Carmike Eastown Cinemas

Iowa Family Theaters found a business partnership with Jerry Lewis Cinema Circuit and its parent, Network Cinema Corporation as both believed in family-friendly movies in a suburban setting. Iowa Family’s President Robert E. Shaw, Jr. located this fully automated franchise of the Lewis chain in the K-Mart East Shopping Center in Cedar Rapids. Cinema 1 had 280 seats and Cinema 2 had 420 seats.

The theatre launched with a benefit screening for the Cedar Rapids Symphony on February 2, 1972 showing “Gumshoe.” It opened to the public with a grand opening on February 3, 1972 with “Limbo” and “Gumshoe”. The company had also opened twin screeners in Marshalltown and Des Moines in the Fall of 1971.

The theatre quietly dropped “Jerry Lewis” in April of 1973 when the chain went bankrupt and the theatre became the Eastown Twin Cinema. New owners were in place by November. Dubinsky Bros. Circuit took over the Eastown under the name, Eastown Cinema 1 & 2. On December 19, 1986 the Eastown 1 & 2 was downgraded to a 99 cent, sub-run discount house. Excellence Theatres Circuit took on the Dubinsky theaters and upgraded in July of 1989.

On January 20, 1991, Carmike took over the Excellence Theatres group acquiring the Eastown Twin. It operated the venue as the Carmike Eastown Cinema downgrading it once again to $1.50 shows all day. Carmike’s final showings were on September 12, 1991 of “Only the Lonely” and “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”.

The theatre was retrofitted for an arcade called the Play Station which launched December 18, 1993. The Play Station was still in operation in the 2020’s.

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