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Openings
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September 29, 2008
Ren Cen 4 opens in Detroit
DETROIT, MI — Last weekend, Uptown Entertainment opened the renovated Riverfront 4 Theatres located in the GM Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. Nearly 350 invited guests from the community attended the Saturday celebration. The featured film presentation was Dreamworks' Igor.
The new Ren Cen 4 Theater is offering a discounted admission price of $6 until October 5th when the regular price will be $8.50. Valet parking is free until November 1st when the price will be $2 with a purchased ticket.
The theater bills itself as family friendly and state of the art, and will be available to rent for meetings and events.
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September 26, 2008
Maine Coast Mall Cinemas shutdown quietly
ELLSWORTH, ME — The Maine Coast Mall Cinemas, operated by the Boston Culinary Group, quietly closed last week with no warning. The theatre is no longer listed on the company website and no movie titles are listed on its lighted mall sign.
The town’s other theater, The Grand Auditorium, a non-profit performance arts center, hopes to take advantage of this by expanding its film program to more mainstream movies, although on a second-run basis.
You can read more at the Ellsworth American.
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September 25, 2008
Westcott Theater reopens
SYRACUSE, NY — The Wescott Theater, formerly the Westcott Cinema, reopened over the weekend as a performing arts center and bar after being closed for 11 months.
The new owners have torn up seats, installed spotlights, built a bar in one of the hall’s corners, and added a stage underneath the movie screen. The Wescott is looking to host music acts and community events as well as film festivals.
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September 23, 2008
Independents find it tough going
FALMOUTH, MA — A recent article in the Cape Cod Times demonstrated how difficult it is to open and run a small, independent theater these days.
The Falmouth Cinema Pub, using a dinner/cocktails concept, closed in less than 10 months after its owner spent more than $1 million on renovations. The cinema pub was housed in the old Falmouth Mall Cinemas, converting six theaters to three. The place sat 400 and served pizza, burgers, appetizers, beer and wine during the movies. But if failed to attract enough people to make it profitable.
Another nearby cinema on Cape Cod suffered a similar fate. The Buzzards Bay Theater in Bourne took seven years to open and closed just four months later
Its owner spent $165,000 to renovate his theater but it attracted only 3,000 people a month, not the 10,000 he expected, and closed.
You can read more here.
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September 17, 2008
Union Station Movie Theaters To Close
WASHINGTON, DC — After a 20 year run the terminal located Union Station 9 will be closing.
Opened in 1988 as part of the renovation of the station, the Union Station 9’s theaters are named after the classic old movie palaces that once dotted the District — the Roxy, Palace, Orpheum, Penn and so on. But there was nothing classic about the look or experience of the Union Station multiplex, which, because of its location at the crossroads between the affluent and impoverished parts of town, became a symbol of the very different moviegoing cultures in this country.
Read the full story in the Washington Post.
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3 Classic Marlene Dietrich Films at the Loew’s Jersey Theater
JERSEY CITY, NJ — A New Season of Classic Film Begins With
Dietrich
September 26 & 27
At the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre
54 Journal Square, Jersey City, NJ 07306 Tel. (201) 798-6055 Fax. (201) 798-4020 Web. www.loewsjersey.org
A Not-For-Profit Arts CenterRediscover the EXPERIENCE of going to the movies: The BIG screen. The Mighty organ. In a GRAND palace.
“Glamour is what I sell. It’s my stock in trade.” — Marlene Dietrich
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Single screen theater for sale?
I’m looking at opening a single screen theater for first run movies in my town. We plan to make it a dinner/bar theater that includes a lounge/cafe while you wait for your movie to begin. Can anyone help with start up cost on equipment, build out of the theater, obtaining movie rights, and more?
Thanks
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September 8, 2008
New Eco Cinema in Northwest London
KENSAL RISE, LONDON, ENGLAND — Self-made millionaire Sally Wilton is to launch an 80 seat all digital cinema in Northwest London next month called the Lexi Cinema.
This sounds like a treat for neighborhood residents!
“It is not one of those awful multiplex affairs – it is a real, local cinema and one which we hope will make going to see a film a magical occasion.” The 80-seat venue will show a mix of art-house, retrospective and mainstream movies, while its bar will serve fairtrade wine and organic ice cream.
More from the Evening Standard of September 1st.
And from the Pinkham Lighthouse website.
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September 4, 2008
Ritz shuts its doors
MALVERN, AR — After a 70 year run, the Ritz Theatre is closing its doors.
After 70 years of continuous operation, thousands of screenings, tons of popcorn and even more memories, the Ritz movie theater made its final curtain call Thursday night.
Its proprietors expected a packed house of about 150 for the cash-strapped cinema’s final show.
Barely half that number showed up.
The full story is at Arkansas Online(subscription rqr’d)
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August 22, 2008
Drive-in coming soon to Davenport
DAVENPORT, IA — Although not quite as early as initially reported, the Reel to Reel drive-in is still in the works.
Located off West Locust Street and north of West Lake Park in Davenport, the family’s Reel to Reel Drive-in – co-owned by Aaron, Randy, and Terri – is scheduled to open in the spring of 2009, and will stand as the first operational outdoor theatre the Quad Cities area has seen since the closing of Davenport’s Oasis drive-in in 1987.
The two-screen Reel to Reel was originally slated to open this past April, but Mother Nature nixed that plan. “The rain was the big delay for us,” says Arron. “We basically have to move every square inch of dirt on our entire eight acres, and we were told [by contractors] that unless the ground’s solid six inches through, it’s not even worth coming out.
Get the full story in the River Cities' Reader.
(Thanks to mjcarrasquillo for providing the photo.)