It hasn’t been renamed officially… it’s still the Las Vegas drive-in — dunno who insisted it become the All Digital Drive-In… it would be the equivalent of naming every Cinemark “Best Seat in Town Cinemas”.
30-plexes have proven too large even for America. Most companies have agreed that anything over 20 is too much, and even then 20 is pushing it. So AMC’s 30-plex building wasn’t a failure only in Canada.
And in many places that AMC put down their 30-plexes, it drove other smaller theatres out of business so it’s not wholly unreasonable for them to think it might’ve done that in this instance. And who knows if it even cost them one cent to build the theatre there, my guess is that developers wanted theatres and may have built the entire thing for them… many chains give it a shot when the deal is sweet enough.
I’m sure AMC selling off the Canadian theatres had more to do with the Wanda Corporation not wanting to deal with regulations of buying theatres in TWO separate countries. Didn’t they start selling them BEFORE Wanda bought AMC?
Also — how are theatres in Canada built differently than in America? What would make AMC arrogant about building the same theatre there as in the states? Cineplex Odeon did it for years…
Did this actually open as a Regal? One of those pictures at Benson & Bohl makes it look as though perhaps it did. I remember interviewing at Century’s Home Office in September 2000 and seeing plans for changing the signage, but I was under the impression that it never actually opened as Regal.
Their information phone line is still active with showtimes good for 11/8/13-11/14/13. Weird it’s still active and says Frank Theatres, but not updated. Even weirder that if you do an internet search, it has Hobbit showtimes.
And while I’m at it — what can we do about people uploading thumbnails as photos? Don’t they get that it’s going to pixelate and look awful? And dare I mention people who are clearly taking pics from Cinematour and posting them here? (I don’t care if they’re mine, but if you’re gonna post them, give the same people credit for them).
While I agree the name-calling and nit-picking can get out of hand, I’m going to throw my two cents into the ring and leave it there. (I know what it’s like to deal with this stuff over at Cinematour)
But at what point does it become a detriment to THIS site to have people regularly posting inaccurate information as fact? I agree that sometimes those taking issue with the inaccuracy could mellow out, but I can see how disheartening it can be to repeatedly see people come in and start posting inaccuracies about their pet theatres.
It’s such a tough line to walk since we rely upon others with our cinema fascination to continue filling in the blanks – but I find it most frustrating to think that some blanks are repeatedly filled in wrong. If anything, I feel sorriest for Ken who has to sort out and continually update based on good and bad information alike.
My major concern about inaccuracies is that between this site, Cinematour, Mike Rivest’s lists, and some of the other places with similar information; if enough of us pickup on one piece of information we can MAKE it fact. All of our geeky cinema sources have their strengths and weaknesses (which is why I enjoy visiting them) But if we’re not careful we can end up changing history because we’re the only people keeping track of it.
So back to my two cents — while it’s easy to do something about the mean people. What can we do about the stupid people? Myself included… I’m sure I’ve caused an entire theatre to be operated by General Cinema by mistake. :)
Is the original GCC 6-plex part of the new 14-plex or is the 14-plex an entirely new build?
An old internal document from GCC shows that they operated three Yorktown Cinemas in Lombard, IL.
Yorktown Cinema 6 at 80 Yorktown Shopping Center 7/3/70-4/6/97
Yorktown Cinema at 97 Yorktown Shopping Center 8/13/76-10/31/92 –
Yorktown Cinema 18 at 80 Yorktwon Shopping Center Opening on 11/7/96.
I assume that perhaps the 97 Yorktown address was inside the mall and the 80 was outside?
Does anybody know if the GCC two-sreener was a separate theatre in the mall, or did Regal make use of it when building their six-plex at the mall?
From General Cinema internal documents, they show that they operated a theatre at 5757 Pacific Ave from 12/20/1968 until 03/17/1983.
It hasn’t been renamed officially… it’s still the Las Vegas drive-in — dunno who insisted it become the All Digital Drive-In… it would be the equivalent of naming every Cinemark “Best Seat in Town Cinemas”.
30-plexes have proven too large even for America. Most companies have agreed that anything over 20 is too much, and even then 20 is pushing it. So AMC’s 30-plex building wasn’t a failure only in Canada.
And in many places that AMC put down their 30-plexes, it drove other smaller theatres out of business so it’s not wholly unreasonable for them to think it might’ve done that in this instance. And who knows if it even cost them one cent to build the theatre there, my guess is that developers wanted theatres and may have built the entire thing for them… many chains give it a shot when the deal is sweet enough.
I’m sure AMC selling off the Canadian theatres had more to do with the Wanda Corporation not wanting to deal with regulations of buying theatres in TWO separate countries. Didn’t they start selling them BEFORE Wanda bought AMC?
Also — how are theatres in Canada built differently than in America? What would make AMC arrogant about building the same theatre there as in the states? Cineplex Odeon did it for years…
This isn’t a renovation — it’s an entirely new building.
Did this actually open as a Regal? One of those pictures at Benson & Bohl makes it look as though perhaps it did. I remember interviewing at Century’s Home Office in September 2000 and seeing plans for changing the signage, but I was under the impression that it never actually opened as Regal.
I believe this was one of Mike Campbell’s original Premiere Cinemas that he sold to Cinemark prior to founding Regal.
Seen this picture all over the internet — glad somebody knew to which theatre it belongs.
Replaced… in 2013…
The building has been demolished for a few years now.
The Logo you’re thinking of is GCC.
Mr. Mann? Why I don’t think there’s been a Mr. Mann since… hmm… when? The 80’s?
That’s the Valley-Drive In at 340 Mission Ave.
Again — same architects between the UA 150 and this building.
I believe this was previously a General Cinema Theatre.
National Amusements parking lots are truly a sight to behold. I can never get a picture of them that truly captures their unnecessary vastness.
We have a boat load of photos at Cinematour.com
This looks to be originally built and operated by Hoyts Cinemas.
Their information phone line is still active with showtimes good for 11/8/13-11/14/13. Weird it’s still active and says Frank Theatres, but not updated. Even weirder that if you do an internet search, it has Hobbit showtimes.
And while I’m at it — what can we do about people uploading thumbnails as photos? Don’t they get that it’s going to pixelate and look awful? And dare I mention people who are clearly taking pics from Cinematour and posting them here? (I don’t care if they’re mine, but if you’re gonna post them, give the same people credit for them).
While I agree the name-calling and nit-picking can get out of hand, I’m going to throw my two cents into the ring and leave it there. (I know what it’s like to deal with this stuff over at Cinematour)
But at what point does it become a detriment to THIS site to have people regularly posting inaccurate information as fact? I agree that sometimes those taking issue with the inaccuracy could mellow out, but I can see how disheartening it can be to repeatedly see people come in and start posting inaccuracies about their pet theatres.
It’s such a tough line to walk since we rely upon others with our cinema fascination to continue filling in the blanks – but I find it most frustrating to think that some blanks are repeatedly filled in wrong. If anything, I feel sorriest for Ken who has to sort out and continually update based on good and bad information alike.
My major concern about inaccuracies is that between this site, Cinematour, Mike Rivest’s lists, and some of the other places with similar information; if enough of us pickup on one piece of information we can MAKE it fact. All of our geeky cinema sources have their strengths and weaknesses (which is why I enjoy visiting them) But if we’re not careful we can end up changing history because we’re the only people keeping track of it.
So back to my two cents — while it’s easy to do something about the mean people. What can we do about the stupid people? Myself included… I’m sure I’ve caused an entire theatre to be operated by General Cinema by mistake. :)
Was this always an AMC? The small logo is kinda creepy.