The article briefly mentions all of the North Texas locations closed a week ago when the franchisee that owned them declared Chapter 7. Alamo Corporate immediately vowed to find a new franchise owner who would reopen. I hope Sony does something about this. I live down the street from one of the Dallas locations and, along with live music, this was effectively the out-of-house social life for me and my wife. Alamo was in the midst of a retrospective of anniversary re-releases, showing films from 1999 (which was our high school graduation year), then going back every five years until 1974. It was currently on 1989 and we were supposed to see Do The Right Thing this weekend. We've been there three to four times a month every month this year. The app still works, but listings were all deleted and tickets we already paid for are gone. The franchisee who closed the locations released a statement basically saying fuck yourselves. Nobody got any refunds. 600 employees were let go with no notice. The doors were simply locked and a paper sign put up.
The only location in Minnesota was also owned by this franchisee. It was a real shock when it closed since it always seemed to be busy. If there was a movie we really wanted to see in the theater, the drafthouse was always the first choice.
For some historical referrence, there was a court decision in 1948 stopping the movie studios from owning the theater chains too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
I worked in a movie theater in the early 2000s and the studios/distributors had theaters by the throat anyway. Disney for example could demand any terms they wanted for allowing for example star wars and theaters bid against each other regionally for an artificially limited number of 'prints' (today they're hard drives) and could insist on 100% of the take, a % of concession sales, pretty brutal terms. I don't know what the industry is like in the last 15 years.
Disney has owned the El Capitan in hollywood for years, though. Not sure how that was allowed as an exception if the rule was only recinded in 2020. Maybe just chains.
I love Alamo drafthouse and it’s pretty much the only theater that my wife and I goto when we see a movie. Hopefully this doesn’t result in the experience becoming shit.
My wife and I frequented Alamo before COVID. It was already going to shit. Fewer food options. Worse food. Worse/slower service (due to staffing). Pushing subscriptions (Victory Pass). Less creative no talking/texting warning cards.
My bet is that Alamo slowly becomes something like what happens to Moviehouse and Eatery (Texas theater chain) after Cinepolis (my guess on the LATAM buyer; they're based out of Mexico) took it over: AMC, but quirkier.
I don't particularly like the food but I recently had a Diet Coke there. Almost $9 ($8.60) before tip. I like the theater but that was shocking and made me feel like I'm a sucker for ordering.
