AMC Loews Paramus Route 4 Tenplex

moviebuff82: While “Raiders” did open 36 years ago today, the Route Four actually opened “Raiders” in 35mm. A 70mm print was screened beginning its fourth week. For more tech (and other) details, please see The Great Adventure: Remembering “Raiders of the Lost Ark” On Its 35th Anniversary.

It also premiered the same day at the General Cinema Menlo Park Twin in Edison NJ. Lines at that theatre stretched all the way down Lafayette Ave to Roosevelt Park. I know this because I soon would be working there.

I heard that they’re building a mall on some vacant site on 17 to compete with the other malls in Paramus….will this mean another movie theater to go along with the AMC and the Regal to open next year?

I don’t know for sure, but this theatre and the RKO Century Triplex also in Paramus opened at almost the same time. Both were huge inside when they originally opened. And both of them were sliced and diced. The triplex stayed the same size but had a wall built down the middle about 1970-71. The balcony was sectioned off and made into a third theatre a few years later. The tenplex had additions built on some years later. The original 2000 seat theatre, I think, ran Star Wars and Empire when they were originally released. It too was chopped up later on but it was still huge.

Wow, I didn’t know that….huh.

It’s been nearly 10 years since this theater was closed and turned into a gym. I always liked the arcade there as it was huge. A bit noisey, but fun. The concession stand was good and the employees were great. This was the place to be in north jersey if you wanted to see Star Wars in a premium large format. Most of the country saw Star Wars in mono, which according to the makers of the movie, is the definitive mix, and 35mm projection, as the film was shot that way. Most of the original trilogy was remixed into 4.2 surround sound, with the special editions remixed into 5.1, and the prequels in 5.1 and 6.1 surround sound (episode 1 in 7.1 SDDS). Episode 1 was digitally projected in 2k months after it opened in 35mm in 1999.

A search of the New York Times shows the theatre changing from 4 to 7 screens on Monday, December 21, 1981. Sunday, December 20 is the last mention of Quad.

The theatre added 1 screen to become an 8-plex with the opening of SILKWOOD on 12/14/1983.

It did move to a 10-plex with the opening of TEMPLE OF DOOM.

March 5th, 1982, according to 70mm in New York website. Quest for Fire was playing in the big house. May 23, 1984 was when it expanded to ten screens when Temple of Doom played. When did Cineplex Odeon take over?

In 1981, Coate, when RKO merged with Stanley Warner and took over operations. When Cineplex Odeon took over in 1987, they expanded to ten screens and stayed that way through the Loews Cineplex and AMC eras until it was closed so that its successor the AMC Garden State 16 opened more than 9 years ago. Digital surround sound was installed around the time that Jurassic Park opened and digital projection premiered in Paramus with the Phantom Menace in late 1999. The last time I went to this theater, for X-Men in the summer of 2000, the theater was very run down from the last time i visited in the mid to late 90s. I never went to the triplex as that wasn’t as popular as this theater.

The shape of the theater the exterior didn’t change that much. The places that surrounded the theater have changed. Usually after a movie at the Tenplex, you can go to dinner at Fuddruckers and go for a grub. The signage outside the theater also used surround sound symbols to show which movies were being shown in DTS or Dolby Digital.

less than two years from now this theater will be 50 years old.

someone a few years back uploaded old tape recordings of the 70mm Dolby Stereo mix of Star Wars and ESB, according to the link on my previous post. The quality isn’t good but you get to hear what the movies sounded like when they came out.