A little more than a month after we announced the closing of the Alamo Drafthouse locations in North Texas, Fort Worth Weekly now brings you the happier news that they’re reopening. Per a statement on the theater chain’s website, the five locations that shut down last month will open their doors again next month, with the Drafthouse in Denton taking its turn on August 20. There will also be a new location in Hillsboro opening for the first time the following week.
The news started to turn a few days after our original announcement, when Sony announced it was purchasing the Alamo Drafthouse chain. Such a move would not have been possible five years ago. To get legal on you for a second, the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision United States vs. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (also known as the Paramount Decree) ruled that Hollywood studios owning movie theaters constituted an illegal monopoly, since the studios controlled the means of both production and distribution. However, in 2018 the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions began reviewing antitrust decrees and sought to end the Paramount Decree, arguing that today’s distributors couldn’t monopolize the film industry the way they could during World War II. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres agreed, opening the door for distributors to buy their own theaters. Netflix currently owns two theaters in the United States, while Amazon owns one. Both of those pale next to Sony’s acquisition of Alamo.
Some outlets speculated that buying these theaters is a way for Sony to boost Crunchyroll, Sony’s distribution arm for Japanese anime films. Then again, previous Crunchyroll releases such as the Demon Slayer films and Jujutsu Kaisen 0 have received plenty of play in theaters owned by AMC and Cinemark, so it’s not clear that Sony needs additional exposure for their anime titles.
We’ll see what impact Sony’s ownership has on the experience inside the Denton theater and on the film industry at large. Independent filmmakers argued against the court ruling, saying that disengaging studios from theaters had a positive impact on independent cinema in the 1940s. While studios don’t concern themselves too much about what theaters do outside of presenting the films themselves, Alamo Drafthouse is the only theater chain with a distinct profile. We’ll see how well that holds up as summer turns to fall. Watch this space, movie fans.
