For Chicago’s movie theaters, particularly the Music Box Theatre, ‘the gloom and doom has returned.’ Welcome to the club.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Like so much else in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two-screen 1929 landmark Music Box Theatre, on North Southport Avenue not far from Wrigley Field, closed down March 17, aka “the first time.”
Theater owner William Schopf and general manager Ryan Oestreich reopened July 3, at a capacity of 50 maximum in the big house, which seats 748. The smaller screening venue reopened with an 18-person cap.
When the weather warmed up, in the Music Box’s adjoining outdoor beer garden, Oestreich and company added a 25-person screening option, with titles such as “Purple Rain” and “Best in Show.”
This fall, rather than canceling the annual Music Box of Horrors festival of thriller, horror and retro schlock delicacies, they took it outside. For 31 consecutive nights, at a 130-car capacity, the Halloween-themed festival drew faithful audiences with wheels to the most popular of Chicago’s 2020 pop-up drive-ins: the ChiTownMovies operation in Pilsen.
The ChiTownMovies outdoor venue remains open for business, by the way: You can catch a double feature of “Elf” and “Mean Girls” Friday night, Nov. 20. The website currently lists drive-in offerings through “The Santa Clause” on Dec. 1.
But the state’s indoor theater operations are closing again, at 12:01 a.m. Nov. 20, as part of the Illinois Tier 3 Resurgence Mitigations in response to some pretty awful coronavirus trends. No bowling, no museumgoing, no live theater or music indoors.
“Throughout it all we survived,” Oestreich said Wednesday, acknowledging that he was “exhausted.” In the background one of his young children, teething and not happy about it, offered wordless lamentation for extra tension.
The Music Box’s GM said he’s proud of attempting an entire month of drive-in double bills. “Nobody else did that,” he said. “Anywhere. You look at that calendar, and you think: ‘Wow. That’s a stupid thing to try.’ Yet we had some sellouts, and averaged 100 cars per show.”
Oestreich credits Schopf, the owner of the theater and president of Music Box Films and Doppelganger Releasing, with “giving us the leeway to, you know, have jobs.” Layoffs and furloughs, however, have already been effected this year. And now Oestreich says there will be more.
“The whole time we were open this year,” he said, “we weren’t making money. We just tried everything. We threw everything at the wall to see what stuck.” In the new shutdown phase, he said, they’ll continue with the Music Box Virtual Cinema online offerings; curbside to-go orders of popcorn and wine from Schopf’s Dablon Vineyards in Baroda, Mich.; and website sales of Music Box merchandise, soon to be adding a $20 holiday ornament.
Eight months ago Schopf told me: “I don’t think this will be limited to two, three weeks. I think it’s going to be three, four months. It could crash our local and national economy. We’re going to have to do something to take care of people.”
That was on March 18, the day after Illinois logged its first COVID-19 casualty. This week we’ll hit 12,000.
I look back at some of what I wrote earlier this year, and it’s naive and short-sighted. Maybe, I hoped, the summer of 2020 will bring a cautious, limited-capacity comeback for indoor theaters. Maybe Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” can help save the day, and bring back mainstream multiplex patrons.
In March, so many wrote and said things they likely regret now. Film and Broadway producer Scott Rudin announced a Broadway ticket-discounting plan that month. “My partners and I want the buildings full — even, and especially, during this crisis,” he told the Hollywood Reporter, even as Broadway performers, fearing for their health and lives, were on the verge of mutiny.
In March film festivals began canceling their in-person gatherings, with South by Southwest in Austin, Tx. the first among many.
And now much of the world, the nation, our state and our city finds itself closed for business again. Only the countries that locked down, hard, and early on, are in fighting shape to deal with what’s coming the next few months, as the world, the nation, our state and our city wait for effective, widely available vaccines. And for a sign that the live-free-and-die brigade can join the fight.
Meantime: The Music Box Theatre marquee is removing the letters spelling out its Nov. 19, 2020 titles, the 4k restoration of the 1989 Japanese animation classic “Akira” and the Chicago-made indie “Echo Boomers” starring Michael Shannon.
Oestreich and company haven’t yet decided on a placeholder message. Some theaters in town are going with a simple #SaveOurCinemas. Others remain blank.
It’s tough, Oestreich said, now that “the doom and gloom has returned.”
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @phillipstribune
———
©2020 the Chicago Tribune
Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
