Yeah, the term “state-of-the-art” is overused. It can mean anything. Usually it just means “new.”
If a theater is only going to show movies 10 nights a year, it’s cheaper to rent a projector rather than buy one. Boston Light and Sound, for example, has a wide variety of movie projectors for rent.
But, hey, with a non-profit, who knows?
The writer, who says he’s a film buff, should have asked a few more questions about what is installed in the theater.
Well, I would say that if all the movies being released were good, I don’t think people would be complaining about ticket prices. (Concession prices is another issue, and I don’t like the trend of turning movie theaters into cafeterias – people have pointed out that drinks weren’t even allowed in some theaters until the 1970s.)
My wife and I enjoyed going to the movies every weekend, sometimes seeing two pictures on a visit, and in our top year we saw about 65 films, although we averaged about 40-50 a year. Total cost with $5 and $6 matinees: about $600 a year. We thought it was a bargain.
But about five years ago, we found we were enjoying the movies less and less, and were coming out of the theater sometimes bored and usually unimpressed. We realized we were only going because it was a habit, and cut back to movies that have gotten stellar reviews. We’ve seen 3 films this year, and other than Avatar, there’s nothing we’re looking forward to this holiday season.
It’s also helped that we bought a 46" LCD flatscreen last year. Much better than trying to watch movies on a 20" TV, and this has helped us get through movie theater withdrawal.
Movie theaters won’t go away, and teenagers will always want some place to go on dates. But movies have gotten more and more mediocre,
and the studios are making pictures mostly for kids, teens, and young adults. At the same time, the indie market has dried up, so there’s fewer adultish films to see.
As these trends continue, you can expect to see the theater business continue to evolve as it will have to compete with DVDs and On Demand movies perhaps being released simultaneously with theater release dates. The theaters will have to provide a different experience, which is why they’re pushing 3D, at-seat dining, upgraded sound, and so forth.
I think this will make things tougher for your typical “boring” old-style theater.
I think it’s great that people are helping out a theater, and there’s certainly a small-town spirit still alive in Endenton where neighbors want to help neighbors, but as a “business,” the theater owner can’t accept “donations.” If that were the case, every small, struggling theater in the world could just put out a donation jar and plea with people to “save our theater.” State laws are usually pretty specific about who can and can’t accept donations.
For example, the owner of the Soda Shoppe could “loan” the theater money, or the theater could sell buttons or admittance passes at whatever price people want to pay, but it’s illegal for a business to accept gifts or donations like this.
This is why so many theaters are turning into non-profit entities, so they can accept donations to supplement its income.
Sounds good. The article points out that this is a 12-screen, 2500-seat theater with two of the auditoriums boasting 60-foot wide screens! It has a VIP room called the Ovation Room, which serves beer and wine as well as food, and the locally owned facility cost $12 million to build.
Unbelievable. $21 million was spent, some of it grants, taxpayer money, and tax incentives, to refurbish the building. There is office space and retail for rent in the building, but it seems the six-screen theater takes up most of the space. This is after all the other movie theaters in town died out. Will the town even support this project, or will people prefer to go to the nearby suburban multiplex? Who knows?
This story shows you the difference between running a movie theater for profit and running one for non-profit.
If it was a for-profit, you would see the owners sweating the details about whether an area could support a new theater and what kind of rental terms they could get, what they could charge, etc. A company could potentially be on the hook for millions of dollars just to take a chance on opening up a new theater.
For a non-profit, you get below market rate terms, and you can find people willing to donate millions of dollars to build a brand new theater based on nothing more than the feeling that there should be more obscure independent films shown in the city! They’re not even worried if anyone will show up! Amazing!
I suspect the mall suffered a decrease in foot traffic with the closing of the cinema, which hurt the entire mall, but the theater operators probably weren’t making enough to cover the overhead costs, such as mall rent, plus competition from newer theaters.
It’s good to see the mall owners step up and run it. It’s a win-win situation for them – more foot traffic and the opportunity to make money from space not currently earning any money. And at least they’re entrepreneurial. All too often mall owners just act as landlords raising rents while businesses move out, and soon they’re left with an empty mall and no revenue.
Price is $1.15 million. Theater is 7,130 sq feet. You can see some pictures of the interior and exterior here. It’s a single screen. Very nice, but again, you have to come up with about $10,000 a month just to cover the loan/mortgage, etc.
Price is $1.15 million. Theater is 7,130 sq feet. You can see some pictures of the interior and exterior here. It’s a single screen. Very nice, but again, you have to come up with about $10,000 a month just to cover the loan/mortgage, etc.
I guess the question is, will it still be profitable when the new owner has to cover a $6,000 a month ($72,000 a year) mortgage/business loan/loss of investment capital payment? You would need 10% of the town to go to the movies every month just to cover the investment, not including expenses.
God, I hate reading notices like this. The owners sunk all their money into renovating an old theater, and within a year of opening need to get out. Seen this scenario here on Cinematreasures.org all too often.
However, on the business end of the cinema business, the theater has only one showing a day (two on Saturdays, none on Sundays) with only 164 seats total.
I’m not sure how someone would be able to carry a $285k mortgage, pay the operating expenses, hire staff, and so forth with this business plan. And it sounds like having more showings really isn’t going to bring in more money. Plus, if the town won’t allow the stage to be used because of ADA requirements, there’s no way to expand to live shows.
I think the owner is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one.
I read this story yesterday on Deadline Hollywood and was thinking about the implications. The studios are going to basically bypass the theaters. It probably won’t destroy the dating segment of the audience, since those people want to get out of the house anyway, but I could see a lot of families foregoing having to get the kids dressed and piled into the SUV to go to the movies and spending $30 on tickets and $40 on popcorn and drinks. Wow! All those lucrative weekend matinees of children’s films would be gone.
Likewise, the over-40 crowd wouldn’t have to put up with people talking on their cell phones during the movie, eating smelly pizza, sloshing Pepsi on the floor, and kicking the backs of their chairs.
And, I’ve got to say, I’d rather watch a non-tentpole movie at home than having to drive 12-miles to see it on a decent-sized screen!
The theater may go vacant. Times are tough out there. A lot of chains are either on hold or dumping properties right now. Obviously, the bank didn’t like the terms of the renegotiated lease, and the bank is trying to foreclose on the entire property. So the whole mall is in trouble and may not open.
I did an Internet search on the process, and from what I came up with, no one has even seen a demo of the system yet. Yes, it would offer an interim solution, but if it’s the old “House of Wax” polarized 3D effect, it’s not worth paying an extra $3 for. Sound a bit fishy.
Correction: I got my numbers crossed in editing the piece. My guess is that it use to gross $300k-$400k a year at the 41k rate, but now it’s grossing $150k-$200k at the 21k attendance, which might barely cover the employees pay, especially if they add an assistant manager and some part-timers.
Good article. But I think digital projection will wind up with an eventual resolution of 16k, and eventually evolve to specially made LED-LCD front screens, eliminating the projection booth (and the projectionist) completely. It might be 30 years out, but there are currently 15' diagonal flat screens for sale, and every year the sizes increase.
Even at 4k resolution, that’s only 5.5 pixels per inch on a 60' screen, so that’s pretty low rez to compare it to 70mm.
As for this DMX format, it sounds like what LCD TVs are doing by upping the frame rate to 120 Hz or 240 Hz. The images look sharper, but it gives film that “video” look by cleaning up some of the film “blur.” I have a Samsung LCD that does this and it was disconcerting at first, although I’ve gotten use to it. It’s still a “trick” though, and digital projector manufacturers could probably add this to their current line of products and by-pass having to pay any royalties to Weisgerber.
I hate to be cynical, but will there be any profits to donate to local charities? I mean, the Optimists are taking on a mortgage, building stadium seating, hiring additional managers and staff, all while attendance has dropped from 41k to 21k a year. I’m guessing that’s about $300-$400k in revenue. The current owner was losing money at that level. And the group is going to hire more staff than is there now. It doesn’t seem profitable.
Also the theater will only show movies that appeal to kids and teens? Well, admittedly that’s most of what Hollywood is putting out these days, but are you just going to open for matinées?
I think they’re hoping to get attendance back up to the 41k level, but I’m afraid we’ll be reading a closing notice for this theater in a year or two.
Seems like another attempt to create a gimmick that theater owners can use to draw people in and charge more money for. On the other hand, it’s also getting expensive for theater owners. Instead of a $35k film projector and a $20k sound system, you’re now looking at a $75k digital projector (that may be obsolete in 10 years) and $150k sound system that only a few movies a year will utilize. Keep raising those popcorn prices!
Gee, at this rate, digital projection will have about the same quality as 35mm film … in about 10 years! And the same quality as 70mm in about 20 years! And the same quality as real IMAX in about 30 years!
Still, any increase in quality is good, and, of course, a necessity to remain competitive, since Blu-Ray in the home is only a few pixels shy of true 2K resolution. (2048x1080 vs. 1920x1080)
Yeah, the term “state-of-the-art” is overused. It can mean anything. Usually it just means “new.”
If a theater is only going to show movies 10 nights a year, it’s cheaper to rent a projector rather than buy one. Boston Light and Sound, for example, has a wide variety of movie projectors for rent.
But, hey, with a non-profit, who knows?
The writer, who says he’s a film buff, should have asked a few more questions about what is installed in the theater.
Well, I would say that if all the movies being released were good, I don’t think people would be complaining about ticket prices. (Concession prices is another issue, and I don’t like the trend of turning movie theaters into cafeterias – people have pointed out that drinks weren’t even allowed in some theaters until the 1970s.)
My wife and I enjoyed going to the movies every weekend, sometimes seeing two pictures on a visit, and in our top year we saw about 65 films, although we averaged about 40-50 a year. Total cost with $5 and $6 matinees: about $600 a year. We thought it was a bargain.
But about five years ago, we found we were enjoying the movies less and less, and were coming out of the theater sometimes bored and usually unimpressed. We realized we were only going because it was a habit, and cut back to movies that have gotten stellar reviews. We’ve seen 3 films this year, and other than Avatar, there’s nothing we’re looking forward to this holiday season.
It’s also helped that we bought a 46" LCD flatscreen last year. Much better than trying to watch movies on a 20" TV, and this has helped us get through movie theater withdrawal.
Movie theaters won’t go away, and teenagers will always want some place to go on dates. But movies have gotten more and more mediocre,
and the studios are making pictures mostly for kids, teens, and young adults. At the same time, the indie market has dried up, so there’s fewer adultish films to see.
As these trends continue, you can expect to see the theater business continue to evolve as it will have to compete with DVDs and On Demand movies perhaps being released simultaneously with theater release dates. The theaters will have to provide a different experience, which is why they’re pushing 3D, at-seat dining, upgraded sound, and so forth.
I think this will make things tougher for your typical “boring” old-style theater.
I think it’s great that people are helping out a theater, and there’s certainly a small-town spirit still alive in Endenton where neighbors want to help neighbors, but as a “business,” the theater owner can’t accept “donations.” If that were the case, every small, struggling theater in the world could just put out a donation jar and plea with people to “save our theater.” State laws are usually pretty specific about who can and can’t accept donations.
For example, the owner of the Soda Shoppe could “loan” the theater money, or the theater could sell buttons or admittance passes at whatever price people want to pay, but it’s illegal for a business to accept gifts or donations like this.
This is why so many theaters are turning into non-profit entities, so they can accept donations to supplement its income.
The Boston Globe has mentioned a couple of times that Ben-Hur was the longest playing film in the city in the 1950s.
Sounds good. The article points out that this is a 12-screen, 2500-seat theater with two of the auditoriums boasting 60-foot wide screens! It has a VIP room called the Ovation Room, which serves beer and wine as well as food, and the locally owned facility cost $12 million to build.
Unbelievable. $21 million was spent, some of it grants, taxpayer money, and tax incentives, to refurbish the building. There is office space and retail for rent in the building, but it seems the six-screen theater takes up most of the space. This is after all the other movie theaters in town died out. Will the town even support this project, or will people prefer to go to the nearby suburban multiplex? Who knows?
This story shows you the difference between running a movie theater for profit and running one for non-profit.
If it was a for-profit, you would see the owners sweating the details about whether an area could support a new theater and what kind of rental terms they could get, what they could charge, etc. A company could potentially be on the hook for millions of dollars just to take a chance on opening up a new theater.
For a non-profit, you get below market rate terms, and you can find people willing to donate millions of dollars to build a brand new theater based on nothing more than the feeling that there should be more obscure independent films shown in the city! They’re not even worried if anyone will show up! Amazing!
I suspect the mall suffered a decrease in foot traffic with the closing of the cinema, which hurt the entire mall, but the theater operators probably weren’t making enough to cover the overhead costs, such as mall rent, plus competition from newer theaters.
It’s good to see the mall owners step up and run it. It’s a win-win situation for them – more foot traffic and the opportunity to make money from space not currently earning any money. And at least they’re entrepreneurial. All too often mall owners just act as landlords raising rents while businesses move out, and soon they’re left with an empty mall and no revenue.
Yeah, if anyone has any info on how they put together a $10,000 video projector that can fill a drive-in screen, I’d like to know too.
Here’s a story about the theater’s reopening last December
Sad story on the Gentry being up for sale, but nice video view of the theater behinds the scene here.
Price is $1.15 million. Theater is 7,130 sq feet. You can see some pictures of the interior and exterior here. It’s a single screen. Very nice, but again, you have to come up with about $10,000 a month just to cover the loan/mortgage, etc.
Price is $1.15 million. Theater is 7,130 sq feet. You can see some pictures of the interior and exterior here. It’s a single screen. Very nice, but again, you have to come up with about $10,000 a month just to cover the loan/mortgage, etc.
Hire this guy and give him a share of the profits!!
I guess the question is, will it still be profitable when the new owner has to cover a $6,000 a month ($72,000 a year) mortgage/business loan/loss of investment capital payment? You would need 10% of the town to go to the movies every month just to cover the investment, not including expenses.
God, I hate reading notices like this. The owners sunk all their money into renovating an old theater, and within a year of opening need to get out. Seen this scenario here on Cinematreasures.org all too often.
However, on the business end of the cinema business, the theater has only one showing a day (two on Saturdays, none on Sundays) with only 164 seats total.
I’m not sure how someone would be able to carry a $285k mortgage, pay the operating expenses, hire staff, and so forth with this business plan. And it sounds like having more showings really isn’t going to bring in more money. Plus, if the town won’t allow the stage to be used because of ADA requirements, there’s no way to expand to live shows.
I think the owner is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one.
I read this story yesterday on Deadline Hollywood and was thinking about the implications. The studios are going to basically bypass the theaters. It probably won’t destroy the dating segment of the audience, since those people want to get out of the house anyway, but I could see a lot of families foregoing having to get the kids dressed and piled into the SUV to go to the movies and spending $30 on tickets and $40 on popcorn and drinks. Wow! All those lucrative weekend matinees of children’s films would be gone.
Likewise, the over-40 crowd wouldn’t have to put up with people talking on their cell phones during the movie, eating smelly pizza, sloshing Pepsi on the floor, and kicking the backs of their chairs.
And, I’ve got to say, I’d rather watch a non-tentpole movie at home than having to drive 12-miles to see it on a decent-sized screen!
Oh, boy! Most of those horror movies are pretty bad. Interesting that they’re available on 35mm film though!
The theater may go vacant. Times are tough out there. A lot of chains are either on hold or dumping properties right now. Obviously, the bank didn’t like the terms of the renegotiated lease, and the bank is trying to foreclose on the entire property. So the whole mall is in trouble and may not open.
I did an Internet search on the process, and from what I came up with, no one has even seen a demo of the system yet. Yes, it would offer an interim solution, but if it’s the old “House of Wax” polarized 3D effect, it’s not worth paying an extra $3 for. Sound a bit fishy.
Correction: I got my numbers crossed in editing the piece. My guess is that it use to gross $300k-$400k a year at the 41k rate, but now it’s grossing $150k-$200k at the 21k attendance, which might barely cover the employees pay, especially if they add an assistant manager and some part-timers.
Good article. But I think digital projection will wind up with an eventual resolution of 16k, and eventually evolve to specially made LED-LCD front screens, eliminating the projection booth (and the projectionist) completely. It might be 30 years out, but there are currently 15' diagonal flat screens for sale, and every year the sizes increase.
Even at 4k resolution, that’s only 5.5 pixels per inch on a 60' screen, so that’s pretty low rez to compare it to 70mm.
As for this DMX format, it sounds like what LCD TVs are doing by upping the frame rate to 120 Hz or 240 Hz. The images look sharper, but it gives film that “video” look by cleaning up some of the film “blur.” I have a Samsung LCD that does this and it was disconcerting at first, although I’ve gotten use to it. It’s still a “trick” though, and digital projector manufacturers could probably add this to their current line of products and by-pass having to pay any royalties to Weisgerber.
I hate to be cynical, but will there be any profits to donate to local charities? I mean, the Optimists are taking on a mortgage, building stadium seating, hiring additional managers and staff, all while attendance has dropped from 41k to 21k a year. I’m guessing that’s about $300-$400k in revenue. The current owner was losing money at that level. And the group is going to hire more staff than is there now. It doesn’t seem profitable.
Also the theater will only show movies that appeal to kids and teens? Well, admittedly that’s most of what Hollywood is putting out these days, but are you just going to open for matinées?
I think they’re hoping to get attendance back up to the 41k level, but I’m afraid we’ll be reading a closing notice for this theater in a year or two.
Seems like another attempt to create a gimmick that theater owners can use to draw people in and charge more money for. On the other hand, it’s also getting expensive for theater owners. Instead of a $35k film projector and a $20k sound system, you’re now looking at a $75k digital projector (that may be obsolete in 10 years) and $150k sound system that only a few movies a year will utilize. Keep raising those popcorn prices!
Gee, at this rate, digital projection will have about the same quality as 35mm film … in about 10 years! And the same quality as 70mm in about 20 years! And the same quality as real IMAX in about 30 years!
Still, any increase in quality is good, and, of course, a necessity to remain competitive, since Blu-Ray in the home is only a few pixels shy of true 2K resolution. (2048x1080 vs. 1920x1080)