This past week saw time catch up with a new generation of cinemas, as two forebearers of the megaplex era reached their proverbial end credits. First, AMC announced that they won’t be renewing their lease on the Grand 24, in Dallas, Texas. Then, Los Angeles’ Beverly Center 13 closed it’s doors to make way for retail space.
Widely considered the first true megaplex, the AMC Grand 24 opened in May of 1995 and set off the “more is better” attitude, which defined the late nineties exhibition industry, to a rather notorious extent. During the theatre’s early years, the Grand 24 set a host of attendance milestones (including a 21,000 single day attendance) and stood as one of the country’s most successful cinemas up to the new millennium. However, with the passage of time, the Grand lost ground to ever increasing competition and changing local demographics. No longer able to generate the revenue necessary to validate the Grand’s hefty overhead, AMC opted out of renewing their lease on the property; which, baring another operator stepping in, will close on November 30, 2010.
The Beverly Center 13 (originally featuring 14 screens) opened on July 16, 1982, with what was then the highest screen count in the country. An L.A. hotspot for nearly a decade, the Beverly Center thrived more as an 80’s novelty, than quality movie going destination. None the less, the theatre was a showpiece of the time, hosting countless studio screenings and sold out blockbusters. Eventually falling victim to the decline of mall culture and higher quality competition in the area, the Beverly 13 slipped from it’s premiere perch and experienced a revolving door of operators throughout the site’s final decade. Deemed more valuable for retail space than as a functioning cinema, the unit was leased to a clothing outlet and closed on June 3, 2010.
Some might say the passing of the first megaplex and one of the era’s earliest pioneers is a poetic bit of cyclical history. Each site surely played a significant role in the closure of the multiplex era and drove a somewhat final nail in the era of grand single screens. However, both of these theatres were also home to a new generation of memories and shared experiences. Just as earlier generations lost something through their era’s cinemas fading out, another generation begins to lose a little bit of itself through the closing of the Grand 24 and Beverly Center 13.
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