For a moment last month, it appeared gnashed teeth, rended clothes and yanked hair were in the offing for Denver’s indie-film lovers.
The block that includes the Mayan Theatre had been sold to an out-of-town developer. And although the architecturally unique building has landmark status, that peculiar armor does not protect it from the wrecking ball.
But the new owners have said they have no intention of tearing the theater down. And Landmark Theatres, the muscular art-house chain that runs the Mayan, now has signed a new long-term lease.
“We have plans to be in the Mayan for a long time to come,” said Bill Banowsky, CEO of Landmark. “The Mayan is important to to us on a national scale. It’s consistently recognized as one of the 10 most beautiful theaters in the country. In many ways it defines what Landmark is about. Taking these movie palaces and finding a new life for them.”
Whew.
The Mayan’s close call leaves us free to focus on some other tectonic shifts affecting the indie-theater scene in the metro area, moves that mean more screens in town and a decided expansion to the suburbs.
Venerable, but uncomfortable
But before we shift focus away from Landmark, let’s make one more stop at the Mayan. Venerable. Beloved. Intelligently programmed. Uncomfortable.
Let’s be honest, seeing a movie at that architectural gem can be a leg-cramping, neck-craning outing. And since Landmark Theatres – the nation’s largest art-house, indie- film chain – exerts a tight-fisted hold on first-run indie films, that’s no small matter.
Do you want to see a big-buzz indie? Better hope the weather’s friendly. The box-office line can grow long and cold along Broadway.
Sure, those two upstairs mini-theaters have better sightlines, but their legroom makes coach travel seem comfortable – stagecoach, we mean.
Don’t get us started on the Esquire on Sixth Avenue. Ironically, of the three Landmark movie houses in town, the anything-but-landmark Chez Artiste off South Colorado provides the most pleasant moviegoing experience. Arguably, it also has one of the more loyal and intriguing audiences.
But, you ask, isn’t it what’s on the screen that matters most? Absolutely. Still, might this less-than-feng-shui vibe be due in part to the fact that the Mayan’s only competition for first-run fare is no competition at all, but its sister theaters?
Remember that expansion we talked about? It probably won’t mean the Player, a.k.a. Landmark (since 2003 owned by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s company 2929), has to fret any time soon. But it does mean more options for moviegoers.
Consider these moves:
More “shelf space” for indie distributors
“As my father-in-law used to say, the only thing better is more of it,” said AMC Film Group Chairman Dick Walsh, on the phone.
At New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival in early May, AMC announced a new program to dedicate screens in 72 theaters for specialty programming. To add heft to the AMC Select program, the company stated that indie distributors like Sony Pictures Classics (“Friend With Money”), Focus Features (“Brokeback Mountain”) and Lionsgate (“Crash”) will participate.
“What we see clearly is the independent guys need shelf space,” said Walsh. “They need to be able to get their pictures into wider distribution. And we hope that in providing them with more shelf space, the pictures will do better, the smaller independent distributor will do better. And you’ll have a better set of circumstances for any given filmmaker approaching the work.”
The two area AMC ‘plexes designated for the program sound like they are managed by Jack Bauer: the Westminster Promenade 24 and the Highlands Ranch 24.
“You’re pretty much changing states if you go from one to the other,” Walsh joked of the northern and southern suburbs. “They’re two of our highest-grossing theaters in the country. What we’re trying to do is make it more accessible to the specialty film person, so they don’t have to get in their car and drive 20 miles to see these types of pictures.”
Last weekend when the program launched, moviegoers could catch “Akeelah & the Bee,” “Friends With Money, “Thank You for Smoking” or “La Mujer di mi Hermano.”
“It brings diversity into the multiplex,” says Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, one of the longest-running indie distributors in the country. “They want to have something for everybody at the multiplex. If it’s all ‘Mission Impossible’ then you’re losing a lot of your audience.”
“One of the things we’re noticing about bringing the specialty product to the suburbs is that you’ve got a very educated population base. You probably have a population base with disposable income. The higher the education the more likely they are to appreciate eclectic types of films.”
Landmarks’s plans for Greenwood Village give a nod to demographic shifts but also suggest how good a moviegoing town Denver is. The southeast theater will have six screens, gourmet concessions, stadium seating, and a full-service bar. It’ll also have digital and 35mm projection.
“Denver has been a good market for us,” said Landmark’s Banowsky. And, though the company says it’s the distributors who decide which local theaters they’ll play, the truth is it’s a market Landmark protects with vigor.
Showcasing locals
Come fall, Jimmie Lee Smith and business partners Michelle Dorant and Melodie Gaul – his wife and sister – will open the Neighborhood Flix Cinema & Café.
They are in the midst of figuring out the details of their indie programming. After all, Smith said from New York, “We’re 2 miles from the Esquire and 3 miles from the Mayan.”
The now defunct Madstone theater, with its attractive digs, was near enough to the Chez Artiste to make getting choice indies near impossible.
Now the California-based, family-run Regency Theatres is giving it a shot at the same Tamarac Square location, showing a mix of second-run and smaller independent movies as well as studio fare.
“Because Landmark is so vertically integrated, getting good films initially is probably going to be a huge hurdle for us,” Smith admitted.
“One of the plans we want to do, and still be able to pay the bills,” he said, “is show local filmmakers’ work in our venue that generally don’t get to see screenings that have any sort of size, any sort of sound.”
Starz: Audience the edge
One of the city’s most significant theaters for Denver cinephiles is not sweating the changes.
“We’re a 29-year-old cultural institution,” said Scott Rowitz, executive director of the Denver Film Society, which programs the Starz FilmCenter on the Auraria campus, where it has a lease until 2011.
“The advantage we have going forward is we have that 29-year history with the audience,” he said. “They trust our programmatic vision and they trust that we’ll bring the product that creates art and creates a dialogue.”
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or at lkennedy@denverpost.com.
