UA The Movies at Village Green 6

UA The Movies at Village Green 6 was a nondescript six-plex that served up movies across the street from the West Palm Beach Mall. In the 1970’s, the multiplex era had arrived in the world of cinema exhibition. In West Palm Beach, AMC and UA were trying to encroach upon ABC / Plitt and General Cinema’s turf which consisting of 1960’s suburban luxury era cinemas. The two new multiplexes looking for the knockout were the Movies at Village Green 6 and the AMC Cross Country 8 both announced in 1977.

The Village Green Movies complex had a 500-seat screen and smaller, 100-seat screens. The largest auditorium had Dolby Stereo sound. They were an upgrade over the West Palm Beach Mall Cinemas 1-2-3-4 which UA had acquired with 1,100 seats. But this was a theater built more for convenience and certainly not a destination location. John Panzeca, vice president of United Artists Realty said later. “For years we built theaters that were little, rectangular boxes….I used to point with pride to how inexpensively I could get those projects to come in".

This was one of those venues. When the AMC and UA projects were announced, General Cinema preemptively split the Cinema 70 into three screens in 1977. Plitt did little to nothing as it would get bought out of existence in the 1980’s. The United Artists Village Green Movies 6 debuted five months behind schedule on December 20, 1978 with Ralph Bashki’s “Lord of the Rings", getting the Dolby screen, “Every Which Way But Loose", “Donna Flors and Her Two Husbands", and for two days, “Showboat". It would be replaced by “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” with “Force Ten from Navarone” on Friday, December 22, 1978.

Ideally, UA could run one of these facilities for an entire leasing period making few modifications. Dated locations could be closed half way through the leasing period and others updated at the 15-year mark. Two months later, AMC’s Cross Country Mall 8-screen opened about two miles away on February 16, 1979 doubling the number of screens and making bidding for films challenging in the West Palm zone. Venues began to drop out of the zone as saturation had been reached and passed.

The Plitt Plaza left along with its Dolphin Theatre in Palm Beach in 1984. General Cinema’s Cinema 70 III hung on until closure on April 30, 1989.

UA The Movies at Village Green 6 exited during the leasing opt out at 15 years closing two days prior to its 15th anniversary on December 18, 1993 with “Wayne’s World 2”, “A Dangerous Woman”, “Addam’s Family Values”, “Carlito’s Way”, “Man’s Best Friend” and “Demolition Man”. A real demolition man came in after demolishing the theatre in favor of a new Best Buy electronics store. The next multiplex out of the West Palm Beach zone was AMC’s Cross County 8 surviving into the Megaplex era before exiting on September 25, 1997. The winner of the West Palm Beach zone survival test was United Artists Palm Beach Cinema 4 which closed a month after the AMC 8, lasting to the end of its 25-year lease on October 26, 1997.

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