Durant 4 Cinema

50sSNIPES on April 2, 2023 at 5:51 pm

The Durant Twin Cinema was the first theater to operate in Durant and all of Bryan County since the closure of the Plaza Theatre in January 1991.

The Briarwood Shopping Center opened theater-less in March 1972, some of which include a Corner Drug store and a Mitchell’s Department Store just to name a few. At the time, Durant slowly gave growth in the city.

Jerry and Ann Wann of Durant, after opening their then-new (now-defunct) Durant Bowling Center in 1993 with 12 lanes before expanding to 20 lanes a short time later at the Briarwood Shopping Center, had plans to build a theater in Durant since Durant was left without a theater after the closure of the Plaza.

The original equipment at the Durant Twin includes the installations of two Marble 7000 Stereo Sound Systems and two Simplex JL projectors. As information as I can find as a twin when it opened on July 1, 1994, Screen #1 has an original capacity of 220 seats while Screen #2’s original capacity is unrecognizable.

Now this section is where confusion comes to mind. In 1995, the Durant Twin Cinema became the “Durant 4 Cinema” after both auditoriums split. But what’s completely shocking about it is that they kept the original twin name on the sign and on newspapers, and people all across Durant went completely confused on the name of the theater.

The Durant 4 Cinema closed for the final time in December 2011, yet again leaving Durant without a movie theater for three-and-a-half years until the launch of the 6-screen District Cinema in September 2015.

rivest266 on March 29, 2014 at 5:58 pm

June 30th, 1994 grand opening ad in the photo section. It opened as a twin and added two more screens in 1995.