At a time when movie theaters nationwide face a crisis, a handful of local theaters in Utah have found that picking up a second job is a way to keep the curtains open.
Brewvies has been open for almost 30 years, but the downtown Salt Lake City theater is not just a place to watch movies. They also have a full bar with a wide variety of drinks and food to choose from. It is called Brewvies, after all.
“We have that fortunate distinction of being the only movie theater bar in the whole state. In a way that's to our advantage, because there's no competition,” said lead bartender Jesse Wroe.
Alcohol isn’t the only attraction. Every Wednesday, Brewvies holds a special themed movie night called Humpnight. But it’s different from the movies you’d see at a large theater chain. Usually, these films are older and more obscure.
Theme nights aren’t just for fun. They’re for survival. Movie theaters have had no choice but to get creative with attracting customers and taking on extra roles. The number of movie screens decreased by 5% nationwide during the pandemic, according to The Cinema Foundation.
Utah has seen closures over the past few years. Cinemas like Cine Pointe 6 in Ogden, Maven Cinemas in American Fork, Redwood Drive-in in West Valley City, Sandy Point 9 in Sandy and Holiday Village 4 Cinemas in Park City have all permanently closed.
But Brewvies keeps itself busy. Besides their theme nights, manager Andrew Murphy said the theater bar often hosts corporate or nonprofit events. They also help out Salt Lake’s independent film industry.
“It’s been a place where smaller filmmakers who are local can use the space to premiere their movies, or even just do screen tests and stuff,” Murphy said. “We do a lot of that, like friends and family and cast type screenings for local filmmakers.”
Another thing that differentiates the theater is that you won't find any shushing of noisy guests.
In fact, being loud is encouraged. When something funny or grotesque happens, the crowd’s reaction overtakes the room. It’s a lot more like the Minecraft “Chicken Jockey” craze than your staid local library.
“I definitely think that's part of the experience, when things get crazy in the movie and the crowd starts reacting,” Wroe said. “That's got its own electricity, so to speak.”
Wroe likes that, even though it’s given the place something of a reputation.
“Some people don't come here because they don't like the crowd engagement. It's been a thing. I've given out refunds and free passes to [people] who are saying, ‘Why won't they stop talking?’”
But the regulars love it. Tyler Harrah likes to visit for Humpnight, and was there when they screened a 1980s Hong Kong horror film called “Seeding of a Ghost”. The crowd cheered at the end of the movie.
“It's different than any other theater,” Harrah said. “Especially with a movie like the one tonight, and these really cold films or something really gory or gratuitous, there's no better way to view it than with just a rowdy crowd, and Brewvies will do that to you.”
Hollywood bigwigs agree on the experience of watching a film together. At the Academy Awards this year, the winner for best director, Sean Baker, pleaded in his speech for people to return to movie theaters.
“It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home. And right now the theater-going experience is under threat,” Baker said. “Movie theaters, especially independently owned theaters, are under threat and it’s up to us to support them.”
Brewvies isn’t the only theater experimenting with how to find an audience.
Stadium Cinemas in Payson originally started in Alaska, but moved to the state nearly 25 years ago. At first, owner Kris Phillips said adapting to a new culture was difficult. But she’s been able to draw in customers by giving back to her community.
Phillips makes a point to donate to schools and hold field trips for local students. They also donate to fundraisers, give students discounts and even support local football teams.
“I have heard from customers that say they do pay attention to advertising and events [saying] ‘OK, well, this business has supported the school here, so we're going to support them,’” Philips said.
She's found success in, as she puts it, an “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” kind of way. But Phillips said that theaters can only do so much themselves. A lot of factors are out of their hands.
“It's one of those industries that it's not as simple as just you open your doors and you just sell commodities,” Phillips said. “We're reliant completely on Hollywood releasing good films.”
So when things like writers’ or actors’ strikes bring the film industry to a halt, she said her business feels the effects.
In southern Utah, Panguitch Gem Theater is trying out a different approach.
Chris Kaspar, the manager at the Gem and son of the owner, said the theater has had to become a jack-of-all-trades to keep its doors open.
“It used to be just a movie theater but we added a Mexican restaurant, and we added an ice cream parlor, and started making ice cream and chocolates, and we added a rock shop,” Kaspar said.
During the pandemic, the theater went up for sale and his dad bought it. If they hadn’t made the purchase, Kaspar said it probably would have been “ripped out and used as storage.”
Kaspar isn’t a big fan of theaters himself. He thinks they’re wasteful, especially smaller ones. And knowing the economics of it all, he said he wouldn’t be surprised if movie theaters died out over time.
But Kaspar said his family didn’t buy it to try and run a successful theater. They bought it to preserve the culture attached to a business that says it’s been around since 1909.
“[There’s] checkered floorboards, an old projector that used to play in the front that runs on film,” Kaspar said. “But when you're walking into my theater, you're walking into a slice of history.”
Despite its additions, the Gem still has trouble getting people in front of the screen. Part of that, said Kaspar, is because of the march of technology.
“Now everybody has a movie theater in their living room, so not as many people go to the movies, and so that's one big change,” Kaspar said. “Another big change is the attention span of America has gone down, like way, way down.”
For moviegoers like Tyler Harrah at Brewvies, theaters are a crucial third space, somewhere people can gather and connect besides home or work. Harrah said that after a lonely pandemic, theaters reach beyond just a space for entertainment.
“If we wipe these things off the map, ala the Redwood Drive-In, we lose a piece of ourselves,” Harrah said. “Not just like, ‘Oh, that was a fun thing to do,’ or, like, some extravagance. No, no, we lose the personality that our city has. We lose a part of ourselves.”
