Movie Theater News

All 5 Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations in Dallas-Fort Worth close

RIP Alamo in DFW

Alamo Drafthouse Facebook

It's a sad sad day for Dallas moviegoers: All five Dallas-area locations of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain have closed.

According to a release, Two is One, One is None, LLC has closed the six franchised Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas that it (and its affiliates) operated, and have filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

The five Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in North Texas closing include Richardson, Las Colinas, Lake Highlands, Dallas, and Denton. They are also closing a location in Woodbury, Minnesota.

UPDATE 6-6-2024: A spokesman for Alamo Drafthouse issued a statement, saying, “We are very disappointed to learn today that our franchisee, which operates five locations in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX and one in Woodbury, MN has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and is closing their business effective immediately. We are heartbroken for the franchisee’s teammates and the local film communities, however, we are working as quickly as possible to get Alamo Drafthouse Cinema back up and running in these cities. All other Alamo Drafthouse locations are operating as normal, with continued expansion plans across the country.”
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UPDATE 6-27-2024: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will re-open all five locations in Dallas-Fort Worth. All six locations that recently closed as part of the franchisee's Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing — including DFW’s Cedars, Denton, Lake Highlands, Las Colinas, and Richardson locations and the Woodbury location in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota — will now be owned and operated by Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, and are set to reopen in summer 2024.
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The Alamo provided a truly unique moviegoing experience with restaurant in-theater servers and themed parties, menu items, and merchandise corresponding with movies, as well as offering holiday and other special movies.

The closure of the Richardson location is especially poignant, since the theater only just received a round of improvements, in partnership with the city of Richardon, to its audiovisual equipment, seating arrangements, and theater ambiance.

Two is One, One is None and its affiliates attributed the decision to seek bankruptcy protection and close the cinemas to the following factors:

Industry-wide guest counts have not rebounded even to pre-COVID levels and coupled with the 100-plus days of the Writers’ and Actors’ strikes, industry-wide economic performance was severely down in the fourth quarter of 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024. The first quarter of 2024 has been the worst performing quarter in movie-going history.
As a franchisee, they paid franchise fees not required of other competitors; payment of these fees to our franchisor in a prolonged environment of significantly decreased revenues were not sustainable. Franchise Fees alone were nearly 10 percent of their sales ($3.7 million) in 2023.
Due to contractual obligations, they were forced to keep even the most unprofitable locations open to the detriment of our overall businesses.
To offset operating losses and try to survive, the owners infused more than $3.5 million dollars in new capital, into payroll and operations in 2023 and year-to-date 2024, while attempting to reduce costs, including repeatedly seeking relief from the franchisor to reduce the non-competitive fee structure and to permit closure of the most non-profitable locations, neither of which were obtained.

The company said it was "deeply saddened" to take this step, and expressed gratitude to its employees "who put in the work, day in and day out to produce a special movie-going experience," as well as to their many loyal customers for whom it was a pleasure to provide such a special experience. The release says that an attempt was made to contact all 600-plus employees prior to the closing of all theaters.

The closures come the same week as the closing of the Angelika Film Center in Plano, which shut down on June 3.

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Movie Review

Horrific filmmaking makes DC villain Clayface less appealing

Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh

Tom Rhys Harries and Naomi Ackie in Clayface.

The history of DC Comics in movies has been hit-and-miss, especially when it comes to anything not directly involving Batman or Superman. Over the years, films have been headlined by heroes like Catwoman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Shazam, the Flash, and more, and while some succeeded, none left a lasting mark on moviegoers’ imaginations.

Much like they did with Joker, the powers-that-be behind DC Studios productions are trying to entice viewers with a no-holds-barred story in Clayface. Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is an A-list movie actor with both critical and commercial appeal. Unfortunately, a night of celebration for his recent Oscar nomination leads to him sleeping with Theresa (Ruby Sear), the girlfriend of Markos Szabo (David Dencik), a prominent mobster in Gotham City. Markos then enacts revenge by taking a razor to Matt’s face.

Desperate to find a way to look like his old self again, Matt seeks out Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), who’s conducting cutting-edge nanotechnology research that can heal any kind of damage. While the solution works on Matt, it also has the side effect of his body doing unintended things, even morphing into those with whom he comes into contact. After initially struggling with his new body, Matt decides to use his powers to enact revenge on those who’ve done him wrong.

Directed by James Watkins (Speak No Evil) and written by Mike Flanagan (The Life of Chuck) and Hossein Amini, the film is only intermittently entertaining as it tries to sell its ridiculous premise. Right from the start, it seems like the filmmakers have been given a limited budget, as everything from the sets to the CGI to the stilted dialogue feels cheap. For a film coming from a major studio, the whole thing comes off as schlocky and undercooked.

Watkins and his team try to make up for that shoddiness by delivering R-rated thrills like nudity and body horror, but those elements can only distract for so long. Much of the film is spent dealing with Matt’s trauma, and the downbeat nature of his body issues combined with very little action makes the movie not very fun to watch. The film also tries to make hay with more than a doctor-patient bond between Caitlyn — who has a boyfriend on the police force — and Matt, but like the most of the film, it never connects.

It’s not until the final third of the movie that the filmmakers land on the tone they should have been using the whole time. Matt’s ability to transform himself, while illogical and confounding, provides multiple over-the-top, funny moments and some legitimately creative kills. Instead of taking forever to set up Matt/Clayface’s origin story, Watkins and his team should have just cut to the chase and let him loose to see what the character could truly do.

This is the first big role for Welsh actor Harries, and while he’s not exactly magnetic, he proves himself worthy of the lead role. Ackie is also fine, but after several years of trying to advance up the Hollywood ladder, she may be running out of time to show she’s a star. The supporting cast has a couple of familiar faces, but it’s mostly lesser-known actors who do nothing to indicate they deserve bigger showcases.

It’s difficult to imagine any non-DC Comics fans having a strong attachment to the character of Clayface, and the film fails to make the case that he should be a continuing character. The poor quality of almost everything that appears on screen is indicative of the kind of effort and money that was put into the film, and sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

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Clayface opens in theaters on October 23.

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