AMC Rockaway Inner 6/Outer 6

301 Mount Hope Avenue,
Rockaway, NJ 07866

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Showing 101 - 125 of 165 comments

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on April 5, 2008 at 7:47 am

My bad. The new indy will be shown digitally from a 35mm source for several theaters around the area as well as being shown in regular 35mm, not to mention a rare 70mm print shown only at Cannes in France for its world premiere. As for surround sound trailers, read my post over at this theater’s successor. In that one auditorium, the speakers were probably hidden around the room and they were slanted. It wasn’t as loud as the Rockaway 16, but a good theater that sold Coke, which the new one still sells. The mascot for AMC, Clip, is still alive, and nowadays I would refer to the AMC 16 as the Outer 16, if AMC wanted to build another theater where some stores might go out of business.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on April 3, 2008 at 11:58 am

Speaking of Lucasfilm, was that house THX certified? At the time, the closest THX houses were in East Orange, East Hanover, and Bridgewater, at the time owned by General Cinema and Loews Cineplex, which would soon be absorbed by AMC the year that the Rockaway 12 closed and the year that construction began on its successor. FYI, all three Indy movies played at the Rockaway theaters since the year the Outer Six opened, 1981. When The Last Crusade came out, it was also playing in Morristown, AMC’s sister theater, which was the closest theater with 70mm projection. Flash forward to the upcoming Indy movie, and Indy returns to a new theater, same city, and another theater outfitted with DLP that sadly will show Indy 4 in 35mm.

blacknoi
blacknoi on March 3, 2008 at 5:13 pm

“Why did AMC fail to renew the lease with the mall before the new AMC opened?”

Its my understanding that Simon property group did not want the Inners there anymore. If you’ll recall, it was a HUGE teen hangout on Fri/Sat nights. It even required a police presence to patrol the Mall entrance by the inners and Sears. This was undesirable to SIMON. In fact many “mom and pop” type stores started to leave when leases were up, immediately following Simon buying the mall in the early/mid 90s. This was by design to give the mall a higher class feel.

I believe that Simon persuaded AMC to leave the space by making the new lease’s price SO expensive, it was cost prohibitive to stay. Combine this with the fact that AMC was trying to get out of the business of the smaller theaters (focusing on free standing Megaplexes), it was the perfect recipe to get rid of the Inners.

FYI: Looking at the prior 3 posts, the Outers never had the DTS soundsystem. And only house 12 (first theater on your right when you walked in) had Dolby Digital. All houses 7-12 had Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) and analog. I remember that people from Lucasfilms actually came in and re-calibrated house 12 when Saving Private Ryan came out.

I’m fairly certain the Inners never had any digital sound but someone will have to correct me if I’m wrong. I hardly worked in the inners, as the outers was my primary “home” 1995-2002.

PeterApruzzese
PeterApruzzese on March 3, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Well, unless the theatre is damaging the film print, the Dolby Digital works just fine. The same type of damage that can affect the Dolby Digital track will affect the DTS track as well. Sound quality is essentially equivalent between them. Regarding “surround”, if the DTS track isn’t working, the sound comes from the analog stereo Dolby tracks, the same as if the Dolby Digital track isn’t working.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on March 3, 2008 at 1:37 pm

Dolby digital is a film-based system, while DTS relies on CD-Roms to read the data. Plus, DTS' bitrate is higher than DD, and the surround sound can work even if the film is damaged.

PeterApruzzese
PeterApruzzese on March 3, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Why would bigger screens be a gripe? Dolby Digital delivers just as good sound as DTS, so I’m not sure I understand that gripe, either.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on March 3, 2008 at 1:11 pm

When the first gen rockaway theaters opened, they proved to be a success for AMC just like the second gen version. The good thing about the new theaters is that you can simply get there without deciding whether to see a movie inside or outside the mall. Plus, there’s plenty of parking near and around the theater. The only gripe is that the screens are much bigger than the old rockaway theater and that tickets are more expensive than the smaller theaters. Plus, both the old and new Rockaway theaters don’t have DTS, which can be found mostly in Clearviews.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on February 10, 2008 at 11:11 am

Check this link out…
View link
it’s always updated whenever a new store opens or closes. Judging by the size of each building now occupied by the Best Buy and the FYE/ retailers, the Outers were larger and had more seats while the Inners had fewer seats. Parking must’ve been a hassle back then since both complexes shared space with other retailers. As for acoustics, I think the Inners didn’t do well since you would hear the crowd outside the mall. Why did AMC fail to renew the lease with the mall before the new AMC opened?

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on February 5, 2008 at 11:53 am

Similiar to what the Meadow Six did with big movies whereas the Plaza 8 handled with smaller movies. Currently they don’t do that anymore since AMC acquired the Loews brand and ran it into the ground. BTW, the screens at the AMC 16 are much bigger than the smaller one, but projection is more blurrier even though the surround sound is bassier than the original. The space left by AMC’s Outer 6 made it a perfect location for Best Buy, while the Inner Theater’s remains were turned into a hotspot for stealing and loitering in the soon to be gone FYE store.

blacknoi
blacknoi on February 5, 2008 at 4:36 am

As a manager for the Outer theaters (and basically running the place prior to it’s closing on July 28th, 2002, I can say that at least in the late 90’s and early 00’s, the OUTERS definitely did more business.

All the “blockbuster” movies would go to the outers where smaller films and many kid films would get sent to the inner theaters.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on February 4, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Looks like that space occupied by the inner theaters will soon be open again, as FYE is planning a sale on all its merchandise before closing for good. AMC will never open a theater in that mall again since they opened the Rockaway 16, which is more popular than the old theater. Maybe an Old Navy should be there, as the closest Old Navy is in Mt. Olive, and also in Wayne. The space occupied by the music/video/games retailer is very large and appropriate for a clothing store, as its sister store right across the street (not related to the old theater), Sat. Matinee, is smaller. When it ran as a 12 plex, which theater did better business, the outer or inner?

PeterApruzzese
PeterApruzzese on January 25, 2008 at 11:42 am

When the outer 6 theatres opened in 1981, not all of the auditoriums were equipped with Dolby Stereo, but they all had it within a couple of years. The inner 6 theatres had it in at least 2 of the auditoriums when I was in their booth in 1980.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on January 25, 2008 at 11:36 am

check this link out…
View link
Did all twelve screens have surround sound by the time the theater expanded in 1981? The outer theaters had that early 80’s feel to it (similiar to Loews Wayne in its first years) from the sign in front, which screams retro, to the seating and projection, but not the sound. AMC was a fan of SDDS moreso than Loews theaters, since they equipped all of them with that system a year after its introduction. By the time it bought Loews and embarked on newer theaters, it discontinued the system from all theaters and replaced them with the more popular Dolby Digital EX systems that are standard in all AMC theaters.

PeterApruzzese
PeterApruzzese on January 25, 2008 at 6:48 am

Justin –

The inner theatres opened in 1977, the outer theatres opened in 1981.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on January 25, 2008 at 2:35 am

actually it was the first 12 plex in america.

shoeshoe14
shoeshoe14 on January 24, 2008 at 7:36 pm

Rockaway was the first megaplex in the country?

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on January 24, 2008 at 1:23 pm

the outer theatres opened the same time as the mall in september of 1977. in february of 1981, the inner theatres opened, making both theatres into the first megaplex in the us.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on December 7, 2007 at 7:09 pm

The original Rockaway theater had no 70mm capabilities, but its successor will finally get it when an IMAX screen will be added to the theater by summer 2008.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on December 2, 2007 at 7:55 am

I still have a ticket from the old AMC in Rockaway back in the spring of 2001, my only visit to that theater. The price of a matinee showing was $5; since the rockaway 16 opened, it’s jumped nearly 50%. The color of the ticket was blue instead of the red (the blue is only used for advanced tickets), and was the amc in rockaway the first to have advance ticketing in morris county? Back then, amc used to own two theaters, one of which was sold to clearview and still operates to this day (morristown). The movie I went to was on the last day of March of 2001, a 1:40 p.m. showing in theater #3. Was that theater the largest of the 12?

blacknoi
blacknoi on July 18, 2007 at 8:07 am

If anyone has any pictures of the Outer AMC Theaters BEFORE their 1994 renovation, I’d love to see them.

I never actually set foot in the Outers prior to the overhaul and would love to see what it looked like.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on July 17, 2007 at 1:49 pm

thanks, Greg!!! That theater still looked the same in those photos as the last and only time I went there Greg. I saw Exit Wounds in theater 6, since they showed a Dolby Digital trailer before the movie. Boy how ticket prices have jumped in five years between the closing of the old AMC and the new one, which is much bigger and advanced than its predecessor in terms of projection, sound, seating, and size, not to mention parking.

blacknoi
blacknoi on July 17, 2007 at 12:28 pm

Pictures of the Outers, from 7/12/02

http://tinyurl.com/2nptjo

Hope you like them.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on July 17, 2007 at 12:19 pm

thanks for the photos greg!!! I never been to the inner theaters before (I only went in the outers), seems those theaters weren’t as popular as the outer theaters, which had better sound and projection and survived longer than its smaller sister, which was next to a Liberty Travel store and was right across from Primetime Playhouse, which is now the Game Room. The inner theaters were gone, but the arcades live on, and at the AMC in Rockaway (the new one), their game room is smaller than the one at the mall.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on July 17, 2007 at 12:11 pm

Using research from Google, the AMC Rockaway 12 used Cinemeccanica Victoria 5 projectors for the length of its business at both theaters. By the way, when did the old theater open? I knew it opened sometime in the late 1970’s around 1978 and “Rocky” was one of the first movies to be popular at that theater for quite some time. In less than two weeks, it will be five years since the first generation Rockaway theater closed down and nearly 10 years since the inner theaters closed down, both replaced by Best Buy and FYE as well as other stores. Next year will be 30 years since Rockaway got its first taste of movies as AMC entered the still new Rockaway Mall with Morris County’s first multiplex.

blacknoi
blacknoi on July 17, 2007 at 12:08 pm

I just uploaded the pics I have of the Inner’s here:

http://tinyurl.com/2g3l3d

Enjoy