“Unfortunately towards the end of last year, it finally hit to the point where you either had to upgrade or you just weren’t going to get a film (from the movie companies) to play,” Snell said. “You either have the digital equipment or you’re basically not allowed to play movies.”
Snell said he cannot afford to purchase the digital projectors, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
The lack of showings for newly released movies that require digital projection has resulted in less traffic coming to the cinema, according to Snell. A few years ago, the cinema attracted between 700 and 800 people a week. In recent months, the theater was lucky to get up to 150 people a week, despite $3 ticket sales.
“The closing of Englewood Cinema, as it would be for any Englewood business, is unfortunate. In this case, the closure has created a loss of an entertainment option for local residents,” said William Singer, the city of Englewood’s Community and Economic Development director. “Opening in the late 1970s, Englewood Cinema has been a destination and gathering place for the past 35 plus years. I had been to the cinema a number of times and enjoyed the small theater as you were treated like a guest in someone’s house by the owner, it will be missed by many.”
The last movie to be shown at Englewood Cinema, 320 W. National Rd., will be an independent film called Alone in the Ghost House by local filmmaker Henrique Couto. The movie will start at 10 p.m. tonight and the tickets are $10.
Steven Bognar, Emmy-winning filmmaker and Wright State Univerity professor in the Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures section of the College of Liberal Arts, said the switch to digital within the movie industry is purely economic.
“If film and digital were the same costs, the same basic investment, then I think we would still be shooting film,” Bognar said. He added that shooting digital and digital projection allows for the reuse of a small card versus the handling of clunky cans of films that have more shipping costs.
Plus, “It’s environmentally better because the film generates a lot of landfill, lot of waste, in a way,” Bognar said.
Englewood Cinema is just one of many small movie theaters and drive-ins whose business have been impacted by the switch to digital movies.
Officials with the Little Art Theatre in Yellow Springs were able to get enough funds during a capital campaign that started in 2011 for the theatre’s $600,000 renovation. The project included an approximately $80,000 purchase of a digital projector and a new digital sound system.
“I knew that the industry was switching to digital and 35 mm was going away. It’s still around. Ironically, they’re charging a lot more to rent a 35 mm film in a lot of places,” said Jenny Cowperthwaite, Little Art’s executive director and former owner. “I knew that in order for the theatre to survive, we were going to have to find a way to convert to digital.”
The theatre showed its last 35 mm film on April 30, 2013 before shutting its doors for the five-month renovation.
The Dixie Twin Drive-In, which had been operating its 35 mm film projectors since the facility was built at 6201 N. Dixie Dr. in 1957, switched to digital projectors in April of 2014.
“The entire project to transition us to digital projection was about a $200,000 investment,” said Bill Nelson, the drive-in’s general manager.
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