Matt Driscoll: Tacoma has a giant multiplex theater again. Will we keep it?

It was a grand grand opening.

The list of local dignitaries in attendance was long and impressive. There were City Council members, old and new. The mayor was there.

Heck, Norm Dicks even made the trip.

Norm Dicks.

All of it, for a new movie theater.

Granted, this isn’t just any new movie theater. It’s the new movie theater at Point Ruston — the Century Point Ruston and XD Theatre, if we’re being official.

Nine screens. “State of the art” technology. Reclining seats. Expensive popcorn.

“The centerpiece of Tacoma waterfront’s newest entertainment destination,” as the PR folks wrote it.

With the Asarco smelter a distant memory, fancy condos and apartments filling up, and surroundings so new you can literally smell the paint drying, it’s a Superfund site resurrected.

“It is very exciting to see this development being completed and continue,” Tacoma Pierce County Chamber CEO Tom Pierson told me of the new movie theater. When it opened last week, he was there too.

“I spoke (at the grand opening) about the dichotomy between the past and not distant past of this property, to where we are today,” Pierson continued. “(There have been) many hurdles and difficulties to get to this point.”

If you didn’t know any better, you might think Pierson was talking about corporate movie theater economics in Tacoma, and how we’ve seen the big movie theaters die off, one after another, to the point where we had none. Until last week, The Grand and the Blue Mouse — in all their beautiful, independent glory — stood alone, the only theaters in city limits. And they’re far from giant multiplexes (which, of course, is part of their continued appeal).

Think about the number of movie Tacoma theaters that have disappeared in recent years. Where the Tacoma Mall Twin Theatre once stood, now there is a Krispy Kreme. The Galaxy Theater on Pine Street is a church. The 8-screen Lincoln Plaza near Costco found new life as a health club. The Tacoma West and Tacoma South theaters are history too.

All of this makes the decision to mark the re-imagining and reopening of Tacoma’s most notorious toxic dumping ground with a business straight out of the past a bit peculiar, doesn’t it?

I mean, we’re living in an age of Netflix, right?

Maybe.

But maybe not.

The Grand’s Executive Director Philip Cowan confirms the obvious. Giant corporate movie theaters face plenty of economic challenges. They have since the invention of the television, not to mention the VCR and the DVD player. The technology conspiring against movie theaters gets more advanced every day.

Then there’s the percentage of the ticket price that goes to the studio. As Cowan explains, at a multiplex, where movies typically have short runs and contracts with distributors set the rules, the cut is substantial. At The Grand, Cowan puts the average at about 45 percent. For multiplexes, and bigger films, he tells me “I would guess … it’s more like 60 percent.”

He says The Grand once showed a film where 90 percent of the ticket price went to the distributor.

“I made a note of it,” Cowan tells me. “Never carry a film from that distributor again.”

It’s almost enough to justify the $8 popcorn price, and it’s the reason more and more theaters are angling to get into the booze business. The markup helps make the numbers work.

And it’s here where new multiplexes are carving a niche. These days, whether it’s 3-D, or alcohol sales, or reclining seats, giant theaters aren’t just selling movies. “They need to turn it into more of an experience,” Cowan explains.

“Every theater is going to try to keep coming up with more and more ways to make it unique,” he continues. “(At The Grand), we’re going to try to make it a much more personal experience than they are probably able to.”

On Friday I picked up my 8-year-old daughter from school and we headed down to Point Ruston. We parked in the new garage, walked on the new sidewalks, and used the self-serve kiosk to buy two tickets to the new Peanuts movie.

While shelling out most of a paycheck for a giant tub of popcorn and a big bottle of water, I asked the woman behind the counter how business had been.

“It’s been busy,” she told me. “Some people have been coming in just to see it. I even had one person ask to take a picture with me.”

After the movie, I asked daughter what she thought of the place.

Grinning like a kid who got a surprise trip to the movies out of the deal, she gave it a big thumbs up.

“The only thing I didn’t like was that my seat didn’t work,” she said when pressed.

Indeed, her luxury recliner didn’t actually recline. We’ll chalk it up to opening-week jitters.

“But I didn’t need that,” she told me.

It’s all about the experience. Just like I was saying.

This story was originally published November 23, 2015 at 1:31 AM with the headline "Matt Driscoll: Tacoma has a giant multiplex theater again. Will we keep it?."