Can independent cinemas survive in a multiplex world?

Scene: a small independent movie theatre. A couple approach the box office and ask for two tickets to a movie that first premiered a couple months ago. They pay their money, take their ticket stubs, and enter a cozy lobby, making a bee-line for the concession.

Moments later, popcorn bags in hand, they push through a pair of tandem doors into a long, narrow room. The screen is large, but not massive. The seats are comfy, but not extravagantly so. This is a movie theatre. It’s not a multiplex. It’s different.

Ten years after Chilliwack’s beloved Paramount Theatre was torn down, the future of the Fraser Valley’s remaining independent theatres is more uncertain than ever. The Hope Cinema is struggling, relying on the charity of its owners and landlord. And in Chilliwack, the Cottonwood 4 Cinemas building and property is listed for sale for $8.5 million (while its operator says they have a long-term lease, the property owner has submitted an application to allow for the construction of condos). Beyond the drive-in, the rest of the independent cinemas are gone.

But the valley might not yet be doomed to a megaplex movie monopoly. Elsewhere in BC, local film-lovers have shown there is another way forward for a community-scale moviegoing experience.

‘Our theatre’

When, the operators of the Hope Cinema took over the theatre during the COVID pandemic, the business came with a heavy dose of responsibility, given how locals feel about the theatre.

“Whenever the citizens of Hope ever talk about the cinema, they always say ‘Our theater,’” said the operator, who asked The Current not to name him for personal reasons.

The cinema was a hub of activity in a community without any other significant public performance spaces. But actually making money and a profit proved to be difficult. The problem, the owners found, is not so much that people have forsaken the movies, but that the entire film industry is now seemingly built around and for theatres with many different screens.

If a theatre-owner could pick the movies they wanted to show and pay a percentage of revenues to the film studios, it would be simpler and easier to imagine a profitable future.

But that’s not how it goes anymore.

Now, the studios behind the most-popular movies expect theatres to reserve an entire screen for new releases. That might not initially sound like a huge problem—you can only show one movie on one screen at a time, after all. But the stipulations are major obstacles for small, one-screen theatres because they mean they often can’t pair a late adult-oriented flick with an earlier family film. Instead, they have to show The Big Movie and only The Big Movie.

It’s not just that. For the biggest movies, theatres often have to commit to screen the movie for weeks on end. In the case of Avatar, theatres needed to commit for four weeks.

Hope’s theatre brought in the blockbuster anyways, but the contract meant that it couldn’t show any other films during that time period.

If the theatre could show, say, Puss in Boots earlier in the day, before a screening of Avatar, it may have been able to double its revenue, the owner said.

“We’d actually have a profitable business if they allowed us to do that,” he said.

The one thing that is working for the Hope Cinema? Community-based events.

The owners bought a stage and PA equipment. They’ve held live-wrestling events, hosted blue, punk metal, classic rock shows, and welcomed stand-up comics on stage. And those nights have generated some of the best audiences for the 324-seat theatre.

“We sold out the auditorium four times in the past year and five months, and those were for private events like film festivals and Rambo and stuff like that.”

A history of competition

It hasn’t always been this way—but upheaval is also nothing new to the Fraser Valley movie-theatre business.

On Jan. 23, 1930, audiences gathered in Chilliwack’s new state-of-the-art theatre to experience what had been advertised as “stupendous productions” that represent the “last word in moving picture art.”

This “last word,” as described by that week’s Chilliwack Progress actually had nothing to do with the pictures on the screen. Instead, it was the soundtrack that was the big thing. Specifically: there was a soundtrack, with the on-screen images matched with sounds and dialogue.

The Talkies had arrived, and with them, a whole new world of movie-going. The moment wasn’t just the culmination of audio-visual technological advances, but of local film-showing competition.

As local historian Merlin Bunt documented earlier this year, the Strand was actually the fourth theatre to open in Chilliwack over the previous two decades. The first theatre seated 250 people and was called the Edison Theatre when it opened in 1910. That same year, a second “movie house” opened nearby called the Lyric Theatre. And three years after that, the Imperial Theatre opened on Yale Road.

You can read Bunt’s full history of Chilliwack’s movie theatres here.

The Strand entered this competitive landscape in 1924—and then re-entered it after a 1926 fire destroyed the original building. The second version of the Strand, which seated 570 people and boasted advanced new technology, put the Imperial out of business and ushered in the Talkies era.

By the ‘40s, Bunt wrote, the Strand itself was in trouble. It was described as “shabby,” and its 570 seats were far too few to hold the massive crowds who wanted to attend the movies. By the end of the decade, the ribbon had been cut for the 900-seat Paramount. Unable to compete, The Strand immediately stopped showing films.

Up for sale

The Paramount had a local monopoly for decades. When Cottonwood 4 Cinemas opened in 1995, it became the city’s first new theatre in four decades.

The Cottonwood 4 had more screens than the Paramount and a convenient location for south-side moviegoers. But the two theatres managed to co-exist for more than a decade. It wasn’t the Cottonwood that would do in the Paramount, but the construction of Cineplex’s eight-screen Eagle Landing multiplex. That competition, combined with the high cost to renovate the aging Paramount, posed too much for the corporate owner of the 70-year-old theatre.

It gave the theatre to the City of Chilliwack, which then controversially opted to tear the building down.

The Cottonwood, meanwhile, has remained operating and found its audience by focusing not on the newest films, but by offering a cheaper, smaller-scale film-going experience. It has also been the home of the Chilliwack Independent Film Festival and shown smaller, more independent films.

The Cottonwood’s operator declined to speak with the Current, only saying via text the business is not for sale and that their contract continues until 2038.

The property’s owners, however, seem to have a very different vision for the site. Less than two years ago, Windbreak Developments Ltd. bought the property for $5.4 million.

They subsequently filed an application with the City of Chilliwack for rezoning necessary to allow them build a six-storey 120-unit apartment building. That application is on hold now pending a development permit application that staff have deemed necessary, according to a city spokesperson.

The site has also been re-listed for sale—its current $8.5-million price tag represents a $3 million mark-up from its sale price less than two years ago.

The listing emphasizes the property’s redevelopment potential.

“Many properties around it are being largely redeveloped and modernized,” it states. “There is currently an over-10,000-square-foot building with a long-term tenant in place. Discussions have begun with the [C]ity of Chilliwack about possible redevelopment of this property.”

If and when the city approves redevelopment plans, it is possible—and maybe likely—that the property owner would try to make the theatre’s operator an offer they might not be able to refuse.

From movies to homes

The Cottonwood listing illustrates how high land values can make it harder for small-scale and art-based businesses to survive.

The potential condo future of the Cottonwood site has already befallen its corresponding theatre in Abbotsford. In 2013, when the new 11-screen Cineplex theatre opened in HighStreet, the company that operated Abbotsford’s Towne Cinema near the University of the Fraser Valley vowed the site would remain open.

“That theatre does very good business,” Landmark Cinemas’ Neil Campbell said at the time. Sixteen months later, the theatre was closed for good. Just a few years after that, the site was set to be home to a new 250-unit townhouse and apartment project.

Recent months have seen a series of other small-business closures across the valley, including Hemingway’s Books and Birkeland Bros. Wool in Abbotsford, and several restaurants in Chilliwack.

As land has grown increasingly scarce in cities’ central commercial cores, the owners of properties have looked to cash in on their investments. They are increasingly either renovating existing buildings, or tearing them down and building denser multi-use buildings suited for highly profitable businesses that require relatively little room to operate. In such a landscape, a theatre either needs to already own its building, or have a generous and patient landlord (or, potentially, a very long-term lease).

If it has those things—and the Hope Cinema has that patient landlord—there might be hope and a path to success and survival. Indeed, as the movie and theatre business has become increasingly corporate, something else has happened: communities have discovered a new appreciation for local, small-scale theatres. And with that appreciation has come new ideas for how to keep them open.

Saving The Towne 

For nearly a century, the Towne Theatre has sat aside Vernon’s main street, its marquee a fixture of the Okanagan city’s downtown in much the same way the Paramount was once the centre of Chilliwack. But whereas the Paramount is gone and the Fraser Valley’s other small theatres are struggling, the Towne is very much alive and kicking, with a promising future.

As the owners of the Hope Cinema contemplate the future, they are looking to follow the script laid down by The Towne and a handful of other Interior theatres.

The Towne isn’t really a business anymore. Instead, it is run as a non-profit by a society of volunteers and funded by not only ticket sales, but donations, grants and fundraisers.

The theatre went the non-profit a couple years ago when its owner sought to retire. A group of film-lovers—the Okanagan Screen Arts Society (OSAS)—had already been successfully showing movies in the theatre for several years, and they leapt at the chance to take over the reins of the facility.

As a business, the Towne would have been fighting the economic and contractual forces challenging theatre owners everywhere. But becoming a non-profit allowed its operators to apply for government grants and solicit donations from a community that truly loved the Towne.

“There was a whole lot of sentiment toward our theatre,” said Susan Hodgson, the non-profit’s secretary. Vernon has multiple arts venues, including a stage theatre, a jazz club, and a city-built performing arts centre. But the theatre was unique and a cornerstone of Vernon’s rejuvenated downtown core.

“I think the community as a whole got behind us partly because they didn’t want to see a big empty space on Main Street.”

The society took over in the midst of the pandemic, and found the early days to be a struggle. But the community rallied to the cause, donating enough money to allow the non-profit to renovate the theatre’s lobby.

COVID was difficult, Hodgson said, “But now we’re rolling along and doing quite well.”

The theatre frequently shows the second-run of popular movies, while screening less-publicized independent movies every Monday. Those human-scale films, which tend to dominate festivals, are some of the theatre’s most popular fare, Hodgson said. (This week it’s showing The Whale, The Fabelmans, Living, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, among other films.) By showing films that have been out for a while, the theatre doesn’t have to worry about restrictive rules from movie studios; those studios are just happy someone is screening their films.

The theatre has also deliberately sought to embrace the diversity of its region, with monthly nights dedicated to Indigenous- and LGBTQ-focused films. They have also started showing anime films to appeal to a younger crowd.

As the Towne has built upon its reputation in Vernon, it’s been able to make money even from films that didn’t do very well in other theatres. In August, the theatre’s agent secured the local rights to show Kevin Smith’s Clerks III when the movie opened the following month. The film did poorly across North America, but it was a hit at the Towne. Indeed, the theatre had the best box office sales for the movie in the continent, Susan said.

The Towne has even begun to show its bigger competitor there could be money to be made in indie films.

“We did so well in October, November, and December, the [Cineplex-owned] Galaxy theatre took one of our movies that we had booked for about four months,” Hodgson said. “They showed it, but we let our theatre-goers know that we were going to be showing it, so they came to us.”

The art of cinema

The model isn’t unique to Vernon. Several cinemas have gone the non-profit route in other Interior cities, including Salmon Arm and Burns Lake—an even smaller community than Hope.

The smaller theatres, whether for-profit and non-profit run, are finding success by emphasizing their community connections and offering different fare than large multiplexes, according to Matthew Hawkins, the Chilliwack-based creative director of FilmAds, which connects advertisers and independent movie theatres across BC and Alberta.

By embracing film as art, local theatres can find their place in a community, and their root to financial sustainability, he said.

“The art of cinema is unlike anything else. It’s different than live theatre, it’s different than an art show, it’s different than a concert,” he said. ”When you have independent movie theatres, which are typically smaller theatres, there’s something that connects better with the community when you bring in independent and unique films.”

Smaller theatres are also finding cost-effective niches that play into their unique strengths, Hawkins said, pointing to theatres like The Gem in Grand Forks that have showings of old movies. The cost to film those movies can be extremely cheap, allowing theatres to make a profit through low-cost tickets and concession sales. The Towne does something similar. Each weekend in January and February, it is showing a different Harry Potter movie.

It’s just one way smaller theatres are finding success by harkening back to the past, while being a part of their town’s future.

“Movie theatres are an essential part of a community,” Hawkins said. He pointed to Salmon Arm, where the theatre donates profits to the town. That money has gone towards building playgrounds and trails, and creating scholarships for local students. The same goes for Burns Lake, he said.

“People love to go see the movies, but they also know their money is going back into the community when they support that theatre as well.”

‘I’m not going to close the doors’

Back in Hope, the operator of the Cinema is looking to those successful non-profits as a potential template to save his (and his community’s) theatre.

Currently, the theatre is losing money but remains open thanks to the goodwill of those operating it and a cut-rate deal on rent.

“It literally should be a charity,” the owner told The Current. But the theatre isn’t closing. Instead, the owner sees hope for Hope Cinema in the success of the Interior’s non-profits.

“I’m not going to close the doors, but I’m searching for the right people who would want to make it a community non-profit organization,” he said. “I don’t want to be known as the guy that closed the theatre.”

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