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Red Deer’s Carnival Theatres will close later this year and the second-edition movie theater will reopen in a new location.
At least that’s the plan, owner Bill Ramji said Tuesday.
But he added that projects can change, depending on market conditions, “economies of scale” and the ability to locate new, affordable and suitable housing.
The Red Deer City Council gave initial approval Monday to a zoning replacement that would allow for the creation of a mixed-use residential and advertising complex at the existing Carnival movie theaters on the front of the Capstone Ward.
The unfinished sale of the assets will mean the theater will have to close “for a while,” likely until the end of the summer, Ramji said. He noted that it would take time to renovate the existing and turn it into a theater. They are at the mercy of the structures industry. Contractors are busy.
But other points can influence the long-term viability of the theater.
Ramji said that at the end of the day, enough moviegoers are needed to make it profitable to reopen the theater.
The aftermath of the pandemic, the Hollywood writers’ strike, the immediate move of films to high-demand TV services, and the lack of film sources stand in the way of long-lasting second-hand movie theaters.
He explained that there is now a small inventory of films as the pandemic and the screenwriters’ strike reduced production for several years.
Many new films are shown for a long time in first-run theaters, if they are successful, or they are shown for a short period of time and then temporarily transferred to high-demand television services. This leaves a very small window to show them in second-edition theaters.
Although many personal apartments now have movie theaters, Ramji knows that some moviegoers still prefer to watch videos broadcast on the big screen.
For 27 years, Carnival Cinemas has operated in Red Deer, only as a movie theater, but also as a networking area with rooms for events, screenings of auteur films as part of the Red Deer Museum’s Reel Movie Mondays series, and as the home of the Central Alberta Film Festival.
“We appreciate everything we’ve received,” said Ramji, who hopes that eventually a new venue can be discovered for the theater’s reopening.
As it would be prohibitive to build from scratch, he is considering renovating existing properties.
Meanwhile, Control V, the arcade component of Carnival Cinemas, was sold to new owner Curtis Chick. Ramji said it will effectively reopen at another Red Deer location, and a new location will be announced.