My sense is that the Nassers are 9.75/10 on the greed scale and they are looking for the biggest revenue stream they can engineer...particularly given that the Castro is a landmark and it would be an epic bloodbath if they tried to get around all that to turn it into a gym or something.
It's not high on anyone's priority list at this time (or maybe at any time), but major cities should all designate one of their remaining movie palaces as a form of "sacred ground" to salvage/preserve the experience of seeing an old movie in the now virtually obsolete "grand manner." They should be subsidized, and there should be a series of rotating film festivals for which programmers of all stripes can submit entries, with the idea that two or three of these circulate through the various movie palaces during the course of a year.
One would have to research whether this idea is even viable considering the state of movie palaces at this time. For example, there isn't such a venue anywhere in the NYC area except for the Loews' theatre in Jersey City; you'd need a dozen of them, probably, to make my pipe dream idea work at all...
Unfortunately the "congenial billionaires" are all on the digital/virtual side of the issue, and one wonders what will happen down the road in LA should Netflix quickly tire of its investment in the Egyptian Theatre, which itself will only show rep cinema three nights a week once it finally reopens. Can Alan Rode and his pals at the American Legion Theatre step into the breach with their 450-seat theatre near the Hollywood Bowl? Stay tuned...
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