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What's the latest theatre to close or open you have heard about?
Only so many theater locations can be closed before it starts badly impacting the various businesses that supply industry-specific hardware and services to cinemas. What is the tipping point going to be to force a company to stop making cinema-grade digital projectors? Those appliances have to be produced at a certain level of scale.
I find it kind of scary to see AMC continuing to close "AMC Classic" (former Carmike) locations, such as the 14-plex in Fort Smith and 16-screen site in Allentown. The situation makes me wonder if the Patriot Cinemas here in Lawton could be in any danger. Those two former Carmike locations are older (the Fort Smith one looks like a 1990's build). Still, multiplex theaters less than a decade old aren't immune from being shuttered.
Its been a while since I worked for AMC, but it was there policy previously to close ALL "Classic" locations once their leases were up.
Locations that did well enough to justify some renovation would be renovated and be under the regular AMC banner. But if its a "Classic" .....it will close.
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?
Only so many theater locations can be closed before it starts badly impacting the various businesses that supply industry-specific hardware and services to cinemas. What is the tipping point going to be to force a company to stop making cinema-grade digital projectors? Those appliances have to be produced at a certain level of scale.
I find it kind of scary to see AMC continuing to close "AMC Classic" (former Carmike) locations, such as the 14-plex in Fort Smith and 16-screen site in Allentown. The situation makes me wonder if the Patriot Cinemas here in Lawton could be in any danger. Those two former Carmike locations are older (the Fort Smith one looks like a 1990's build). Still, multiplex theaters less than a decade old aren't immune from being shuttered.
With the articles you mention, I'm sure some of them mention more than one location closing. For example: The 5 or 6 that just closed in Texas with the Alamo Drafthouse announcement. Also, how many locations have closed and were never mentioned in a news article?
Those June 2023 to June 2024 active theatre numbers are gut wrenching.
159 days into the year 2024. I don't have the exact numbers, but I had been keeping track and lost count at 100, - but I'm fairly certain that at least 150 movie theatres have closed in the United States so far this year. Possibly more? Maybe even as many days as there are in the year so far.
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I've been trying to keep up with the closings here:
I count 62 articles since Jan 1, so there's at least that many that have closed. I'm sure there are some that I have missed, or just didn't have time to document other than closing their entry on our site.
On June 27, 2023, we listed 5,451 active theaters in the US showing movies and now there are 5,196 (-255).
Jim, Go figure... An interesting announcement tonight on Linkedin from MIT is they were awarded a multi million dollar contract from Alamo to equip a new Alamo Draft House in Indianoplis... So is Alamo actually hurting? Or just closing under performing sites?
159 days into the year 2024. I don't have the exact numbers, but I had been keeping track and lost count at 100, - but I'm fairly certain that at least 150 movie theatres have closed in the United States so far this year. Possibly more? Maybe even as many days as there are in the year so far.
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There's gonna be a glut of used gear auctioned off from the bankrupt locations... hopefully some laser projectors in the mix. I remember the auction of equipment at the theaters next to the Cinerama Dome when all that shut down, it was a lot of stuff. Mostly Series 1 projectors though...
159 days into the year 2024. I don't have the exact numbers, but I had been keeping track and lost count at 100, - but I'm fairly certain that at least 150 movie theatres have closed in the United States so far this year. Possibly more? Maybe even as many days as there are in the year so far.
Quoting Scotty Wright- "All Five Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Locations In Dallas-Fort Worth Close "
--> Alamo also announced today their Woodbury MN location would be closing also.
Probably not related but it was exactly a year ago this week Alamo fired most of the projection staff members at many of
their locations, especially if they were in the union (IATSE) or seeking to unionize. I know know what you're thinking--
-- that this sort of thing is illegal- - - but there are all sorts of sneaky legal loopholes corporations use all the time to get
around this. I've worked for several large corporations in my so called career, and have seen this many times. It's my
understanding that complaints were filed with the NLRB, but those can take years to wind their way through the courts,
and in the meantime those affected wind up laid off in unemployment limbo, like several people I know who got canned.
I will have to say that sort of the opposite happened to me when I was in Local 110 and working as the day time operator at The Logan Theater.. In my case both General Cinema's and Cineplex's contracts expired at midnight on the same day. They refused to sign new contracts with the Local, and I had gotten wind of what was going to happen a few weeks before it did... Hence it pretty much eliminated about 400 some members overnight, some of them very long time members, service tech's, etc. Since I was a fairly new member of about a year, I knew I'd be one of those let go. So instead I left the union and went on my own. Today Local 110 still exists as a fraction of what the Union once was, but now they mainly cover shows and special events. When I was working on movies I still paid my IA dues and fees as though I was a member, even though I was not a member of any particular Union.
Below is a link to an interesting article about Local 110...
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