Every media outlet in town is reporting that Regal Seminole 4 behind KMart is becoming a nine-screen stadium-seating behemoth. They’ll have digital projectors, retractable armrests for seat-sharing, and the ability to project live broadcasts. The plans are on display in the theater’s lobby. There’s no word on when the project is scheduled for completion.
The demise of the Terrace Triple left the Seminole 4 as the skeeziest theater in town. Looks like they’re about to become the best theater in town. I see a movie in the theater about once annually; one of these years, I’ll make it the Regal Seminole 9.
Good deal. Right about the time as this was being reported, I was buying X-Men tickets on fandango for their showing at the Carmike and lamenting to my co-worker that we have northern VA theater prices without northern VA theater quality. I have to say that I’m surprised it took them until 2009.
I remember when it was the “new” theatre in town. I’m talking back when there was a theatre on the Corner next to the Red Roof Inn (formerly Howard Johnson’s) and the Barracks Road Theatre in the North Wing. Seminole was the first to have cup-holders in the armrests and a little video game arcade.
I hope it comes to pass; I’d love to have a good venue for moviegoing, now that my spouse and I have begun going to movies again.
That video arcade at Seminole was great!
Am I imagining things, or didn’t there used to be one in Fashion Square, too?
Actually, Carmike has been the skeeziest theater in town for 10 years running!! What a joke of a theater.
To say that place is a dump disgraces dumps (even the Batesville illegal dumps)!
I don’t know if they still do this (as I haven’t been to the place in a while) but they used to charge people for using their debit cards to pay for movie tickets. Who the hell does that!!! Unless they’ve updated their sound equipment in the last couple of years, the sound is the worst of any theater in town.
Awesome. Will better attitudes & customer service come with that or is it a la carte?
The angle we took with our story was to highlight the fact that the Seminole Cinema 4 theater was expected to be demolished to put in the Hillsdale Drive Extension. That puts an interesting twist on BOTH projects.
Brian Wheeler
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Fun-N-Games, Waldo, Fun-N-Games.
The carmike cinemas in charlottesville IS a dump. why? because I used in to work there in 2006. I know that the seats were bad. projection stunk. I could have gone there for free but didn’t because it stunk. The manager at the time was younger than me. I heard stories that she would steal money. i never saw it and never proven. the carmike put a policy in place that if you were off on your concession stand and you left you would be written up. the day before i was fired i did my 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. schedule I had closed my register and went up to the manager’s office to count my money. i counted all of the money in the register for that day. after 3 times of doing this i left because i had to take public transportiation home. unknown to me at the time i was written up twice. one for walking out and not having the right amount of money in the register. mind you that i never ever stole money. the next day at a manditory meeting the manager was in a very fowl mood as she was always was when i was there wanted to say something smart about me to my face. i let it go. That day we all was supposed to get our checks. i didn’t get mine. i had called my parent to told the parent i didn’t get it. well the manager was pissed off and fired me without question. i gave back the vest and bowtie and 2 weeks later i got my check. i believe a few months later that manager quit. in my opinion she should have been fired. the moral of the story is don’t ever ever work for the carmike or see a movie the. the popcorn is nasty the drinks are horrible and it’s too expensive. even the people who work at the carmike have to pay for the drinks and snack when they go see a movie. that is a fact.
a local projectionist I know refers to the Seminole as “the Death Star” due to it’s featureless long hallways, and general monolithic box-like structure. It’s a hard nickname to forget, once you’ve heard it.
I’m just hoping they keep the mural that’s been there since like 1983. You know, the one with Indiana Jones, ET, Jack Nicholson, Humphrey Bogart, etc.
… and yes, that video arcade WAS great. If we had an arcade in town now, I would totally patronize it. Does Kegler’s even have one anymore?
I too remember the theater on the corner, although I can’t recall the name. It was the space that used to be Plan 9 in the 90’s, and is now… um, a tanning salon. I have fond memories of seeing “the Witches” there at age.. 7? 6?
I think the biggest major improvement they need to make is selling cups that will actually fit in the cupholders. :)
current theorizing among local theater-owners is that this will probably force the (truly wretched) Carmike out of business. Probably for the best…
I believe the theater on the Corner was ‘University Theater’. great spot for Midnight Movies when I was an undergrad, including the John Waters film with the scratch-n-sniff cards (which I should have kept!)and Rocky Horror Picture Show.
highly theoretical bunch those local theater owners, eh?
Do the local theaters have some sort of no-complete clause with each other? It seems like when a new movie comes out, it’s only playing at one theater, usually Carmike. My experience has been that the tickets for new releases sell out so fast that you have to get them on fandango, sometimes days in advance, and pay a service fee to guarantee seeing a movie on opening weekend. It’d be great if both the Carmike and the rebuilt Seminole got new releases, although obviously the rebuilt Seminole will be the place to be.
Mostly it’s the fact that the distributors won’t give a film to more than one theater because they know (in a town this size) that it will dilute their market. But it’s my understanding that a lot of the theaters also sign totally illegal contracts with the distributors to assure that they’ll be the only ones with a certain film in the region… blatantly illegal, but it still happens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_booking
It’s also true that a lot of the larger theaters chains are deliberately trying to screw over the smaller mom&pop ones. For instance, when the Regal built a 6-plex downtown, they specifically branded it as an “art-house” Regal because they were trying to force the Jefferson and Vinegar Hill out of business by competing for the same films.
Actually, it pretty much worked; the Jeff closed in … 2005? and the original VHT closed last fall. (although it re-opened almost immediately under new ownership, and I should mention in the interest of full disclosure that I now manage it).
It’s worth mentioning the movie exclusivity thing seems to happen anywhere, regardless of city size. Here in NYC movies open only in a particular chain (here it’s Regal vs. Loews), though sometimes they’ll switch after a few weeks. Sometimes local chains beat them out for opening weekend, which is always kind of awesome.
James, I guess I don’t need to point out to you that the wikipedia article you linked to doesn’t support your point or apparently even have anything to do with it, because I’m sure you must have read it before you linked to it. Even if I don’t point that out to you, there is probably still some chance that you will feel the need to correct yourself and to maybe find another way to support your claim of blatant illegality.
I’m hoping there will also be an authoritative wikipedia style link unmasking the plot among first run theaters to force second run theaters out of business. It must have been just such a plot rather than unimaginative use of the crumbling space, lame projection and sound equipment, and surly staff that did the Jefferson in. Those damn plotters probably even went so far as to offer the owner a large sum of cash for the space.