Marcus Valley Value Cinemas
1401 Valley Fair Mall,
Appleton,
WI
54915
1401 Valley Fair Mall,
Appleton,
WI
54915
No one has favorited this theater yet
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Marcus Theatres
Previous Names: Valley Fair Cinema
Nearby Theaters
The Valley Fair Cinema opened in July 1978. The cinema is located in the Valley Fair Mall. It was closed September 9, 2015.
Contributed by
Ed Wilke
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
The theatre was originally built as 3 screens. One of those original screens was carved into two, and two additional screens were added later, making a total of 6. Theatres 1&2 are center aisle theatres and not very nice. Theatres 3 & 4 are nice sized houses, and theatres 5 & 6 which were the add-ons are also nice screens. The theatre operated as Marcus' premier theatre in the area, before the Hollywood Cinema was built in 1996, when the Valley Fair Cinema became the Valley Value Cinema. The theatre has operated successfully as a 2nd run theatre. The mall that this theatre used to be attached to has now been torn down. This is now a free-standing building, waiting for development around it.
This building is for sale. I’ve been told once the building is sold, the theater will close.
This is a great example of a 1980’s early multiplex. Although the largest auditorium was split in two, there is still plenty of 1980’s era goodness in this house. It is worth a visit to see some recent theater history as well as a cheap movie in a decent setting.
From the Appleton Post-Crescent: Valley Value Cinema’s last day in business will be Labor Day, Sept. 7.
After that, the longtime budget theater will close for good, Marcus Theatres announced this morning.
The cinema building at 2165 S. Memorial Drive in Appleton had been for sale since early 2013, but hasn’t found a buyer.
The decision today was based on the limited availability of 35mm film in the market, which is what the second-run theater plays.
“Marcus Theatres is faced with the decision to either invest in digital projection technology at Valley Value or close the theater,” the Marcus Corporation said in a release. “There is simply not enough attendance to support an expensive conversion of the theater’s outdated technology to digital cinema.”
It said its first-run theaters, Appleton East in Darboy and Hollywood Cinemas in Grand Chute, will continue their $5 Tuesday movies for value-oriented customers.
Valley Value’s 14 employees were being offered jobs at these other locations. Valley Value Cinema’s building was put up for saleBuy Photo
Valley Value Cinema’s building was put up for sale in early 2013. (Photo: Sharon Cekada/The Post-Crescent, Sharon Cekada/The Post-Crescent)
The theater opened in July 1978 as Valley Fair Cinema, a three-screen complex attached to the Valley Fair Mall in the Town of Menasha. The entire mall parcel was annexed by Appleton in 1983.
In 1996, the theater was renamed Valley Value Cinema and became a second-run movie venue with discounted prices.
Marcus Theatres changed the configuration of the building and expanded it to have six screens.
When the attached Valley Fair Mall was demolished in 2007, the theater became a freestanding building and continued to operate.
CLOSED
Status should be changed to Closed. 9/9/15 photo added, photo credit Luke Bruheim.
There actually were two Valley Fair theaters. The first was a twin screen operation which opened circa March/April 1978 located approximately where what was later the parking lot for Kohl’s Department store.
This was a typical Marcus twin theater set up with a box office and concession stand set up to serve two auditoriums. A railing between the box office and concession stand was designed to stop patrons from making their visit a double feature. Each side had its own set of restrooms.
The Valley Fair Theaters I-II were barely a year old when a major remodeling of the Valley Fair Mall was announced. By 1978 the mall, which was the nation’s first enclosed mall in its 1954 opening, was a near ghost town and was very dated with a polished concrete floor and glassed windows and doors at each store. The remodeling was to demolish the long-vacant former W T Grant store and construct a new Kohl’s Department Store and a Kohl’s Food Store at the east end and add additional space for more smaller stores. An independent grocery store was to remain the mall’s west-end anchor.
In addition a new 3-screen Marcus Theater would become the mall’s new third anchor on the south end of what had been the main section of the mall. This was the first 3-screen Theater in the Appleton/Fox Cities market. The box office was set up as an island and so was the concession stand in the middle of the lobby. The seating and projection/sound equipment was moved from the twin theater (building demolished to make way for the parking lot). The Valley Fair Cinemas I-II-III opened just in time for 1979 Christmas movie season.