Rick Stinnett, owner of two drive-ins around Bessemer City, N.C., paid $100,000 to convert one theater to digital, but doing the other theater will require him to "build a new dust-free, air-tight projection room from scratch," Joe DePriest reports for the Charlotte Observer. "Whether he can afford the project depends on how well the drive-in does in coming months." If the 400-car theater doesn't make enough money to offset the costs of converting, the theater will likely close.
So far, converting to digital hasn't been "do or die" in the mom-and-pop world of drive-ins, mainly because Hollywood has yet to follow through on its promise to eliminate 35mm film, Michael Sangiacomo reports for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. Theater owner D. Edward Vogel told him, "Last year, the studios were saying that they would no longer make film copies of new movies, meaning if theaters didn't switch to digital, they could not get the movies. But here we are a year later, and the film copies are still being made."
Still, most of the roughly 350 drive-in theaters, with about 600 screens, are converting to digital—or attempting to—in anticipation of the conversion, Sangiacomo writes. Between 50 to 70 percent of drive-ins have already converted to digital, said Vogel, who said he has heard of only one theater—in Maine—closing because it was unable to convert. (Read more)
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