George Marie & Michael D'Alessandro
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How has Cinema United membership been impactful to you and/or your business?Being informed of news and legislation, industry moves and seeing other members and their theaters highlighted.
Our local theatre was being sold after 30 years of continuous operation by the last owner, and we jumped in without knowing anything about the exhibition business other than we were both cinephiles. We are a community of about 10,000 people, and were both in the nonprofit world and knew a lot of folks. The original Vaudeville theatre was built in 1907 and restored in 1992, so we are stewarding the legacy of this place in our community.
Gathering people together in one space to experience a film is like nothing we have in our daily lives today. It still is a common ground, where people from all walks of life sit elbow to elbow to share in the same experience of one of our highest and creative forms of storytelling.
Recently, one of our first generation digital projectors failed, and we needed to replace it and the server to operate. Another theater in Seattle loaned us a server to keep it operational for a bit longer, and we did a Go Fund Me to raise money to buy another server and projector. We raised $25,000 in one hour and the full amount in 3 months! It was amazing to see how many folks helped us keep going.
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For both of us, it was a recent special screening of ET in our Rose Theatre, where all 158 seats were filled and many with first time movie goers between the ages of 2 and 5. To see there faces move through the emotions as they watched the final scenes of that pivotal film, confirmed for us all that had lead us to being here, and doing this work. Personally, Michael’s most memorable moment was watching Gremlins with his grandfather in the 80s, and he couldn’t figure out if his grandfather’s loud laughter was to distract Michael from being scared, or was he really that amused by the film. For George, it had to be going to Batman Returns in a packed cineplex, and it feeling like a rock concert or once in a lifetime event, where everyone was anticipatory, buzzing and doing the wave before the film started.
Honestly, it’s been a rough road since we took ownership in 2023. Coming off the end of the pandemic and into strikes and general panic in Hollywood was a tough time for us starting out in a new venture. We were hopeful, as everyone was, for Barbie and Oppenheimer, and know that those experiences will be back again. We are excited about being able to move into more repertory screenings in our Starlight Room, to open up one screen to be more flexible helps a lot. We think the exhibition industry might be heading further into more experiences around moviegoing, rather than a pile-in, filling seats approach.
Think of your best experiences seeing movies and try to create those for your business and clients. Your instincts are probably right.