After a wave of cinema closings in 2023, theaters in North Olmsted and Aurora are projected to reopen this year.
Phoenix Theatres announced Tuesday that it will invest $5 million in the former Regal Cinema at Great Northern Mall. The Michigan-based company plans to reopen the 10-screen theater by early summer. It originally opened in 2013 in the mall’s former food court and closed last January.
In Aurora, the former Cinemark is slated to reopen this spring. Mentor-based Atlas Cinemas is renovating the facility, which was opened by Marquee Cinemas in 2004 and eventually closed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In both cases, the new owners plan to upgrade the projection equipment and add new seating.
Phoenix VP of Project Development Jordan Holman said they were attracted to the Great Northern location given that it was relatively new, but it was missing a key ingredient: heated reclining love seats.
“You know, we wake a lot of people up after the show,” he said. “Once you turn the heat on, it's like sitting in a sleeping bag.”
What might seem like an extravagance could have made all the difference for the former Regal according to Phoenix President Cory Jacobson.
“It just opened at a point where the industry was transitioning to recliners,” he said. “This theater has standard theater seats in it. I think that... this theater just never really caught on and reached the potential that I'm sure the previous operator had intended.”
Phoenix Theatres has four properties in Michigan and one each in Iowa and Massachusetts. Its seventh theater refurbishment was at Northtowne Mall in Defiance, Ohio, which reopened in March 2023.
Drawing the curtains
The re-openings follow a changing cinema landscape in recent years. Tower City Cinemas and the Great Oaks in Wadsworth closed during the pandemic and never reopened. Several movie houses have since closed due to the bankruptcy of Regal’s parent company: Middleburg Heights in 2022 and Montrose, in Summit County, in 2023. Aside from Regal, the AMC Solon 16 and Chagrin Cinemas in Bainbridge also went dark around the same time.
Last year Cleveland Cinemas president Jon Forman said the Chagrin, which he operated, was “doing well,” but their landlord sold to an owner who has other plans for the space. In general, he cited streaming as one factor cutting into ticket sales on top of the lingering effects of the pandemic.
Data from Box Office Mojo shows over the past two decades, the total box office gross peaked at more than $11 billion annually from 2015-2019. It plunged to $2.1 billion in 2020 but has been rebounding each year since. In 2023, total ticket sales amounted to $8.9 billion.
