Famous Players added another jewel to the crown when the Bankers Hall five-plex opened in Calgary in March. The theatre (boxoffice pictured below) is located in the new Bankers Hall shopping and office complex in downtown Calgary.
A very successful promotional opening was held one night prior to the public opening: approximately 800 radio and newspaper contest winners, and local media, filled the five theatres (each showing a different feature) and munched on complimentary soft drinks and popcorn. The new theatre features a spacious lobby, neon signage, high-back seats, Dolby SR sound and giant screens, particularly in the 367-seat Paradise theatre. The screen in the Paradise is more than giant; it’s mammoth! Despite the hectic, last-minute push to get the theatre opened on time, manager Brenda Bugg and her staff are to be congratulated for a terrific job.
This location, and the entire mall it was inside, has now been demolished for a new condo and retail project. Even though it didn’t look like much on the outside it was a really solid Famous Players build with excellent projection and sound. It’s unlikely a new cinema will be in the new development, which is a shame.
An odd bit of trivia, but this is the shortest life for any Famous Players Silvercity location in Canada, lasting only seven years (likely didn’t help there was a giant Cineplex Odeon right next door, but I am surprised Cineplex didn’t just update this one as it had more auditoriums). The next location to close in such a short amount of time was Silvercity Mississauga about half a dozen years later.
I had many years of covering and hosting at this theatre with my time with the Whistler Film Festival since 2007. It was somewhat of an odd theatre built underground the Village Stroll in Whistler Village in the late 1990’s by Metropolitan Theatres, and Imagine Cinemas took over in 2016.
Metropolitan also ran the smaller Garibaldi 5 location south of Whistler Village in Squamish, and the seats in that location were relocated here and installed in 1, 2, 7 & 8.
Eight very small screens, with the smallest at about 60 seats and the largest at 120 seats. The back couple of rows were on a small stadium riser but otherwise all flat seating. All screens were scope, floating screens with no masking, yet in the intimate screening rooms the screen size was pretty good depending on where you sat in the auditorium. It was 35mm (which you could easily hear in the auditorium) when I first started going to WFF but it was converted to all digital around 2011/2012.
There was a small restaurant called Three Below adjacent to the main lobby but a separate business. In addition, there was a box office that was removed when Imagine Cinemas took over, and Imagine did a few cosmetic upgrades with updated carpeting and self-serve Pepsi concessions. It also had a bizarre accessible entrance all the way at the end of the theatre hallway accessible very far from the entrance.
I’ll dig through my archives and see if I can post some photos. It was a pretty unique cinema, even for Whistler, and even though attendance was sparse at best in its later years it’s still a loss for the village.
This was a prime location for a lot of South Asian titles and running some movies at discounts in Edmonton. I can imagine attendance declined heavily at this location and Cineplex wants to push more premium offerings, and this theatre never updated from its original Cinemark look either.
Added a few more photos from the very hard to find book Cineplex Odeon: An Outline History including the original lobby when the complex was just a twin, the original auditorium #2 and a rare look at the original VIP auditoriums with unique “French Quinette Gallay” seating!
All of the seating in the regular theatres along with the AVX and IMAX have had new seats installed since about 2019 and are VERY comfortable. I always felt the AMC red seats held up pretty good except for the occasional loose/squeaky seat here and there. The seats appear to be the same size so this shouldn’t affect the seat count.
This is also one of the very few Cineplex locations in Canada to still use masking on their regular auditoriums. Bonus points if you see a movie in 2, 3, 9, 10, 12, 13, 23 & 24 as they all have scope screens with side masking. Pretty cool to see in a theatre in 2021.
This is a strong loss for Toronto as even though attendance was way down, it was still a nice “extension” of sorts to the Yonge & Eglinton location, and you could step right off the Eglinton subway and walk up to the front doors without even going outside!
Some quick updates after a visit just a day after TIFF 2021 ended:
The first four rows in #8 have all been removed but none of the rows have changed their lettering, so it now begins in Row E. Not sure why this was done, but it definitely has taken out some of the more undesirable seats.
Previously I mentioned that the screen in #8 was permanently set to 2.20:1 for 70mm, but the screen has now been remasked and fixed at 2.39:1. I saw SHANG-CHI here and it really was a great presentation in front row E center!
This location also frequently offers 9:30-10am showtimes throughout the week, which is a rarity in Canada.
A few updates on this location and corrections from my last post. I was able to see two movies here after my visit at TIFF 2021 and was amazed to be in the grandfather location of the Famous Players “Stadium” era. Overall a solid location but I can tell MANY things have changed over the years and it still has some unique features.
Cinemas 1-4 (not #5) are not flat-sloped but rather at a slight “sightline” seating setup. There are small stairs on both sides which end about 2/3rds of the way down. Many of the seats also have a gentle recline to them, whereas many other Silvercity locations did not (they were bolted and fixed seating).
There were additional concessions upstairs and back in the IMAX area, but those have been completely removed. There is still a dated “Upstairs Concession Open” sign at the top of the escalator that is still there though! Maybe it is still there in case they do some sort of pop-up concession stand in the future? The main concession is right as you pass the podium area, however, so these additional concessions wouldn’t be needed today.
Many of the original decorations are all gone from the older photos I posted. Not a huge loss though as you do see a lot of the height and high ceiling of the lobby now.
Except for AVX in #9 and the IMAX auditorium, all of the original Famous Players blue seats are STILL there in 2021 and looks like they will never be upgraded unless a recliner conversion is announced (and would be easy to do in the smaller #1-4 theatres, not so sure about the stadium rooms).
While there is an escalator to get up to the stadium 5-10 section and a down escalator, there’s also a very hidden additional staircase between #9/10 where guests can exit down to the lower floor. I suppose this was added for fire regulations but it seems to be ignored, and it’s still accessible to anyone to go upstairs or down.
The 1998 addition of #11/12 and IMAX is VERY noticeable that it has been added after the fact, with a tacky arrow sign directing guests to those theatres, though the mirrored hallway is a REALLY cool design and also I assume where they would do lineups to any auditorium if needed. The hallway to #11/12 also has #11 at the far end and #12 closest to the hallway. Typically this would be the other way around.
The big, grand Cinema 10, the main reason for my visit, still has a proper Cinemascope screen but the masking is open and the curtains are still there, but of course will never be used again. #10 is pretty much as it was when it opened in 1997.
A contact of mine mentioned that at their opening, when it was just the circular 10-plex, that there were 10,000 guests a DAY visiting that location. The location was busy when I left my second matinee leading into the evening show, so that was great to see. I do like the more minimalist interior and REALLY love the new Cineplex Cinemas design outside. It’s still very well located in the Square One/Mississauga area with tons of parking and will remain for quite some time.
Posted a shot of the auditorium from the official website. This theater technically IS open as a bar/lounge right now but is not showing any movies.
I’m not a fan of this redesign as along with ScreenClassic’s comments about the seats facing away from the screen, it seems like there will be major distractions throughout for any type of feature film presentation with a bar and lounge area right in the auditorium area.
Loving all of your informative updates! It’s great to see someone mentioning the opening movies too.
This location is very interesting as it’s a well maintained museum of the 1985 Drabinsky-era Cineplex Odeon with very mild updates over the years. I feel if this location EVER gets an update it will be with luxury recliners.
Thanks for the info, theatrefan! The prices for those items were probably FAR higher than they were in other stores, so there wouldn’t be much value. I was more interested in if they had actual FP gear. ;)
Many thanks for that video! Very sad to see. I still haven’t visited the new Park Royal location but hope to when the C-virus passes.
I am beyond overdue to post my photo gallery of this location and PROMISE I will get to it soon. I have pictures of all six theaters, both lobbies and many other areas of the theater when taken on the closing weekend of this location.
There is one thing I have always been curious about this location, especially when around the time it opened, and hoping some Mississauga/Toronto based CT'ers can shed some light on it.
A Yelp review commented on it and a YouTube video mentions it, but apparently there was a type of balcony and VIP type lobby when the theater opened, and according to one Yelper that the top rows in the largest auditoriums had a special type of balcony and seating?
Yet in the YouTube video, which was shot during the Empire Theatres days, it shows two teenagers filming themselves going up an elevator to this section. Yet when this video was filmed, the stairway was roped off from the staircase downstairs, and it appeared to be closed. The balcony area itself is completely empty save for a couple of leather couches and doors to JUST the largest auditoriums.
It never seemed like this location did very well, either, being in close proximity to Coliseum/Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga and even more surprising that it’s in one of the biggest malls in the country.
I really want to visit this theater now and am hoping that after COVID restrictions that I can make a trip out here during my annual trip to TIFF.
For the earlier Corus comment about two theaters not having digital sound; I’m pretty sure all 10 screens did when they opened with Dolby Digital, but at that point Columbia movies like THE FIFTH ELEMENT only had SDDS tracks on their prints and a Dolby SR backup, so they couldn’t run that with digital sound unless they installed an SDDS system. There’s also the possibility that a Universal title also opened that was only available with DTS and it wasn’t playing in a DTS equipped auditorium. That didn’t last long, however, as later in the summer Columbia’s release of AIR FORCE ONE was released with Dolby, DTS and SDDS tracks and Universal also went to all tracks in that time period.
Also interesting about this location is that it appears Cinemas 1 to 5 still are flat sloped theaters, #10 has its original scope screen AND the original blue seats remain after all these years. You’d think with the success of this location they would have at least done a stadium conversion to the smaller theaters and put in Ultra AVX-style seats in all of their auditoriums by now, like in many other locations.
A while back I added a few photos including theater #10 which is a rare FP Silvercity/Coliseum screen that is SCOPE! A few other Coliseum builds in that era had these in their largest theaters, but later pretty much all screens were flat 1.85 only. Like with a lot of photos I have added to CT, I have went through a LOT of “fan photos” on Google, Yelp and Foursquare and am fascinated by this theater design.
Also from the issue:
Here We Grow Again
Famous Players added another jewel to the crown when the Bankers Hall five-plex opened in Calgary in March. The theatre (boxoffice pictured below) is located in the new Bankers Hall shopping and office complex in downtown Calgary.
A very successful promotional opening was held one night prior to the public opening: approximately 800 radio and newspaper contest winners, and local media, filled the five theatres (each showing a different feature) and munched on complimentary soft drinks and popcorn. The new theatre features a spacious lobby, neon signage, high-back seats, Dolby SR sound and giant screens, particularly in the 367-seat Paradise theatre. The screen in the Paradise is more than giant; it’s mammoth! Despite the hectic, last-minute push to get the theatre opened on time, manager Brenda Bugg and her staff are to be congratulated for a terrific job.
This location, and the entire mall it was inside, has now been demolished for a new condo and retail project. Even though it didn’t look like much on the outside it was a really solid Famous Players build with excellent projection and sound. It’s unlikely a new cinema will be in the new development, which is a shame.
An odd bit of trivia, but this is the shortest life for any Famous Players Silvercity location in Canada, lasting only seven years (likely didn’t help there was a giant Cineplex Odeon right next door, but I am surprised Cineplex didn’t just update this one as it had more auditoriums). The next location to close in such a short amount of time was Silvercity Mississauga about half a dozen years later.
This location closed on January 5th, 2023.
I had many years of covering and hosting at this theatre with my time with the Whistler Film Festival since 2007. It was somewhat of an odd theatre built underground the Village Stroll in Whistler Village in the late 1990’s by Metropolitan Theatres, and Imagine Cinemas took over in 2016.
Metropolitan also ran the smaller Garibaldi 5 location south of Whistler Village in Squamish, and the seats in that location were relocated here and installed in 1, 2, 7 & 8.
Eight very small screens, with the smallest at about 60 seats and the largest at 120 seats. The back couple of rows were on a small stadium riser but otherwise all flat seating. All screens were scope, floating screens with no masking, yet in the intimate screening rooms the screen size was pretty good depending on where you sat in the auditorium. It was 35mm (which you could easily hear in the auditorium) when I first started going to WFF but it was converted to all digital around 2011/2012.
There was a small restaurant called Three Below adjacent to the main lobby but a separate business. In addition, there was a box office that was removed when Imagine Cinemas took over, and Imagine did a few cosmetic upgrades with updated carpeting and self-serve Pepsi concessions. It also had a bizarre accessible entrance all the way at the end of the theatre hallway accessible very far from the entrance.
I’ll dig through my archives and see if I can post some photos. It was a pretty unique cinema, even for Whistler, and even though attendance was sparse at best in its later years it’s still a loss for the village.
Updated with some public domain pictures of what I could find with a few auditorium, lobby and hallway shots.
This location closed on January 8th, 2023.
This was a prime location for a lot of South Asian titles and running some movies at discounts in Edmonton. I can imagine attendance declined heavily at this location and Cineplex wants to push more premium offerings, and this theatre never updated from its original Cinemark look either.
Update: This photo is actually from 2003 or so due to the posters in the image.
Added a few more photos from the very hard to find book Cineplex Odeon: An Outline History including the original lobby when the complex was just a twin, the original auditorium #2 and a rare look at the original VIP auditoriums with unique “French Quinette Gallay” seating!
This location updated to recliners and is doing pretty well, so it’s definitely here to stay.
The IMAX auditorium was a conversion of either #12 or #13.
For the Oshawa centre, I believe that was because booking zone rules may have changed due to population around that time.
All of the seating in the regular theatres along with the AVX and IMAX have had new seats installed since about 2019 and are VERY comfortable. I always felt the AMC red seats held up pretty good except for the occasional loose/squeaky seat here and there. The seats appear to be the same size so this shouldn’t affect the seat count.
This is also one of the very few Cineplex locations in Canada to still use masking on their regular auditoriums. Bonus points if you see a movie in 2, 3, 9, 10, 12, 13, 23 & 24 as they all have scope screens with side masking. Pretty cool to see in a theatre in 2021.
4DX and VIP have the same seating as before.
Correction: this is around 2003 or so, as noted by the movies on display in the lobby.
This is a strong loss for Toronto as even though attendance was way down, it was still a nice “extension” of sorts to the Yonge & Eglinton location, and you could step right off the Eglinton subway and walk up to the front doors without even going outside!
Some quick updates after a visit just a day after TIFF 2021 ended:
The first four rows in #8 have all been removed but none of the rows have changed their lettering, so it now begins in Row E. Not sure why this was done, but it definitely has taken out some of the more undesirable seats.
Previously I mentioned that the screen in #8 was permanently set to 2.20:1 for 70mm, but the screen has now been remasked and fixed at 2.39:1. I saw SHANG-CHI here and it really was a great presentation in front row E center!
This location also frequently offers 9:30-10am showtimes throughout the week, which is a rarity in Canada.
A few updates on this location and corrections from my last post. I was able to see two movies here after my visit at TIFF 2021 and was amazed to be in the grandfather location of the Famous Players “Stadium” era. Overall a solid location but I can tell MANY things have changed over the years and it still has some unique features.
Cinemas 1-4 (not #5) are not flat-sloped but rather at a slight “sightline” seating setup. There are small stairs on both sides which end about 2/3rds of the way down. Many of the seats also have a gentle recline to them, whereas many other Silvercity locations did not (they were bolted and fixed seating).
There were additional concessions upstairs and back in the IMAX area, but those have been completely removed. There is still a dated “Upstairs Concession Open” sign at the top of the escalator that is still there though! Maybe it is still there in case they do some sort of pop-up concession stand in the future? The main concession is right as you pass the podium area, however, so these additional concessions wouldn’t be needed today.
Many of the original decorations are all gone from the older photos I posted. Not a huge loss though as you do see a lot of the height and high ceiling of the lobby now. Except for AVX in #9 and the IMAX auditorium, all of the original Famous Players blue seats are STILL there in 2021 and looks like they will never be upgraded unless a recliner conversion is announced (and would be easy to do in the smaller #1-4 theatres, not so sure about the stadium rooms).
While there is an escalator to get up to the stadium 5-10 section and a down escalator, there’s also a very hidden additional staircase between #9/10 where guests can exit down to the lower floor. I suppose this was added for fire regulations but it seems to be ignored, and it’s still accessible to anyone to go upstairs or down.
The 1998 addition of #11/12 and IMAX is VERY noticeable that it has been added after the fact, with a tacky arrow sign directing guests to those theatres, though the mirrored hallway is a REALLY cool design and also I assume where they would do lineups to any auditorium if needed. The hallway to #11/12 also has #11 at the far end and #12 closest to the hallway. Typically this would be the other way around.
The big, grand Cinema 10, the main reason for my visit, still has a proper Cinemascope screen but the masking is open and the curtains are still there, but of course will never be used again. #10 is pretty much as it was when it opened in 1997.
A contact of mine mentioned that at their opening, when it was just the circular 10-plex, that there were 10,000 guests a DAY visiting that location. The location was busy when I left my second matinee leading into the evening show, so that was great to see. I do like the more minimalist interior and REALLY love the new Cineplex Cinemas design outside. It’s still very well located in the Square One/Mississauga area with tons of parking and will remain for quite some time.
Closed in 1992. Last movie was CITY OF JOY starring Patrick Swayze.
This is not the IMAX Victoria box office at the museum, but appears to be from a multiplex location.
Typically AVX conversions would lose about 30-50 seats depending on the auditorium, and about 60-80 if DBOX seats were installed in a few rows.
On another note, always love when you post the list of opening/closing movies!
This photo is for the Eaton Centre 18 complex which was across the street and underground.
Posted a shot of the auditorium from the official website. This theater technically IS open as a bar/lounge right now but is not showing any movies.
I’m not a fan of this redesign as along with ScreenClassic’s comments about the seats facing away from the screen, it seems like there will be major distractions throughout for any type of feature film presentation with a bar and lounge area right in the auditorium area.
Loving all of your informative updates! It’s great to see someone mentioning the opening movies too.
This location is very interesting as it’s a well maintained museum of the 1985 Drabinsky-era Cineplex Odeon with very mild updates over the years. I feel if this location EVER gets an update it will be with luxury recliners.
Thanks for the info, theatrefan! The prices for those items were probably FAR higher than they were in other stores, so there wouldn’t be much value. I was more interested in if they had actual FP gear. ;)
Many thanks for that video! Very sad to see. I still haven’t visited the new Park Royal location but hope to when the C-virus passes.
I am beyond overdue to post my photo gallery of this location and PROMISE I will get to it soon. I have pictures of all six theaters, both lobbies and many other areas of the theater when taken on the closing weekend of this location.
There is one thing I have always been curious about this location, especially when around the time it opened, and hoping some Mississauga/Toronto based CT'ers can shed some light on it.
A Yelp review commented on it and a YouTube video mentions it, but apparently there was a type of balcony and VIP type lobby when the theater opened, and according to one Yelper that the top rows in the largest auditoriums had a special type of balcony and seating?
Yet in the YouTube video, which was shot during the Empire Theatres days, it shows two teenagers filming themselves going up an elevator to this section. Yet when this video was filmed, the stairway was roped off from the staircase downstairs, and it appeared to be closed. The balcony area itself is completely empty save for a couple of leather couches and doors to JUST the largest auditoriums.
It never seemed like this location did very well, either, being in close proximity to Coliseum/Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga and even more surprising that it’s in one of the biggest malls in the country.
I really want to visit this theater now and am hoping that after COVID restrictions that I can make a trip out here during my annual trip to TIFF.
For the earlier Corus comment about two theaters not having digital sound; I’m pretty sure all 10 screens did when they opened with Dolby Digital, but at that point Columbia movies like THE FIFTH ELEMENT only had SDDS tracks on their prints and a Dolby SR backup, so they couldn’t run that with digital sound unless they installed an SDDS system. There’s also the possibility that a Universal title also opened that was only available with DTS and it wasn’t playing in a DTS equipped auditorium. That didn’t last long, however, as later in the summer Columbia’s release of AIR FORCE ONE was released with Dolby, DTS and SDDS tracks and Universal also went to all tracks in that time period.
Also interesting about this location is that it appears Cinemas 1 to 5 still are flat sloped theaters, #10 has its original scope screen AND the original blue seats remain after all these years. You’d think with the success of this location they would have at least done a stadium conversion to the smaller theaters and put in Ultra AVX-style seats in all of their auditoriums by now, like in many other locations.
A while back I added a few photos including theater #10 which is a rare FP Silvercity/Coliseum screen that is SCOPE! A few other Coliseum builds in that era had these in their largest theaters, but later pretty much all screens were flat 1.85 only. Like with a lot of photos I have added to CT, I have went through a LOT of “fan photos” on Google, Yelp and Foursquare and am fascinated by this theater design.