AMC Prestonwood 5

5640 Arapaho Road,
Dallas, TX 75248

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: AMC Theatres

Nearby Theaters

Prestonwood 5 ad, January 3, 1983

The AMC Prestonwood 5 opened in May, 1980 featuring “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Urban Cowboy” on its main screens. It was constantly being confused with the UA Prestonwood 5, which was just down the street, and many patrons found themselves at the wrong box office when they tried to buy their tickets.

The AMC theater was one of the first in Dallas to have their projectors run by the managers (and non-union projectionists), so it was picketed by the projectionists union for a couple of months after the opening. There were also a couple of incidents where smoke bombs were set off in the theater, forcing the audience to evacuate.

In the 1990’s, as the mall across the street closed, the theater fell on hard times. The theater was next-door to the town of Addison, which is mostly businesses and shopping centers, so there were not many residences nearby to supply a local audience.

In 1999, the theater closed. It was renovated as the “Times Square” night club, where you could visit four different bars (including a Karaoke bar and a country western bar) with one cover charge. After that business closed, the theater was demolished. This address is now a retirement home.

Contributed by Bruce Calvert

Recent comments (view all 3 comments)

Driveintheatre2001
Driveintheatre2001 on January 17, 2012 at 9:13 pm

The AMC Prestonwood Theatre 5 has been gone a few years now. Sometime around 2005-06.. Seen here RAC Photography in December of 2004..

Enjoy! Randy A Carlisle – Historical Photography

dallasmovietheaters
dallasmovietheaters on December 27, 2014 at 7:35 am

When the $100 million Prestonwood Town Center Mall opened, the drawings showed a theater external to the mall which would become the AMC Prestonwood 5 which opened on May 21, 1980. It was confused with the General Cinemas Prestonwood Village which had opened in 1979 and would be confused even more with the United Artists Prestonwood Creek V opening months after the AMC Prestonwood. All three theaters were in the same general area of North Dallas. The three theaters would become the second highest box office territory within the city trailing only the Central Zone. The AMC theater had one 70mm equipped screen but used automated projection systems including leading to non-union projection. Early in its operation, the Prestonwood’s screens were cuts, the ticket booth was wrecked, and damage to the auditoriums was caused likely due to the non-union situation though the Moving Picture Machine Operators Union denied the claim. The theater was home to the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show and did brisk business.

The Prestonwood 5 would make national news becoming the first theater in the country to accept credit cards with the installation of a computerized ticketing system. The theater would also accept credit cards at the concession stand beginning in March and April of 1984. Obviously, that concept caught on quickly. But by the mid-1990s, with the theater nearing the end of its 20-year lease, Prestonwood Center was experiencing upheaval as malls were under pressure and the multiplex era was in full force leaving multiplexes like AMC’s Prestonwood vulnerable. To salvage the mall and AMC’s presence, mall operators Hahn and Co. proposed a $125 million facelift to include a 24-screen interior AMC Prestonwood on the east side of the center court. Anchors Lord & Taylor, Mervyn’s and Penny’s decided to exit the mall to make room for the entertainment/fashion concept. Then Dillards and Wards left leaving just Neiman Marcus as a functional anchor. Stores within the mall bailed.

The exodus was so quick that the proposed 24-screen AMC Prestonwood and associated retail facelift never started. Neiman Marcus was the very last retailer in the center as of 1999 as a fashion mall would be established in Plano miles North on the tollway and Cinemark would build just north of that project. Neiman would move there. So AMC fleed Prestonwood shortly after announcing in 1999 that it would build a 20-screen theater in the nearby Valley View Mall. That project would become the 16-screen AMC Valley View opening in 2004. And AMC would also build its Village on the Parkway 9 just about a football field’s distance away from the former GCC Prestonwood Village opening late in 2014. As for Prestonwood mall, it was partially demolished to become a dot.com high tech destination and when the dot.com bust occurred, that project foundered and the the entire complex was gone by 2004/5. That demolition took the former AMC theater with it though it had become a nightclub for a period of time called Times Square.

Babboo65
Babboo65 on June 13, 2022 at 12:33 pm

I worked a number of theaters in this area in the early 80s, including AMC for a couple of years (1981/1982). There was a UA theater on the opposite end of the parking lot from here and a GCC up the hill and over behind Saks.

none of it is there now, of course.

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