Fayetteville Theatre

JoshBot on December 31, 2011 at 11:32 am

I moved to Fayetteville in 1987 and even then this was a discount house, despite being the only movie theatre in town at the time. I remember it primarily because they would have a weekly family matinee in the summer that would show older kid’s movies like Charlotte’s Web. While those shows were packed with parents grateful for something that would shut their kids up for two hours, the theatre did very little business otherwise and closed around 1990. No one bothered to take down the sign out front, so for quite some time it looked like they were open and still playing Total Recall. It was finally removed when the theatre reopened around 1994, at which point a friend’s mother remarked “Oh, that finally stopped showing Total Recall. That must have been a very popular movie!”. The theatre seemed to do decent business for a while, but finally died for good once the nearby Cinemark Movies 10 became a dollar theatre too. As is par for the course for older theatres here, it’s now a church.

As the description notes, there was very little distinctive about the place. However, it wasn’t totally without charm. The lobby was admittedly utilitarian and cramped, but the theatres themselves were absolutely cavernous. If I recall correctly, the screens were actually quite a bit larger than the ones at the two nearby multiplexes. The seats also rocked back and forth, which was a fun novelty. Not exactly a first class viewing experience, but for a poor teenage cinephile, it made for a decent Friday night.