After being granted the chance to lease the theater in July, the Cordell Chamber of Commerce has faced some difficulties; however, rest assured, the theater will still open.
It’s been difficult, to say the least,” Chamber of Commerce Secretary Sarah Lau said. “There’s a lot of contracts. There’s a lot of paperwork, and red tape that we have to go through.”
Lau explained that the Chamber goes through a broker to secure contracts with movie studios to have movies that the theater can show. As it currently stands, the Chamber has gotten approved by two studios, Sony and Disney.
“There’s about seven studios altogether, and I’m still working on the other five. But we got the two, so we’re wanting to hurry up and open it up with that, and then keep working on the other ones until we get those,” Lau said. “We will be limited to what new movies come out because there’s only two stores, but we plan on playing some of the older movies too, that people have asked for.”
Though the Chamber may only have two studios secured, Lau said that they will be able to play most movies that those studios have produced, and with Disney buying up other studios such as Fox in recent years, the selection of movies should be fairly wide with just those two to start with.
“The older movies that Disney produced back in the day, we’ll be able to play those too. They’ve let us have free range of all of their movies,” Lau said. “So all the Marvel movies that they do, all of the Disney animations and all of that. As long as the Disney studios produce it, we can play it.”
Still, there are rules for what can be played and when. Copyright rules also prevent the Chamber from playing any movie they would like to play.
“If it’s a new movie, we are required to run it for at least two weeks,” Lau said. “So our plan is to run it for two, then maybe show an older movie because we’ll be in between the new movies and then go and start a new movie that comes out.”
Lau also noted that due to their scheduling, there is a chance new movies could periodically play a week late.
While the Chamber had initially aimed to have the theater opened up before school started, Lau said that some unexpected things from the movie studios had led to some delay.
“I knew that there would be a time period where we had to get okayed from the studios, but then the studios shot back things that we weren’t expecting,” she said. “So that was the holdup for a while. For about two weeks there, I was waiting for government issued things to come back.”
Currently, the Chamber will only be able to sell popcorn and candy at its concession stand, though Lau said that once the theater begins to make some revenue they plan to begin adding in more options such as hotdogs and the like.
One of the ways they hope to bring in revenue quicker is by renting out the room referred to as “the cave” even ahead of the theater’s official opening.
“We’re going to have to set a contract for the cave whenever you rent it for the simple fact of we are a chamber and we’re limited to what we can do. Once we get that [contract] finalized, we’ll be able to start renting it out,” Lau said. “Parties, reunions, if the school wants to do a dance, they’re more than welcome to rent that out. Then once we get the movies in, we’ll be able to rent out the theater for private showings or group events or things like that as well.”
While COVID cases around the nation have begun to rise again, Lau said that they plan to do what most other movie theaters do such as sanitize the seats and keep food away from where everybody could touch it.
“We’re going to do our own things too. Like you’re going to be en tering in a certain door just so that the flow of traffic kind of goes better,” she said. “We’re going to be precautious. We’ll be very, very cautious of everything that we do in there.”
Even once all is up and ready to open, work on the theater does not stop there as Lau notes that she has big plans for the theater after its opening.
“It is a theater first and foremost, but it’s not your typical theater. We’ll have the themedmovie nights, we’ll have different things outside that kids can do, we’ll do different events for the kids,” she said. “We’re hoping to have it up and running of course by December so that the school kids can come and watch polar express and things like that. So it is a theater, but it’s not really your typical theater. There’s going to be a lot of things going on over there.”
While Lau plans to continue working as hard as she can to get the theater opened up as soon as possible, there is one thing she wants residents to know.
“Be patient. We’re almost there. I see the light at the end of that tunnel. We’re getting there. It’s very, very soon… Keep being patient with us. That’s the main thing. It’s going to open! That’s the good thing. It’s going to open. It’s just, we still have literally one more red flag we have to go through.”