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Openings
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October 9, 2008
New Drive-In to open
MONETA, VA — You hear of drive-in movie theaters closing all the time, but here’s a story of one that’s opening.
Bob Craig, 59, has been interested in drive-ins ever since his father use to operate the projectors at the former Riverside Drive-in in Southeast Roanoke.
Three years ago, he dreamed of creating his own drive-in. This summer he built a 26x60-foot movie screen and had it hoisted in place with a crane. He bought old FedEx kiosks and a diner on eBay to use as ticket booths and for food service.
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October 7, 2008
Air base theater to reopen
MISAWA AIR BASE, JAPAN — The base movie theater closed late last month and is currently undergoing renovations. Civil engineers are installing a new heating and air conditioning system and new seats in the Richard Bong Theater.
A grand opening is planned for November 26th, but Army and Air Force Exchange Service officials expect the theater to be opened before then.
Read more in Stars and Stripes.
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Multiplex battles landlord over termination payment
MEMPHIS, TN — The Muvico Peabody Place 22 & IMAX theater may have closed last June because of lack of business, but Muvico Cinemas is locked in a federal lawsuit with the owner of the downtown mall it was in over a $700,000 escape clause that the theater company says it was tricked into signing.
Business at the Peabody Place mall had been slowly drying up as virtually all the tenants on the shopping center’s second floor, where the theater was located, closed down.
Vacancies were not being replaced, and Muvico actually returned eight of its 22 auditoriums back to the owner two years ago as attendance dropped off. In its brief seven-year history, the theater had gained a reputation for being a hangout for unruly teenagers which drove away older patrons.
During the negotiations to give back some of the theater’s massive 110,000 square feet, the landlord included a $700,000 early termination clause. Muvico said they agreed to it because the landlord assured them that Peabody Place would continue to be a shopping mall. However the owner announced last summer he wanted to to turn the mall into a luxury hotel which Muvico says breaks their 20-year lease. The landlord disagrees and is suing for the $700,000.
Read more in The Daily News and CommercialAppeal.com.
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North Riverside Park Theater under new management
NORTH RIVERSIDE, IL — The North Riverside Park Mall movie theater will reopen later this month under new management. The operator, Village Theatres, was evicted by the mall owners on Sept. 28th. Classic Cinemas is the new operator.
Classic Cinemas will redecorate and remodel the theater with upgraded seating and updated projection.
The company will also remove signage for Cineplex Odeon which went out of business in 1998.
Village Theatres took over the six-screen multiplex in 2006 from AMC Entertainment, which had inherited it from Loews earlier that year.
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October 3, 2008
North Iowa Cinema Closes
MASON CITY, IA — After 20 years, the Cinema V Theatre at the Southbridge Mall is closing due to a steady deterioration of audiences over the years. The manager noted that some days the five-screen theater had no business at all and he skipped showing films because no one was there. He will continue to manager the newer Cinema West 8.
You can read more information at KIMT.com.
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Logan Art Cinema to stay open
LOGAN, UH — The Logan Art Cinema was about to close at the end of the month but its owners, the Salt Lake City-based Westates Theaters, said Thursday that they will keep it open at least through March.
The theater is rundown, but it’s the only place in Utah’s Cache Valley showing independent and art films.
Westates says it will try some different programming to draw audiences. Over the summer, for instance, one of the pictures it showed was “Hellboy 2”.
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Campus Theatre reopens
LEWISBURG, PA — The historic Campus Theatre reopened last Thursday after being closed for nearly two months because of a fire and flood.
The celebration included a screening of the appropriately titled “Burn After Reading.”
The single-screen theater opened in 1941 and was restored in 2001 by a Bucknell University film professor who lives in an apartment he built in an empty space above the lobby.
You can read more at Philly.com and The Biemiller Ice * Coal Co..
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October 2, 2008
ABBA Movie Musical saves theater
MONMOUTH, WALES — The hit movie musical “Mamma Mia!” has saved the oldest theater in Wales from closing.
Record audiences have packed the 400-seat, 150-year old Savoy Theatre during the film’s two-week run bringing in enough money to keep the theater open well in 2009.
Previously, the Savoy Theatre Development Trust had announced that the theater would have to close due to a lack of revenue. On some nights, there were not even enough people to cover the electricity bills.
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October 1, 2008
Lights! Camera! Northern Brooklyn!
WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN, NY — A new theatre is sprouting up in the Williamsburg-Greenport area with a unique setup. It will be built beneath condos in a retrofitted warehouse.
Since 2002, Williamsburg-Greenpoint has lived without a movie theater. The absence is especially surprising given the area’s history of film exhibition: At one point, the neighborhoods boasted six movie theaters in less than five square miles. But since the 1950s, the theaters have been slowly disappearing, converted to other uses or demolished.
“If you’re making some amount of money showing movies there,” said Patrick Crowley, the co-founder of cinematreasures.org, a Wikipedia-like site devoted to cinema preservation, “and a developer says, ‘I can give you a ton of money to have development on top of the theater,’ then it’s hard to say no to that.”
Read more in the Observer.
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September 30, 2008
Drexel Grandview remains open temporarily
COLUMBUS, OH — After calling his theater “a dinosaur,” and “I don’t think it’s economically viable for it to ever be a movie theater again,” Drexel Grandview owner and manager Jeff Frank did not close the theater this weekend as originally planned.
In an email to Drexel patrons sent last Friday afternoon, Jeff Frank announced: “Because of the severe storms last week and the loss of power at both our theatres and cafe, and the fact that many people were without power, we decided it would be best to postpone our Grand Closing Event for Drexel Grandview. We are currently working on keeping the theatre open for a few additional weeks so we can plan this event and we’re still trying to work out a way to keep the theatre open longer.”