Westgate Mall Cinemas movie screens light up at newly reopened theater

After almost four years of dormancy in the Westgate Mall, the movie theater now under Scene One Entertainment has been revived as Westgate Mall Cinemas, which opened Wednesday with special classic films.

As part of its opening day celebration, the theater showed timeless classics such as "The Wizard of Oz" and modern classics like "Barbie" for $3 showings.

The theater was scheduled to open in January and once again in February, but after multiple delays and a dearth of films resulting from the Hollywood writers' strike, which delayed some releases, the theater officially reopened on March 27.

Starting Thursday, the cinema started showing first-run releases such as the latest in the "King Fu Panda" franchise, "Ghostbusters Frozen Empire," and "Godzilla x King: The New Empire" on its six screens.

This is Scene One Entertainment's second theater opening in March, following the opening of the Wilton Mall Cinemas in Saratoga Springs, New York, just two weeks ago. This theater, like the Westgate, had been closed for over three years.

Joe Masher, CEO and owner of Scene One Entertainment, spoke about reviving the Westgate Mall Cinema.

“Getting this theater reopened, which has been closed since the COVID pandemic, has been a little bit of a challenge,” Masher said. “We have put a lot of elbow grease into cleaning this up to get it up and running again. The projectors needed a lot of work to get them up to capability. We had a lot of equipment issues that we had to wait on parts for."

Masher said the writer's strike also greatly impacted the timing of the opening, as there were few must-see films released in January and February.

“No theaters did well during these months, so now that all of these big films are coming out, we feel that the time was right,” Masher said. “We also showed a bunch of classic movies and two of the biggest hits from last summer on our opening night to show off our theater.”

The theater, previously owned by Premiere Cinemas, originally opened as a first-run United Artists movie theater in 1988. At the time of its closing at the mall, the Premiere theater was a second run, or discount movie theater, which showed films at a discount price after their initial run in regular movie theaters.

Masher said he has seen a lot of excitement from the community about the reopening. He also said it was important to be a first-run theater due to the changing film market.

“The people are excited that this is a first-run theater since it was last a second-run theater,” Masher said. “The market for second-run theaters that show films after their initial release no longer exists. With the proliferation of quality streaming, those films were already available on those platforms by the time they reached second-run theaters.”

With the closing of Regal Theatres, Masher said that this was a prime market for opening a theater and was able to work out a deal with the Westgate Mall to make it happen.

“It was the perfect time to open a six-screen theater with all the food options close by in a vibrant mall like this,” Masher added.

With this opening, Masher is touting that it will have the most affordable prices in town with options that will entice families and other groups to frequent it. He also promised special featured shows during the summer for families during the break from school.

Masher said that there would be an arcade at the mall added to the front of the theater to bring extra experiences to the theater.

“We did not want to update the theater too much because it has the '80s mall movie-going vibe that does not exist in many places anymore,” Masher said. “This theater is awesome because it has great seats in a great auditorium with big sound. We also have this great entrance to put in a huge arcade. You cannot just show movies anymore. You have to bring entertainment, and I think a mall arcade will do just that. We want to be a mall destination."

The Westgate Mall management group weighed on on the reopening of the theater in a news release.

"Scene One is an exciting and welcome new addition to the dynamic mix of retail and entertainment offerings at Westgate Mall," said Elliot Nassim of Mason Asset Management, which works in partnership with Namdar Realty Group to oversee leasing and property management efforts at the mall. "We have remained committed to Westgate's future as a lifestyle destination for the greater Amarillo community, and we look forward to Scene One's reopening later this month."

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Movie theater reopens as Westgate Mall Cinemas at Amarillo mall