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The sad ending to the once powerful Mann chain looks to have reached its final act. This past week, Regency Theatres took over the Janss Marketplace 9, leaving Mann with one operating theatre. With a lineage that stretches back to the Fox theatre chain of the late 1920’s, Mann’s decline, over the past two decades, [...]

Pictured below is an advertisement which ran somewhat regularly in “Popular Mechanics” throughout 1907. Capturing the novice, “do it yourself”, attitude, which drove the early years of film exhibition, the ad promotes one of the many outfits that offered “start your own motion picture business” packages. Companies like Amusement Supply and the Miles Brothers (profiled [...]

Corporate mascots have long been utilized as a marketing tool, to aid in creating a brand identity and accessible “face” for, otherwise, sterile business entities. While theatre operators have never managed to establish a mascot persona as recognizable as Ronald McDonald or the Geico Gecko, many have certainly attempted to place a colorful character at the helm [...]

If you have ever attended a movie in February, you’ve likely encountered Variety, the Children’s Charity. Prior to the mid 90′s, you may have seen a celebrity endorsed trailer for the charity, followed by a donation basket being passed through the audience. In more recent years, you’ve probably noted your theatre of choice selling gold, heart shaped, [...]

Pictured below is a promotional foldout postcard, sent to a San Bernadino theatre operator in 1907, from the Miles Brothers Exchange. The Miles Brothers Exchange was an industry defining business model that both revolutionized film distribution and made full time movie theatres possible. In the early 1900′s there was an exploding interest in motion pictures, but exhibitors [...]

Today’s picture captures the Orange Drive-In’s snack bar and staff (circa late 1940′s?). As with most drive-ins, the Orange operated a cafeteria style snack bar, with patrons passing along a stationed service line, before checking out at the register; another, larger, stand was built when the venue added a second screen in the late 60′s. A [...]

  And you thought “big sound” was a modern innovation. .   . Pictured above are two Bell Laboratories technicians, showing off one of the sixteen horned speakers that was utilized during a series stereophonic sound demonstrations held in the late 1930′s. Initially used to showcase musical performances, the technology was adapted to motion pictures [...]

Theatre structures have regularly posed a dilemma for property owners. While serving as potentially lucrative tenants and offering up considerable consumer drawing power, there is often a problematic issue once a theatre has run it’s coarse as a viable business. After movie goers have moved on, the property owner is left with a “white elephant”; [...]

On this week, ten years ago, six national theatre chains announced their plans to form a joint venture that would “begin a new era for the industry”. The chains involved included Lowes Cineplex Entertainment, Regal Cinemas, Cinemark Theatres, General Cinema Theatres, Edwards Theatres, and Century Theatres. The “new” concept would be selling movie tickets online, via Fandango.com. [...]

This week marks the tenth anniversary of Regal’s Foothill Ranch 22. While the theatre has never quite lived up to business expectations, the site does have a rather colorful back story. Back in 1993, the Foothill Ranch Development Company announced plans to build a retail and entertainment center, on a fifteen acre parcel, beside the [...]