Studio Movie Grill Lewisville

dallasmovietheaters on April 3, 2015 at 2:14 pm

The Studio Movie Grill Lewisville was originally going to be AMC’s first 20-screen super-megaplex. When Vista Ridge Mall opened in 1989, Lewisville received its second 10-plus screen theater with Cinemark Theater’s Vista Ridge 12 inside the mall. Because the shopping complex drew people from a wide circle including Lewisville, Flower Mound, Carrollton, Coppell, Lake Dallas, Corinth and Highland Village, there was room for another theater. So in January 1993, AMC announced an exterior multiplex across the highway down from Corporate Drive that would be a 48,000 sqaure feet 20-screen multiplex the likes of which the DFW area hand’t seen.

In May of 1993, AMC turned its attention to a 24-screen AMC Stemmons Crossroads project that would become the game-changing AMC Grand 24 opening in 1995. AMC walked away from the 20-screen Lewisville project leaving an opening for another operator to build a megalplex in that spot. United Artists stepped up with a smaller-sized concept theater that would serve as a blueprint for its expansion within DFW over the next several years.

UA concentrated its 1994-1997 growth with 9-to-11 screen builds that were more destination theaters then the generic, neighborhood 8-plexes that it had built in the early to mid-1990s. And the UA Lakepointe 10 would be its first scheduled to open followed by a similar facility in Grand Prairie (1995), a grander location near Garland (1996), and two in Fort Worth (1997). Meanwhile, Trans-Texas announced a simultaneous project on the opposite side of the freeway. Trans-Texas' 8-screen theater was of more modest scale and it was a race to see which would open first.

To demonstrate that it was out of the business of building generic boxy theaters, UA got a waiver from the City of Lewisville to include a laser lighting system that would adorn the main entrance and be visible to the busy adjoinging highway. The UA Lakepointe 10’s translucent theater canopy was designed by Runyon Architects and Associates. It was 10 feet tall and 100 feet long projecting 14 color patterns that could be set to music. The UA theater launched December 16, 1994 with features including Speechless, Dumb and Dumber, Drop Zone and Disclosure though would not have its official grand opening celebration until January 26, 1995. Trans-Texas' Vista Ridge 8-plex opened across the street on December 16, 1994 with sub-runs and would go first run then back to sub-run discount when it became part of the Cinemark circuit.

The first shoe to drop in the Lewisville area was the first multiplex in the Rand/Hollywood/Silver Cinema 10-screen discount house in the Garden Park Shopping Center. But UA ran into financial difficulty as a circuit as the century closed while others easily outflanked the chain’s 10-screen effort. Rave Motion Pictures opened a state-of-the-art high tech megaplex just to the north of the Lakepointe opening in 2000 which took much of the non-mall, non-discount moviegoing audience with it. With Cinemark scheduled to open a brand new facility at Vista Ridge Mall, and a 14-plex just to the North in Denton, the writing was on the wall. UA closed the Lakepointe and many other theaters across DFW and around the country.

But all was not lost as Studio Movie Grill repositioned the Lakepointe as a movie and dining event place called the Studio Movie Grill Lewisville opening May 2007. The theater was in a contentious zone with AMC opening its Highland Village theater to the west in December of that year, Obviously with many theaters within exits of each other (the Vista Ridge Mall 15 Lewisville, the Lewisville 8 discount house, Cinemark 14 in Denton, the Silver Cinemas Golden Triangle, and the Rave Hickory Creek 16), SMG had its work cut out for it. Redesigning the complex as an 8-plex with full kitchen, the theater pulled off the task with aplomb keeping the theater relevant into the mid-2010s and beyond.

dallasmovietheaters on January 22, 2021 at 12:38 pm

Reopened briefly after COVID-19 and was closed permanently in January of 2021

CaptainRob on September 11, 2021 at 6:50 am

Sad to see it go. Another theater that I have worked at that has seen the wrecking ball. Worked there when it was the UA Lakepointe from February to June 2006. Wasa fired without cause after I filed a complaint with corporate HR against the GM and the District Manager. I wonder if anybody ever found the 6000 foot reel of old trailers, dating back to the late 70s, that I had stashed behind the roof ladder?