AMC Rockaway Inner 6/Outer 6

My bad. The new indy will be shown digitally from a 35mm source for several theaters around the area as well as being shown in regular 35mm, not to mention a rare 70mm print shown only at Cannes in France for its world premiere. As for surround sound trailers, read my post over at this theater’s successor. In that one auditorium, the speakers were probably hidden around the room and they were slanted. It wasn’t as loud as the Rockaway 16, but a good theater that sold Coke, which the new one still sells. The mascot for AMC, Clip, is still alive, and nowadays I would refer to the AMC 16 as the Outer 16, if AMC wanted to build another theater where some stores might go out of business.

“Why did AMC fail to renew the lease with the mall before the new AMC opened?”

Its my understanding that Simon property group did not want the Inners there anymore. If you’ll recall, it was a HUGE teen hangout on Fri/Sat nights. It even required a police presence to patrol the Mall entrance by the inners and Sears. This was undesirable to SIMON. In fact many “mom and pop” type stores started to leave when leases were up, immediately following Simon buying the mall in the early/mid 90s. This was by design to give the mall a higher class feel.

I believe that Simon persuaded AMC to leave the space by making the new lease’s price SO expensive, it was cost prohibitive to stay. Combine this with the fact that AMC was trying to get out of the business of the smaller theaters (focusing on free standing Megaplexes), it was the perfect recipe to get rid of the Inners.

FYI: Looking at the prior 3 posts, the Outers never had the DTS soundsystem. And only house 12 (first theater on your right when you walked in) had Dolby Digital. All houses 7-12 had Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) and analog. I remember that people from Lucasfilms actually came in and re-calibrated house 12 when Saving Private Ryan came out.

I’m fairly certain the Inners never had any digital sound but someone will have to correct me if I’m wrong. I hardly worked in the inners, as the outers was my primary “home” 1995-2002.

Dolby digital is a film-based system, while DTS relies on CD-Roms to read the data. Plus, DTS' bitrate is higher than DD, and the surround sound can work even if the film is damaged.

When the first gen rockaway theaters opened, they proved to be a success for AMC just like the second gen version. The good thing about the new theaters is that you can simply get there without deciding whether to see a movie inside or outside the mall. Plus, there’s plenty of parking near and around the theater. The only gripe is that the screens are much bigger than the old rockaway theater and that tickets are more expensive than the smaller theaters. Plus, both the old and new Rockaway theaters don’t have DTS, which can be found mostly in Clearviews.

Similiar to what the Meadow Six did with big movies whereas the Plaza 8 handled with smaller movies. Currently they don’t do that anymore since AMC acquired the Loews brand and ran it into the ground. BTW, the screens at the AMC 16 are much bigger than the smaller one, but projection is more blurrier even though the surround sound is bassier than the original. The space left by AMC’s Outer 6 made it a perfect location for Best Buy, while the Inner Theater’s remains were turned into a hotspot for stealing and loitering in the soon to be gone FYE store.

Looks like that space occupied by the inner theaters will soon be open again, as FYE is planning a sale on all its merchandise before closing for good. AMC will never open a theater in that mall again since they opened the Rockaway 16, which is more popular than the old theater. Maybe an Old Navy should be there, as the closest Old Navy is in Mt. Olive, and also in Wayne. The space occupied by the music/video/games retailer is very large and appropriate for a clothing store, as its sister store right across the street (not related to the old theater), Sat. Matinee, is smaller. When it ran as a 12 plex, which theater did better business, the outer or inner?

check this link out…
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Did all twelve screens have surround sound by the time the theater expanded in 1981? The outer theaters had that early 80’s feel to it (similiar to Loews Wayne in its first years) from the sign in front, which screams retro, to the seating and projection, but not the sound. AMC was a fan of SDDS moreso than Loews theaters, since they equipped all of them with that system a year after its introduction. By the time it bought Loews and embarked on newer theaters, it discontinued the system from all theaters and replaced them with the more popular Dolby Digital EX systems that are standard in all AMC theaters.

actually it was the first 12 plex in america.

the outer theatres opened the same time as the mall in september of 1977. in february of 1981, the inner theatres opened, making both theatres into the first megaplex in the us.

I still have a ticket from the old AMC in Rockaway back in the spring of 2001, my only visit to that theater. The price of a matinee showing was $5; since the rockaway 16 opened, it’s jumped nearly 50%. The color of the ticket was blue instead of the red (the blue is only used for advanced tickets), and was the amc in rockaway the first to have advance ticketing in morris county? Back then, amc used to own two theaters, one of which was sold to clearview and still operates to this day (morristown). The movie I went to was on the last day of March of 2001, a 1:40 p.m. showing in theater #3. Was that theater the largest of the 12?

thanks, Greg!!! That theater still looked the same in those photos as the last and only time I went there Greg. I saw Exit Wounds in theater 6, since they showed a Dolby Digital trailer before the movie. Boy how ticket prices have jumped in five years between the closing of the old AMC and the new one, which is much bigger and advanced than its predecessor in terms of projection, sound, seating, and size, not to mention parking.

thanks for the photos greg!!! I never been to the inner theaters before (I only went in the outers), seems those theaters weren’t as popular as the outer theaters, which had better sound and projection and survived longer than its smaller sister, which was next to a Liberty Travel store and was right across from Primetime Playhouse, which is now the Game Room. The inner theaters were gone, but the arcades live on, and at the AMC in Rockaway (the new one), their game room is smaller than the one at the mall.

I just uploaded the pics I have of the Inner’s here:

http://tinyurl.com/2g3l3d

Enjoy