Opening in 1931, The Eaton Theatre in downtown Charlotte is a monument to film history.
Its red-and-black theme hearkens back to the days of velvet seats and curtains.
Leann Owen bought the theater five years ago after many years working there.
After the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, Owen said she was determined to keep the Eaton Theatre open.
“We never fully closed; we did popcorn to go right off the bat from day one. So, people would call, drive up, we would run it out. They loved it. So, the community really helped us keep going,” said Owen.
Three years later, Owen said attendance is up from last year, though she’s not necessarily making more money.
“The costs are a little higher as well. So, I wouldn't say I'm profiting more. But I am having a higher revenue,” Owen said.
But she added that costs have been slowly coming down, making her hopeful for the future.
As you may have heard, “Oppenheimer” is about the father of the atomic bomb and “Barbie” about the famous doll’s existential crisis.
These two movies have been a boon for movie theaters nationwide, Barbie has made over $1 Billion at the global Box Office, Oppenheimer’s grossed over half a billion dollars.
“Barbenheimer box office success has reawakened America’s moviegoing muscle” reads one CNN Business headline.
But Leann Owen and other theater owners in West Michigan said their recoveries started long before the release of the dual summer hits.
At the Wonderland Cinema in Niles, Scott Moore ran back and forth trying to handle both a delivery to the theater and the unexpectedly high number of attendees for a Wednesday morning.
Moore’s the vice-president of Moore Theatres, the five-cinema chain that owns the Wonderland.
“We've already hit our numbers for 2022. So, whatever we grossed attendance-wise last year, we have now hit in July of this year,” Moore said.
Though he added, he’s grateful for Barbie and Oppenheimer, with some people spending five hours at the movies to watch both.
Moore believed customer loyalty helps local theaters to weather storms like strikes and pandemics.
“This is where they came to see their first movie and now their kid is now coming to see their first movie and maybe now even another generation into it has come," Moore said.
Eric Kuiper is the chief creative officer of a slightly larger chain, Celebration Cinema, it has theaters across southern and central lower Michigan.
I met Kuiper at the location on the southern edge of Grand Rapids.
Kuiper said Celebration also had already seen moviegoing increase this year over 2022, before the two big summer hits.
“It's been a really strong year, and it has been coming back quite steadily for you know, well over a year now,” Kuiper said.
Kuiper touched on a different advantage he believed smaller chains and theaters have over the big chains, that being lower costs.
“If your overhead’s lower, it's easier to get through leaner times. And so yeah, that makes a huge difference,” Kuiper said.
We ran that theory by the National Association of Theatre Owners, which represents cinemas big and small, but it declined to comment.
Kuiper said, attendees are buying more concessions than they were before COVID.
Kuiper attributed this increase to what he called “revenge spending” or pent-up demand from the public for the full theater experience.
“People hadn't gone out in such a long time. And so, they were finally going out, and they're going to let it rip, they're going to have the full experience,” Kuiper said.
Moore Theatres has seen this uptick as well, which is important because concession sales are theater’s bread and butter, or rather, its pop and popcorn.
Back at the Eaton Theatre in Charlotte, Leann Owen said she does have some concerns about how the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes will affect the movie pipeline and her business.
“It is going to hurt our fall because they're going to start shifting movies out though. So, we're prepping. Everybody's kind of bracing for that,” Owen said.
She added that she does hope the strikers reach a fair deal.
Owen said the theater may show older films while waiting for the newer ones to come out.
Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program.
