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The latest movie theater news and updates
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June 16, 2017
Antlers, OK - Couple reopens Antlers movie theater
From KXII.com: Antlers residents have had to travel out of town if they wanted to see the next blockbuster movie.
For the first time in eight years, that all will change for residents tonight at the new look Cinema One thanks to local residents Mary and Jason Maroney.“Well, it’s been a long going process for the past few years,” co-owner Jason Maroney said. “Everybody has looked at this building and we just kind of wanted to bring some light back to the community for the kids, give them something to do.
The Maroneys took over the building on April 21st where they have spent the past eight weeks remodeling the building including a new concession stand, improved equipment, and improved seating.
From the beginning of the process, the Maroneys have felt the support of the whole community.
“The community has just supported us the whole way through and we get people that drive by all the time that honk and wave and they’re like, ‘We can’t wait till its open.’ So we’re just really blessed,” co-owner Mary Maroney said.
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June 8, 2017
Winterset, IA - How a mother and her daughter saved an Iowa movie theater
From the Des Moines Register: Marianne and Rebecca Fons are freaking out over a handrail.
They are frantic clapping, jumping up and down, shrill squeal-level excited over this railing, which is a sturdy wood banister, sure, but not a furnishing that should illicit this much happy hysteria.
But to this mother-daughter duo, that handrail is so more than a stairwell safety requirement. It’s a sign.
A harbinger that construction inside the historic Iowa Theater is on track. Proof that they are, indeed, in the final stages of renovating the beloved movie house that has graced Winterset’s town square since the early 1900s before falling into disrepair and closing in 2015. And, most importantly, an auspice that maybe their audacious idea for Rebecca to quit her steady job in Chicago and commute from the Windy City to Winterset for two years as the pair whipped up community support and raised funds to the tune of $800,000 to renovate the now-multi-use entertainment space wasn’t such a foolhardy endeavor.
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Laguna Beach, CA - Future of Laguna Beach’s only movie theater is still unknown
From the Los Angeles Times: Nearly two years after closing, Laguna Beach’s only movie theater remains dark.
“Everyone wants to do what is right,” Lance Alspaugh chief executive of Los Angeles-based Vintage Cinemas said Tuesday of the South Coast Cinemas building at 162 S. Coast Hwy.
“We became engaged in 2016 and, basically, there are a lot of moving parts,” he added.
Property owner Leslie Blumberg retained Vintage under a short-term agreement through the end of this year, Alspaugh said.
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June 7, 2017
Los Angeles, CA - It’s like ‘Cheers’ for movie lovers: An inside look at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema
From The Los Angeles Times: Magic hour in Los Angeles can be intoxicating in the dreamy haze of dusk, skies aglow in pinks and purples like a gauzy scene straight out of the pictures. At the New Beverly Cinema, the last pure bastion for 35-mm film in La La Land, the sun fades into extra romance every night for movie lovers waiting outside the box office under its iconic red-lettered marquee.
On a recent Friday at magic hour, standing patiently in line for a standby ticket to a sold-out double feature of “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) and “Ed Wood” (1994), is cinephile Cody Chavez, 27, who sports a homemade Pee-wee Herman costume and a giant grin on his face.
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Long Branch, NJ - Old West End Movie Theater, Vacant Stores To Be Razed This Summer
From WordOnTheShore.com: The owner of a large block of West End which includes a vacant movie theater and several stores has begun the process of preparing the structures for demolition.
Long Branch Business Administrator Kevin Hayes said the owners, Chabad Of The Shore, a non-profit religious and educational institution currently located at 620 Ocean Ave, has hired a licensed contractor to perform asbestos abatement on the theater and any of the buildings that require it.
Once the abatement is complete, Hayes said he expects the owners to submit a demolition application to the city within the next two weeks. The city’s construction official will review the application and if all goes well, demolition could begin shortly after July 4.
Chabad Of The Shore has been given approval to build a mixed use project which includes retail on the first floor and religious uses on the second and third floors.
The building’s first floor will include space for seven retail stores, including what could be a restaurant in the northernmost portion. The types of retail stores have not yet been decided, and Chabad’s attorney, Stephen Tripp, said there are currently no limitations as to the type of businesses that will be allowed, as long as they are accepted uses in the zone.
The second floor will include a sanctuary, social hall, library, kitchen, offices, patio, small group assembly area, and related facilities. The top floor will include classroom space for religious schooling and daycare.
Onsite parking will be provided to the rear of the building, and will be accessible via West End Court and Brighton Court. The lot will have 94 parking spaces that can be shared with surrounding neighborhood when they are not being used by the Chabad for special services.
The C-3 West End Overlay District allowed Chabad Of The Shore to apply to planning board and not the Long Branch Zoning Board of Adjustment, which denied the group’s previous plan, which did not include retail on the first floor. The zoning overlay allows houses of worship to be placed not he second floor as long as a portion of the first floor contains retail.
Chabad of the Shore applied to the Long Branch Zoning Board of Adjustment in 2012 to build a two-story building containing a 200-seat sanctuary, a 200-person capacity multipurpose room with a kitchen on the second floor, and five classrooms, office space and a room for religious services in the area of the old movie theater, West End Deli and Bagel and Lou’s Uniforms in West End.
That board’s denial of the use variance in 2013, caused Menachem to sue the city later that year. The litigation was dismissed as the city and Menachem worked together to create a new plan that was acceptable for both sides.
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Seattle, WA - Guild 45th, Seven Gables movie theaters closed indefinitely
From The Seattle Times: Seattle moviegoers just got two fewer choices: Two of the three remaining Landmark Theaters in Seattle closed abruptly this week. A notice on the Landmark website announced “The Seven Gables and Guild 45th have closed. Please stay tuned for future details on our renovation plans for each location.” The Crest Cinema Center, the third Landmark theater here, remains open.
Landmark’s national director of publicity, Laine Kaplowitz, contacted via email, was unable to provide any additional detail other than the above statement.
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San Francisco, CA - The show will again go on at long dormant Presidio theater
From the San Francisco Chronicle: The methodical restoration of the Presidio’s Main Post has transformed military barracks into museums. Homes built for officers now house investment firms. The guardhouse is a visitors center.
So there’s something anticlimatic but satisfying in the plans for the Spanish Revival movie theater that has sat empty since the U.S. Army handed off the Presidio to the National Park Service in 1994. A $30 million makeover will bring the atmospheric relic back to life — life as a theater, a variation of the only role it ever played.
“My father and I came here 45 years ago to watch Hal Holbrook do ‘Mark Twain,’” said Margaret “Peggy” Haas, whose foundation will develop the building with the blessing of the Presidio Trust, which manages nearly all of the 1,491-acre enclave at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. “We want it to be a space that’s as flexible as possible, and affordable as well.”
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Madison, NJ - Historic Madison movie theater closes
From the Madison Eagle: Madison Cinema 4, the historic movie theater at 4 Lincoln Place, unexpectedly closed following the Memorial Day weekend.
A representative from Saxum Real Estate Group, which bought the historic building housing the movie theater in February, confirmed that Bow Tie Cinemas chose to terminate its lease on Monday, May 29. By Wednesday, May 30, the movie theater chain had moved out of the historic building, the representative said.
The representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to comment on why the chain stopped leasing the space in the theater.
Bow Tie Cinemas was leasing the theater from Parsippany-based Madison Movie Development on a monthly basis. The theater occupied the first floor of the 11,000-sq-ft building two-story historic building. An upper floor facing Lincoln Place was unoccupied, Mayor Robert Conley said.
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Encitas, CA - City leaders looking to restore historic Encinitas theater
From the Seaside Courier: Silent film star Mary Pickford supposedly rode a bicycle to its opening in 1928, and Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin attended its initial screenings — right after the dawn of “talkies.” Later, surf films took top billing because of the surf culture in the area.
The La Paloma Theatre, a Spanish revival-style venue in Encinitas, is a historical landmark to many in the city, and downtown business leaders are looking to get it designated as such, either through the National Register of Historic Places and/or the California Register of Historic Resources.The Encinitas 101 MainStreet Association and consulting company Dudek have donated employee time to lay the groundwork, association president Dave Peck told the Encinitas City Council April 27.“The one thing that people don’t disagree about in this town — and it’s a town where we disagree about things, sometimes in a vitriolic way — is that La Paloma needs to be preserved as an icon, as a landmark, as a beacon in our downtown,” he said.
By looking up at the ceiling of the old theater, “you can see what it once was,” he said, and that it needs significant cosmetic improvements.
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Duluth, MN Historic Duluth theater rehab over half done, and uncovering secrets-
From the Post Bulletin: The restoration of the historic NorShor Theatre in Duluth, a project intended to anchor a revitalized downtown arts district, is now more than half finished.
Officials announced Wednesday the $30.5 million project is 60 percent complete, and is on pace to wrap up construction by the end of the year, with a grand opening planned for Feb. 1, 2018.
“It’s amazing what’s going on here, and it won’t be long before we will have our new community arts center,” said Christine Gradl Seitz, executive and artistic director of the Duluth Playhouse, a nonprofit that will operate the theatre when it opens.