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12/07/2022 07:00 AMThe atmosphere of the movie theater is like no other. The hushed sounds, low lights, and cushioned seats coddle the viewer in comfort. Sitting with family or friends, or even alone with strangers who create an instant community, with concessions on your lap, the overhead lights fade and the screen flashes to life with the start of a feature film. It is an enveloping experience. For the next two hours or so, the theater-goer is transported to another world, via sight, sound, and emotion.
The cinema is a treat that movie theater-goers missed when the pandemic shuttered non-essential businesses and forced people to remain mostly at home. Movie viewing moved to the mundane safety of our dwellings, and the Hollywood studios that make the movies responded quickly by streaming as much entertainment content as they could, canceling theatrical releases, and opting for subscription and pay-per-view platforms like Amazon, Netflix, Peacock, and YouTube, among others. There are close to 50 streaming services in North America, according to Forbes, providing movie viewers with endless entertainment at their fingertips.
The disruption of the pandemic contributed to the loss of many movie theater complexes and that disruption is something from which the movie industry is still trying to recover.
Luring Movie-Goers Back
Casualties include Branford Regal Cinemas 12, located at 325 East Main Street in Branford, closed permanently on Jan. 2, after a post-pandemic attempted reopening in May of 2021 with pandemic safety protocols in place to help lure customers back. The theater complex had operated successfully for 25 years before being taken down by the pandemic.
Marquee Cinemas 12 in Westbrook, located at 314 Flatrock Place, closed on Sept. 28, yet another victim of more than two years of the pandemic that prompted the Hollywood movie studios to reduce the number of films released solely to theaters, opting instead to stream their products over the internet and right into people’s homes.
As reported on Sept. 30, Marquee Cinemas’ Chief Operating Office James Cox, said that when the theater’s lease expired on Sept. 30, the 41,000 square-foot cinema complex could no longer operate beyond the current lease period. Cox was quoted as saying that the building’s landlord was “working hard to find a new operator and the location should reopen soon.” Still, the cinema’s website, as of December, still displayed the “Sorry, we are closed” message.
The loss of business that led to those closings is precisely what the new owner of Madison Cinemas, Harold Blank, is grappling with as he attempts to get people back into the comfy seats of his well ventilated two-screen cinema in downtown Madison.
Blank purchased Madison Art Cinemas from the prior owner Arnold Gorlick in December 2021, after the worst of the pandemic was subsiding. “We opened the theaters on the 28th of January this year,” says Blank, rebranding the facility by dropping the word “Art” from the name to let people know that popular Hollywood movies would be shown, not just the first-run independent art and foreign film fare that Gorlick offered, almost exclusively, with only a few exceptions. Gorlick’s approach made Madison Art Cinemas famous along the shoreline.
For 20 years prior, Gorlick ran Madison Art Cinemas to present the types of films he adored and felt others should also see. His hunch was right, and a dedicated audience formed that relished the art-house films they could not find anywhere else. Gorlick’s film choices also made him a figurehead, of sorts, in the local business community and in the film community. Notable production studio executives consulted with Gorlick for his in-depth knowledge of film and audience responses.
‘Harold Is Doing Exactly What I Would Do’
When COVID shut the Madison Art Cinemas down in 2020—like so many other businesses--Gorlick was in a quandary over how to survive the sudden loss of business revenue.
“I learned about the pandemic shuttered venues grants for small theaters,” Gorlick says. “They were not available to the large theaters, but for smaller venues like ours.”
With that money, Gorlick refurbished and upgraded the Madison Art Cinemas from the floor to the roof, which was needed to refresh and improve the space. With Blank’s input–since he was in the process of purchasing the cinema at the time—luxury rockers were installed; the total number of seats was reduced from 421 to 309; a state-of-the-art 7.1 surround sound system was installed; and the HVAC system was upgraded to pandemic-protection standards guidelines for air filtration, among other improvements.
Once the theater was refurbished, Blank, who already owned and operated Mystic Luxury Cinemas—a four-screen movie theater in Mystic, Connecticut—sealed the deal to purchase the Madison theater.
“I’ve had a long admiration for Madison,” says Blank. “My parents moved there in the mid-1990s, from Waterbury, and spent the rest of their years in the Madison community. I liked the theater and thought it was a good kind of mix with Mystic.”
Blank purchased Mystic Cinemas in 2015, from Bill Dougherty, who “remained in the deal,” according to Blank. Today the two men run a total of three cinemas in partnership. The partners also own a cinema in South Kingston, Rhode Island.
When it comes to the makeup of their Connecticut audiences between the Madison and Mystic Cinemas, Blank says, “They are both upscale communities, shoreline communities, and they're both somewhat of a summertime community where the population increases due to cottages, due to vacationers, so they are similar markets.”
The similarities end there, however.
“Madison really is a smaller downtown community whereas Mystic is more of a regional community,” notes Blank. “Mystic has shopping centers out on the highway, it's got the aquarium, and it's got the seaport museum. Mystic really is a vacation destination point with various attractions and it’s big. Mystic is part of a bigger metro market, meaning New London and Groton.”
The art-house audience, or specialty film audience as Blank prefers to call it, “which is what Madison played for 20 plus years, that audience has been slow to return to the theater and that whole film market seems to have changed,” explains Blank. “There are not as many films, so we’re branching out and playing more commercial pictures, along with the specialty pictures, the family pictures, and the blockbuster pictures. We’re experimenting a little bit on seeing how broad of an audience we can get from commercial to specialty.”
Gorlick, who keeps an eye on his former beloved Madison cinema, says Blank is doing the right thing, considering the challenges of the current film-going marketplace.
“Harold is doing exactly what I would do with the theater today,” Gorlick says, a sentiment that reflects on how the art-house film community has gotten smaller over the past several years.
Perplexed
Still, Blank admits he’s not seeing the audience numbers he would have expected at this point post-pandemic. Most people are out and about and living their lives again as the pandemic continues to wane, but Blank is not seeing the people return to the cinema, in the numbers one might expect with both Branford and Westbrook closed.
“I’m a little perplexed that we don’t seem to get more patrons from the commercial film markets yet,” notes Blank. “I don’t know why. Madison is a wonderful community. You can come down and go to a movie, have a fancy dinner, or just have pizza across the street. It’s really a very nice, diverse downtown with food and entertainment,” along with a world-class bookstore across the street.
To help enhance the cinematic experience, Blank has added to the concession offerings, which is an important contribution to the overall revenue model of any movie theater.
“In both our Madison and Mystic theaters we have liquor licenses, which we think are important, because as important as the film component is, the concessions component is as important because it helps keep the movie theater afloat financially,” says Blank.
Madison Cinema Theater Manager Ryan Fiorentino echoes Blank’s sentiment when he talks about what’s needed today to help transition movie theaters back into society.
“We were stuck in a bubble for two years where everybody was afraid to leave the house,” says Fiorentino. “We are a community-based theater, we are part of the downtown, so it was really important for this theater to stay alive and adapt from the old model of being just an arts cinema to more of a ‘reagalesque’ type cinema where we show the big Hollywood films, some art films, and some kids’ movies.
A Coming Of Age, Retaining Nostalgic Vibe
“Unfortunately,” says Fiorentino, “a lot of kids’ movies go straight to streaming services, but the ones we can get, like Strange World, we grab because our business is heavily dependent upon concessions sales, and kids like concessions. And with alcohol for the adults who like a glass of wine or draft beer, the theater has adapted and come of age, but it still keeps its eclectic, nostalgic vibe with the old Edison-style lights.”
Black agrees. “We treat patrons well and give them a quality experience in a comfortable chair, and hope that the movies Hollywood is giving us are the ones patrons want to see.”
“I really pride myself on talking to every customer,” says Fiorentino, “making sure people leave here happy, and that they had a good experience and a good time at the theater.”
“Hopefully,” says Blank, “the families from Guilford to Clinton to Westbrook will partake in the upcoming Disney animated movie, Strange World, that we will start showing...” followed by Avatar 2: The Way of Water on Dec. 17.
While Madison Cinemas is offering the first-run blockbusters, they continue to offer a variety of other fare as well. Searchlight Picture’s The Menu is coming up, featuring Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes. And, the cinema threw open its doors, with no admission charged, so the community could enjoy a livestream of World Cup Soccer on Nov. 29 when Team USA prevailed over Iran, one of several events it has offered for free to the community. They also offered four free showings of the Academy Award-winning film CODA in March.
Still, they’d love to see more people walking through those doors, a sentiment shared by other movie theater owners.
Hollywood Still Struggling, Too
“The industry as a whole is operating at about 67 to 70 percent of what it was in 2019,” says Blank, so admissions are still well under the level movie theaters were experiencing prior to the pandemic lockdowns. “It’s a combination of Hollywood having some dry spells in their release schedule. There was very little at the end of August, September, October, and even the beginning of November. We had three and one-half months of not a lot of product. You could compare it to a grocery store that doesn’t have a lot of vegetables for a few months. If they don’t have the food, they’re not going to sell it, and we were in the same position with films.
“Hollywood is still kind of struggling with their own debate over what should stream and what should go to movie theaters,” continues Blank, “and I think that’s going to take another year or two to settle down.”
When one considers that the average cost of a Hollywood movie production is in the $100 million range—that’s $65 million in production costs and another $35 million in marketing and advertising—it’s understandable that the movie studios are cautious about what they produce and when and how they release product to the marketplace.
“I do believe that studios, over the course of the next twelve months, will begin to release more pictures for movie theaters, as they see that that’s the right way for them to go because they can have streaming afterward,” explains Blank. “They can still make some movies for streaming [only] but among these streaming companies, there’s a lot of competition. They are not showing the profits they thought they would be showing. I believe the studios will find the proper balance between movie theaters and streaming, but I don’t think they’re there yet.”
Blank’s theaters in Mystic stayed open during most of the pandemic, with the owners and employees working feverishly and creatively to serve lockdown-weary residents of that area.
“I think this helped us stay relevant,” notes Blank. “But the numbers in Madison are still below my expectations, although I think as we get better in programming the theater, along with the people understanding that we’re playing both commercial and specialty [films], the theater will improve,” concludes Blank. “It’s just gonna take some time.”
Madison Cinemas is located in downtown Madison at 761 Boston Post Road. Website: www.madisoncinemas2.com. Phone: 203-245-3456. Email: cinemas@madisoncinemas2.com