Now showing: Too much

posted by Michael Zoldessy on August 29, 2006 at 4:45 am

REDWOOD CITY, CA — Downtown Redwood City was expected to be booming with the opening of a new complex. Instead, it looks like people might have overestimated the need for another multiplex.

The fate of the old movie house off Highway 101 remains a cloudy script, although city officials and business leaders still hope Century Theatres will close it to enhance the draw at the new cinema-retail complex downtown.

As it stands, keeping Century Park 12 along the highway in business has partly been blamed on the sluggish start of the On Broadway complex a mile away. The centerpiece of the complex, a 20-screen cinema, opened July 28.

For more, read the full story in Inside Bay Area.

Comments (7)

KenLayton
KenLayton on August 29, 2006 at 6:35 am

Another example of overbuilding. When will they ever learn?

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on August 29, 2006 at 2:30 pm

So a profitable 12 screen theatre in a one-horse house is being pushed out of business by the incompetent beaurocrats who planned a new expensive never-to-be profitable 20-plex in a location where no one goes after dark.

Close the new white elephant, count your loses and never elect this clan of assholes again. Piracy is not a problem in Redwood. City planners are your pirates.

stevemcgarrett
stevemcgarrett on August 30, 2006 at 2:37 am

Well….
I have not been at the Century 12 since I DON’T drive and I HATED the 1970’s style seats they have there. Unless they have got rid of them and put in more current up to date chairs…. I have not been back there since then. And yes each time I pass the theater on the highway I see the droves of cars that fills the parking lot.
As for the Century 20 that opened in RWC Downtown, it is a quaint looking multiplex.
Very acessible theater for those who don’t drive or rather not. You can walk right over after getting off of SamTrans or CalTrain. And the area its in is still building with new tentants opening monthly as we speak. Sooooo I think the Century 20 will be hanging around for a bit.

Jim Vecchio
Jim Vecchio on August 30, 2006 at 2:54 am

I realize that profit is the Name of the Game, but an important part of the old moviegoing experience was…anticipation. People had their own neighborhood theaters, and there were enough of them peppered about the city so that it wasn’t terribly difficult to attend a movie that may not have been available in your area. But, there were always the attractions that were promised to be “Coming Soon”. Soon, their posters would decorate the hallways, then the exterior. People actually looked forward to waiting and seeing a movie. That experience is lost when all the movies currently available are lumped into one place.

schmadrian
schmadrian on August 31, 2006 at 1:21 am

fedoozle:

Yes, those were the days. The world seemed much smaller back then. Now we have myspace, we have internet sites devoted to trailers, a kajillion online blogs about the movie industry, we have Godknowshowmany tv shows that deal strictly with celebrities and their upcoming projects, we live in a much faster, much ‘smaller’, much more accessible world…

More than anything else, these days people want a) variety and b) easy access to that variety. Oh, and people don’t want to ‘wait’. For anything. Back ‘then’, a movie poster was about anticipation. Now it’s a record of something soon to be in the past, and more often prompts the comment ‘I hear her/his next film is a turkey…’

Welcome to the present. (Soon to be the past.)

TLSLOEWS
TLSLOEWS on March 3, 2011 at 1:45 pm

Well said schmadrian.

Mike Rogers
Mike Rogers on March 5, 2011 at 8:17 am

Yes, schmadrian you are correct. I think one-sheets are lousier today,also.Smaller Too,Some newer ones I have won’t fit in my one-sheet frames.

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