Paul Stroede
The lobby at Sundance Cinemas in Madison, Wisconsin.
Word came out of Los Angeles last week that Sundance Cinemas is for sale. What this means is unclear. It’s possible to feel a little panicky. Will Dane County lose the closest thing it has to an art movie theater? Will Madison lose its only semi-centrally located movie house? Will we have to go to Sun Prairie or Stoughton if we want to drink a beer while watching a movie?
Sundance Cinemas Madison general manager Merijoy Endrizzi-Ray declined comment and directed Isthmus to Muirfield Partners, a Los Angeles-based corporate communications and investor relations firm.
It’s true that Sundance is being sold — when and to whom is yet to be determined. But it is being packaged with its four sister locations in West Hollywood, Houston, Seattle and San Francisco as a chain of theaters — and a profitable one at that, according to a Muirfield Partners representative who asked to remain anonymous.
Sundance 608 opened in Madison at Hilldale Mall in 2007. Its mission was to be a home for the sort of independent and foreign movies that were found at the Sundance Film Festival and on the Sundance Channel.
Over the years this mission has changed. Hollywood has crept into the old art house. It is not uncommon for more than half of its six screens to be occupied with major studio movies. But the theater still delivers more idiosyncratic fare. Beyond the Sundance-style films, it also offers revivals of classic films on Wednesday nights and screenings of Academy Award-nominated short films during Oscar season, and it serves as the prime venue for the Wisconsin Film Festival.
In this era, it is harder and harder to run a profitable cinema. Doomsayers point to declining ticket sales, audiences fleeing to home viewing and the unsustainability of a product reliant on increasingly expensive action spectaculars. Despite this gloomy assessment, the Sundance theaters have thrived and are profitable.
The representative says there’s no sense in breaking apart the chain or altering a successful formula, so they are looking for a buyer who will keep operating under the same model. In all likelihood, the movies will be similar; hefty surcharges will keep ads off the screens; the seats will stay comfortable; the beer, wine and food will remain; and Madisonians will still have a place to get real butter on their popcorn. The only presumptive major change will be the name on the side of the building.
Since Sundance opened, other chains have copied its model, such as the independent Austin, Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse. Even the corporate Marcus Theaters has added a bar to Point Cinemas, and theatergoers are able to enjoy drinks and dinners in its new venue, Palace Cinemas.
