Local theaters say ‘leave all your troubles at home’ this summer movie season

Saundra Lewis stands at the front counter of the Pocatello Reel Theatre. | Logan Ramsey, EastIdahoNews.com POCATELLO – Local theater owners say they offer people the chance to forget about their worries with a movie – for a price that national chains can’t compete with. There are at least five locally owned movie theaters in eastern Idaho: the Reel Theatre in Pocatello, the Centre Twin and Paramount Theater in Idaho Falls, Paramount 5 in Rexburg and the Blackfoot Movie Mill. As they prepare their theaters for the summer movie season, representatives of some of these theaters spoke to EastIdahoNews.com about what makes them so special. “I like the hominess of (our theater)… It’s just more homey, more comfortable. People like it because we aren’t so huge, like the multiplexes. Sometimes it’s easier for people to get turned around and at our place, not so much,” said Saundra Lewis, co-owner of the Reel Theatre with her husband, Clesie Lewis. Many of the locally owned theaters in eastern Idaho have been open for decades in their respective communities. There are two locally owned movie theaters in Idaho Falls. The Centre Twin theater was built in 1913 as a vaudeville theater, before it became a movie theater in 1926, and the Paramount Theatre was opened in 1989. Royal Theaters, owned by Kent and Ingrid Lott, owns these two theaters, as well as the Blackfoot Movie Mill. The Lotts bought the Centre Twin theater in 1993, and then the Paramount Theater in 2000, and then turned an old car dealership into the Blackfoot Movie Mill in 2018. “All three of (our theaters) are very unique, very individual to the field that they have, but all three are very fun,” said Brandon Lott, the general manager of Royal Theaters. The Paramount 5 was opened in 1990 by Mark Andrews as a discount, or “second-run,” theater. His three children bought the theatre from him in 2007, and then bought the other movie theater right next door the following year, before connecting the two buildings into one soon after. According to his daughter, Vanessa Bratt, Andrews began working on opening the theater after taking her brothers and her to see a movie, and was appalled that tickets cost $5. “This is ridiculous. Nobody should have to pay this much to go to a movie,” Bratt recalls hearing from her father. The Reel Theatre was originally called the Crest Theatre when it opened with a single-screen in 1949, before the past owners added another screen and changed its name to its current one in 1988. While the Lewis’ have owned the Reel Theatre since 2000, Saundra has worked at it since its expansion in the 1980s. During their 25 years of ownership, they haven’t changed the theater much since she first started working there. “We’ve done new seats, and we’ve done a few upgrades … but we’re pretty retro. It’s kind of old school. We don’t do online ticket sales, and we don’t do assigned seating, and we still have a ticket booth,” Saundra said. What she has seen change since her early days of working the ticket booth has been the viewing habits of audiences. “It used to be, people would just come to the show and see whatever was playing. They really weren’t picky (about) what was playing, because you didn’t have streaming,” Saundra said. But Saundra said that concern for the future of movie theaters didn’t begin when streaming services became popular. Rather, people were concerned since the very first home video release. “When VHS came out, we thought, ‘oh no, we’re just gonna die from this.’ But we made it through that, and each little hurdle that’s happened throughout the years through technology, we always seem to survive,” Saundra said. This is because the energy of the audience contributes to the viewing experience, according to Lott. “The funny things are more funny because everybody’s laughing. The intense scenes, are more intense, because you can feed off that energy in the crowd. It just heightens the movie experience,” Lott said. The energy an audience brings to the movie theater is Bratt’s favorite part of the experience. “You have a whole bunch of people around you that are all experiencing the same movie at the same time, and you have the laughing, you have the crying, you have the screams, you have the jumps and it makes a movie so much fun,” Bratt said. Saundra pointed out that people have far more distractions from the movie they’re watching when they’re streaming it at home. “If you’re home on your couch, there’s always a distraction. It’s somebody at the door, the dishes are sitting in the sink, and you’re sitting there watching a movie, thinking, ‘I got to get to those dishes,’… At the theater, you can come in and enjoy a movie, and even if those dishes are there, you can’t get up and go do them,” Saundra said. Saundra, Lott and Bratt believe that local movie theaters offer something that nationally owned theaters can’t. One of these things that Lott pointed to is affordability. The cost of a ticket at all three of his family’s theaters, as well as the Paramount 5, are close to $7 for an adult, and close to $5 for a child or senior’s ticket, with $5 for a ticket to a matinee showing for a person of any age. The Reel Theatre, which shows movies in their second-run, sells tickets for $3 per person and $2.50 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. “Here in (eastern) Idaho … we’ve very fortunate to have affordable movie options,” Lott said. Bratt explained that in order to keep their prices so much lower than nationally owned theaters, they rely on profit generated from selling concessions to moviegoers. “A vast majority of our ticket price goes right back to the movie company. So somebody comes in and buys a ticket, they will pay the movie company, and we might be able to turn on the lights … It will not cover the cost to have employees here. It will not cover maintenance costs. If people don’t buy concessions, we’re sunk,” Bratt said. Locally owned theaters are also able to more uniquely serve their communities. As the owners of the Reel Theatre, Saundra said that they don’t have a corporate office they have to get approval from if they want to show a movie with a local interest. Once, they showed a film made by a local teenager for free after he rented one of their screens. “I can make a decision right on the spot, and I can pretty much do whatever I want. If you have a big corporate office, you have to go through a lot of loopholes to do anything like that,” Saundra said. The Paramount 5 doesn’t play any R-rated movies, because the theater is focused on being “family-friendly,” Bratt explained. She added that they played R-rated movies in the past, and they didn’t do well for their theater. “We feel like we know our community well. We are a family-centered community, and it’s kind of always been that way,” Bratt said. Families can also buy tickets to family films at a discounted price in the summer at the Reel Theatre, the Blackfoot Movie Mill, the Paramount Theater and the Paramount 5. The Reel Theatre’s Summer movie schedule. | Courtesy Reel Theatre The Paramount Theater and the Blackfoot Movie Mill’s summer movie schedule. | Courtesy Royal Theaters The Paramount 5’s Summer movie schedule. | Courtesy Paramount 5 As for the future of locally owned theaters, Lott is optimistic that they will continue to see support from locals as long as they continue to support the community. “I think that people see that we’re trying to be community-oriented and family-oriented, and so that’s appreciated by people supporting us,” Lott said. Saundra encourages the community to get off the couch this summer, and instead sit down in a locally-owned theater. “Come to the theater, watch (a movie) on the big screen. Get the sound, get the experience, get the popcorn, and leave all your troubles at home. Leave everything behind you and just come in and relax,” Lewis said.The post Local theaters say ‘leave all your troubles at home’ this summer movie season appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com