To restore it, to turn that projector back on to get that famous popcorn going,” Basnight said. “This was great timing, to be able to stop this thing from getting torn down or turned into a development or something. He told her, “We can’t let the theater get torn down.” Two months later, Basnight and a group of family and friends became owners of the theater, paying $500,000 for the building in February. Not long after that announcement, Michael Basnight of Manteo was having coffee with his sister. In December 2022, the Creef family closed it, in part due to “increasing expenses” and “increasing yearly financial losses,” according to a Facebook post from the family. The Pioneer had been one of the longest operating family-owned movie theaters in the country. Or - in the case of the Manteo’s historic Pioneer Theater - they’re reopening, and encouraged about what’s ahead. One of its new owners, Michael Basnight, hopes to reopen in May. WUNC Manteo's Pioneer Theater was closed for construction on Sunday, April 16, 2023. And some of them are thriving as folks return to theaters. Just a bit more than three years since March of 2020, movie theaters aren’t being closed in North Carolina they’re open for business. The movie theater business has reemerged from the darkness brought on by the global pandemic. That puts this year on-pace to be the best for movie theaters since 2019, when 29 films surpassed that figure. “That's what's kind of exciting about it all.”įour months into 2023, seven films have already topped $100 million at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo. It's just in our human nature,” Wellman said. “People want to go out and do things with other people. He’s the managing partner of Carolina Cinemas, which owns the Sandhills 10 in Southern Pines and the Lumina in Chapel Hill. “I think things are really turning around and we're seeing things are a lot better, even between last year and this year,” says Emily Kass, the executive director of the Chelsea Theater in Chapel Hill. And the folks that own and operate those cinemas are optimistic about what’s to come. Simply put: People are coming back to the movie theaters. That amount might not seem like much, but consider that figure would’ve made “Air” a top 10 release in all of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. “Air” – the R-rated story about Sonny Vaccaro’s pursuit of Michael Jordan for Nike – has made $48 million in its first four weeks. On Sunday, the film featuring iconic characters from the famous Nintendo video games became just the 10th animated film ever to gross more than $1 billion worldwide – and the first since 2019.Īnd it’s not just children’s movies that are doing well. Again this past weekend, “The Super Mario Bros.
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