companies. You need a security clearance just to walk inside. Some of the other empty retail spaces are being converted into office space too.

Our old Vaska theater is just getting by. The lack of competition kind of helps. But they don't have enough money to install features we take for granted, such as surround speakers.

With the way the movie theater industry is suffering the chances look pretty good for Lawton to end up with no operating movie theaters at all. This is a market with around 120,000 people. I would like to think if AMC closed the Patriot Cinemas another chain might buy it. But with foot traffic at theaters being what it is that prospect does not look likely.