Long Island's independent movie theaters facing many challenges: 'It just takes one crisis in this era to do you in'

When the Malverne Cinema & Art Center closed its doors for good Sunday night, Long Island lost one of its longest-running and most beloved mom-and-pop cinemas.

"Thirty-four years we’ve been owners, through two maternity leaves," Anne Stampfel, who ran the Malverne with her husband, Henry, said a few hours before the last screenings. "That’s how long we’ve been here. This is emotional."

The closing comes during one of the roughest periods for the movie business in modern memory. First, streaming services began stealing audiences from movie theaters; then COVID-19 shuttered them entirely. On Long Island, many never returned, including Great Neck’s Squire Cinemas, Coram’s Movieland and the Long Beach Cinemas. The post-pandemic years have been touch-and-go for Hollywood, which has yet to see ticket sales return to previous levels. Last year’s strikes by the actors’ and writers’ guilds, which halted film production for several months, didn’t help.

In the end, though, it wasn’t a lack of business that shuttered the Malverne but a dispute with a landlord. At issue were the cost of a boiler and further extension of the cinema’s lease, according to Anne Stampfel.

"The real sticking point was, we needed more time on the lease to recoup our investment," she said. "And he just couldn’t extend it."

The big picture for the film industry may not be rosy, but neither is it completely dire. Hollywood saw much rejoicing after last year’s summer hits "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" earned a combined $2.4 billion, ultimately boosting the 2023 box-office to $8.9 billion (a 20% increase over the previous year). This year started slowly with low earners like "The Fall Guy" and "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," but the summer once again picked up thanks to "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," which opened with $111 million, and "Inside Out 2," now the highest-grossing animated film of all time with $1.6 billion. Year to date, 2024 is still running 11% behind 2023, according to BoxOfficeMojo, though fall-season titles like "Wicked" and "Mufasa: The Lion King" might help boost ticket sales.

On the ground, however, independent theaters are struggling. The Malverne operated as an art-house, showing mostly upscale dramas, foreign films and indie titles. Recently, it had begun running Hollywood titles as well; its final slate of films included the animated films "The Wild Robot" and "Transformers One," as well as the biopics "Reagan" and "Lee" (starring Kate Winslet as the war correspondent Lee Miller).

The news of the Malverne’s closing brought a collective sigh of empathy from other independent theater owners, who expressed concern over the rising costs of running their businesses.

"I don’t think of other theaters as competition anymore," said Phil Solomon, owner of PJ Cinemas in Port Jefferson Station. "I think of us as all in it, trying to save the industry."

Solomon said costs are rising on multiple fronts, beginning with concessions. Take a theater-sized Hershey bar, he said, which costs $1.95 wholesale. Or the minimum wage, which recently rose to $16 on Long Island and is scheduled for further increases. When every penny counts, Solomon said, a big-ticket item like a boiler can spell disaster.

"I can really sympathize with the Stampfels," he said, "because it just takes one crisis in this era to do you in."

Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre, another art-house venue, has weathered the recent storms fairly well according to co-director Dylan Skolnick, largely because it’s a not-for-profit with a base of members and donors. "This really illustrates the challenges facing for-profit art-house movie theaters," Skolnick said. "They’re solely dependent on ticket sales and concessions."

And then, Skolnick added, there’s the cost of the building — "and buildings don’t fix themselves. You have to take care of them, they cost money, and they’re another complication related to running a movie theater."

At the moment, there are only a handful of independent theaters left on Long Island, including the Sag Harbor Cinema (also a not-for-profit), Bellmore Playhouse, South Bay Cinemas in West Babylon,  Plaza Cinema in Patchogue and the Stampfels’ other Long Island venue, the Bellmore Movies and Showplace. Stampfel said the plan is to keep that theater running but also use it as venue for live music and private events.

Sunday night after the Malverne’s final screenings, the marquee spelled out a simple message: "THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES."

"We’re handing over the keys," Anne Stampfel said. "We’ll leave it here ready. And if somebody wants to run it as a theater, that’ll be great."

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman