The movie theater industry has always had to reinvent itself to survive. The first existential threat to the grand movie palaces of old was television. Nowadays, streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are lulling people to watch their favorite movies holed-up at home.
But emerging from the pandemic, people began to yearn for the lost social experience of watching a movie alongside others at a local theater.
The ribbon-cutting at the Bellevue Theater in Montclair is more than the reopening of one movie house. As a nonprofit-run theater, it is a beacon to other local theaters like the one in Maplewood, facing similar demise.
One thing that made the difference in the case of the Bellevue Theater was that it was owned by the Sayegh family — Doreen Sayegh owns the soon-to-reopen Cranford Theater — who were determined to find a way to make it work.
“We wanted to save the theater,” said Paul Sayegh. “We knew how much it meant to everybody.”
Sayegh admits it took some give and take to make the venture worthwhile. Working with architect Rachael Grochowski, founder of RHG Architecture + Design, Sayegh was able to trim some of the architectural fat from the building and convert left over square footage into commercial space now occupied by a yoga studio and Somedays Bakery. One of the auditoriums will be divided into three new storefronts. Upstairs will go three new apartments.
But even with this consolidation, the Bellevue Theater still maintains four screening rooms and a lounge. “It’s not just a place to see a movie,” Grochowski said. “There’s a lounge, a place to meet people and talk about film—that’s what we wanted to give back to the community.”
A tax abatement made the economics come together, Sayegh said, but he believes the town’s investment will pay dividends to the neighborhood.
“The theater gives the neighborhood some foot traffic and keeps the energy and excitement in the neighborhood,” Sayegh said. “It all worked out and everyone is happy.”
The last puzzle piece was finding a company to operate the theater and that’s where Montclair Film came into the picture. The organization that has traditionally run the township’s annual film festival, lopped the word festival off the end of its name to signal a broader mission. In 2021, the nonprofit began operating another troubled movie house, the Claridge in downtown Montclair.
Tom Hall, artistic director of Montclair Film, said the Sayeghs reached out to his organization in 2023, and he was “very interested.” However, he admitted that the organization had to have an internal conversation about how to “scale up,” as it is still working with the same sized crew since taking over the Claridge.
In the end, Hall credits the Sayegh family and the commitment to “preserving film-going.” “If he didn’t want this to happen, it could have been a shopping mall,” Hall said.
Evelyn McGee Colbert, board president at Montclair Film, believes that the “philanthropic model” could save other arthouse movie theaters.
“Moviegoing is different than it was 10, 15 years ago,” Colbert said. “You just can’t operate a small independent theater on ticket sales and concessions sales alone — it’s just not profitable.”
Colbert said the work is not quite over yet, the organization is still fundraising to renovate the two upstairs theaters.
The nonprofit has certain advantages in running a theater. But the one onus it has that perhaps a for-profit company doesn’t, is it has to mean something personal to the community, Hall said.
“We’re local, not national, so we’re not just dropping into a city and picking up real estate and trying to make money,” Hall said. “We’re working with partners in the community, we have a lot of supporters and donors — the same with orchestras, ballets, and theater companies.”
One word that was used often by Colbert and others at the ribbon-cutting was “nostalgia.” It was clever that the Bellevue Theater’s first viewing during the Montclair Film Festival earlier this month was a screening of “The Sound of Music,” which played at the theater in the 1960s and 1970s. It seemed to remind viewers how sentimental a good movie can be in a person’s life.
Mayor Renee Baskerville, who recalled watching “Mary Poppins” at the theater after it premiered in 1964, said the neighborhood wouldn’t have been the same without it.
“I remember the sadness that we all felt when we learned that the doors were closing,” Baskerville said. “There was a sense of loss because this has always played a major role in bringing people together and uplifting us.”
