"Once upon a time there was a guy named Joe. He had a lousy job."
- Opening line of Joe versus the Volcano
My name is not Joe, but I thought about the above quote from the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan classic film when I sat down to write this web page ( Yes, Joe vs. the Volcano is a classic, trust me!). I have wanted to own a movie theater for a very long time. Actually, since I was a kid. Well, maybe I didn?t know that I wanted to own a movie theater, but I knew that I wanted to be around movies. Movies have always excited me and have always been there when I needed an escape.
Ten years ago I tried to get into the movie theater business but I quickly learned that it was one of the toughest industries to enter as an entrepreneur. The costs are high and primary locations in densely populated areas were all but taken by 5 large companies. The business was pretty much a modern day oligopoly. So I looked elsewhere to make a living.
Fast forward to 2002. Through the course of a really lousy job, I ran across a company opening movie theaters in smaller rural areas. The company was doing well because they were going back to the roots of the movie theater business. They turned their theaters into community entertainment centers for people that were being ignored by big companies. Big companies don?t want to interact with customers. Big companies don?t want to get creative, they just want to create an efficient and controllable operation. Understandable, but I thought I could do better.
In November 2003, the quest to open "The Movies" began in Meadville, PA. With help from some key local people the theater became a reality. It was not easy, but 12 months later we broke ground on what we hope to be the prototype for a small but successful theater company.
Our mission is to have our theaters promote the excitement and magic of the movies. If you like movies, I think you are going to love "The Movies". I want to be a company that appreciates movies as a modern art form. We all share some memory of our favorite movie, the one we disliked, the one we quote, the one that made us laugh, the one that made us cry, the one that scared us to death, and the one that taught us something.
Most important, I believe that the best way to see a movie is in a theater. Since the beginning of time people need to share experiences with other people. We can provide that interaction in a technologically advanced auditorium.
Welcome to "The Movies". I hope you have as much fun experiencing it as I had building it.
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