Five years ago on Thursday 19th March 2020, shortly after unprecedented global COVID lockdowns started to take effect in response to the pandemic, a group of people based between Los Angeles, London and Oslo hastily pulled together a live online broadcast to talk to their industry colleagues about what the heck was happening. 

And thus the CJ Cinema Summit was born. Fast forward five years and 102 sessions later, the summit is still going strong, having hosted a whole range of industry figures from senior executives from the studios (Disney, Paramount Pictures, Universal, Warner Bros.) to representatives from exhibition, distribution and manufacturing. Despite the world having returned to its new normal, the summit continues, approximately once a month, putting out broadcasts that focus on any and all topics that impact the theatrical exhibition industry.

Originally formed between the Celluloid Junkie team, Norwegian cinema solutions company Filmgrail and Rob Arthur, then a senior consultant at The Big Picture, the last five years has also seen the team change and presenters and technical wizards alike have come and gone. The current team consists of Sperling Reich, Helen Budge, Thomas MacCalla and Derek Young.

The Fifth Anniversary Show
To celebrate its fifth anniversary the CJ Cinema Summit held a special episode on Wednesday 26th March, five years and one week to the day from when the show began. Kicked off by an initial conversation with CJ founder and the summit’s original co-host Patrick von Sychowski, now employed with cinema integrator CinemaNext, MacCalla and von Sychowski discussed the journey of the industry and the summit over the five year span. Von Sychowski raised one of his personal significant learnings being the sheer resilience of cinema during the pandemic, “You have to remember there were still cinemas operating in markets like Sweden, South Korea. In Italy, we had socially-isolated drive-in cinemas. We had cinema operators selling popcorn on the curb side. Cinema refused to die.”

And sharing the virtual stage with the fifth anniversary celebrations was the International Cinema Technology Association’s (ICTA) North American Cinema Awards (NACA) recipients for 2024. We talked to representatives from each of the winning cinemas.

Best New Build Cinema: Red Oak 12, Texas
Joining the summit from B&B Theaters was Dennis McIntire, VP Strategic Development and Innovation. And as Reich and MacCalla pointed out, after having both visited the site in person, the sheer size and scale is the thing with this venue. 

Opened in March 2024, the vast site accommodates 12 screens – hence the name – and a full range of cinematic technology, including a ScreenX, 4DX and a Barco HDR projector. McIntire said of the installed state-of-the-art technology, “On the theater side [of the development] there are seven or eight different ways you can watch the same movie.” 

One cinema screen has its own private bar – the Lyric – that can be hired for events, complete with private bathroom and the ability to do food catering. Screenplay is the venue’s screen aimed at entertaining those with young children and has an actual playground in it. There’s a Max Relax lounge, full of chaise loungers. Oh, and a full restaurant named Sterling’s. 

And Red Oak 12 doesn’t just cater to cinema fans, although it does that incredibly well. Indoors, there’s a 16-lane “gamified” bowling alley that uses projection technology to create games within games and a 4500 square foot arcade space. And the external 22,000 square footage of land accommodates pickleball, bocce ball, lawn games, a fire pit and a full bar. 

Best Use of Technology: Golden Ticket Cinemas Greenville Grand IMAX + Elite, North Carolina
President of Golden Ticket Cinemas (GTC), John Bloemeke, joined to discuss the reasons why the Greenville Grand IMAX + Elite cinema won the Best Use of Technology award.

Originally opened by Consolidated Theaters in 2007, the circuit went on to be acquired by Regal. Regal then closed the cinema after entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in 2021. It was then opened in late January 2024 by Golden Ticket.

The initial approach was to take all the “obvious” elements in the auditorium and update them. Bloemeke and his team asked themselves, “what has this market never seen or experienced before?” So, the answers to that were upgrading the stadium seating throughout the complex to recliners. The first laser projectors in the Greenville area, as well as the first Dolby Atmos system, were both brought in. Two premium large format PLF auditoriums were set up, one being IMAX for its brand and quality recognition and one being Elite, GTC’s own branded PLF. The latter was kitted out with a dive lighting system from GDC and heated recliners, as well as the giant screen. Bloemeke said, “The idea was for them to go into that PLF and be wowed.”

As for outside the auditoriums, the GTC team utilised the newest concessions technology available to minimise labour, from autofryers, TurboChefs and milkshake machines to in-seat dining using QR codes, and self-serve popcorn machines. 

GTC’s approach was to bring the site from its early days firmly into the modern age, something they clearly succeeded in, “It turned this theater from [one] that was built maybe around 2004 to having all modern amenities and bringing a lot of new things to the market and things that were in the market already, we made them better at our theater.” 

But Bloemeke was clear to not send the message that deep pockets are required to implement new technology, “There’s too many theaters closing, and there are ways to get customers engaged again by using technology, and there are affordable technologies out there that can accomplish that. You don’t have to always spend the most money to have an impact in smaller markets.”

Best Traditional Refurbishment: Phoenix Theaters Great Northern, Ohio
Corey Jacobson, owner and operator of Phoenix Theaters, and Jordan Hohman, VP of Project Development joined the summit from the site of one of Phoenix’s newest renovations. Sat in front of a row of vacuum cleaners, their positioning nicely illustrated the care taken of their venues, and Reich quipped that the carpets would be thoroughly cleaned.  

The site was another victim of Regal’s bankruptcy but the Phoenix team managed – after lengthy negotiations – to come to an agreement with the landlord to take the cinema over. The team then embarked on a seven-month renovation project. 

With 25% of the overall Phoenix circuit now operating Dolby Atmos auditoria, Jacobson and Hohman were keen to point out the power of branding, “The one thing that we found was a very valuable thing, is to add Dolby to all of our theaters, because it’s just such a great brand […] And if we can put Dolby’s name on the side of the building and feature their products in our theater […] it’s fantastic. […] I think it really kicked up our presentation dramatically in the eyes of the customer and in terms of value.”

Jacobson explained the features installed into the Great Northern site – 100% heated recliners, 4K laser projectors where possible, four screens with the smallest being 39 feet (12 metres) wide – all of which have paid dividends. But Hohman went on to say how, as a company, they recognise that these venues are often beloved and at the heart of their local communities, something that has clearly played a significant role in the company’s success, “What we do is we come in and breathe new life into those theaters. And I think that that connects with people in a way that opening any other business doesn’t because movie theaters are so special to people, especially these movie theaters that have been in communities for decades.”

Best Classic Refurbishment: The Playhouse, Cinema Lab, Connecticut 
And community was the main theme for the summit’s final guests, Cinema Lab co-founders, Luke Parker Bowles and Brandon Jones, who talked through what fuelled the creation of their company. 

Parker Bowles said, “So many small towns and communities [across America] have lost what was the heartbeat of their towns […] It was important to us to do our bit in trying to bring back, not only the local cinemas where we could, but also to […] refurb them with a heavy eye on keeping the qualities that made them so iconic and historic.”

He continued, “This whole Cinema Lab enterprise was partly created by me seeing my daughter, who used to hang out at the movie theater which was the center of our town, now, hanging out in the CVS parking lot. Brandon and I thought that’s a pretty bad indictment of where we are culturally, if that’s what’s going on.”

Cinema Lab’s flagship venue, and Best Classic Refurbishment winner, The Playhouse clearly shows the team’s modus operandi of preserving, wherever possible, the original period features of the building. Built in 1923 the building started life as a single screen before becoming a twin and was renovated in 2023 by the Cinema Lab team. Luxury Norwegian Skeie seating was installed and the second floor was converted into The Marquee, a private membership lounge, with a private bar and special programming. 

But one particularly delightful feature of this venue is its English pub, which adds a unique and again, community-focused facet. Parker Bowles elaborated, “I’ve always associated bars with shots and pubs with nurturing for an hour a nice Guinness. It’s, for lack of a better word, an elevated community center. You can go and have a pint at the pub to meet someone. You could order a drink and go through to one of our beautiful cinemas auditoriums. Or you could stay there during the day and work, which a lot of people do.” 

The cinema, pub and membership lounge are the three financial strands to this business, with the latter a key part of the venue’s financial model (they also have a monthly subscription option to cover all bases). But, importantly, the town itself was fully invested in the refurbishment, as Jones explained, “The town was committed to having a cinema in the town. They actually own the building. So the town of New Canaan put up a substantial amount of money, the state of Connecticut had a grant also to help. And then we raised money at our level [Cinema Lab] as well, through local investors that were committed to having this because movie theaters still influence culture.”

Worthy Winners
It’s worth noting how each of the award recipients all have certain strands in common – luxury seating, state-of-the-art technology – but individually they’re such unique venues. And it’s this that makes our industry so rich and exciting, seeing how exhibitors are remaking themselves, partly after the pandemic but partly because they’re embracing evolution and audience expectation.