Randolph's movie screens have flickered back to life. Regal has opened a new theater at 73 Mazzeo Drive, the former home of Showcase Cinema de Lux, bringing IMAX and what a company spokesperson called a “kaiju-sized screen” to a building that had sat dark since March.
The opening, reported by Enterprise News, marks the return of moviegoing to a site that had been a fixture of the South Shore cinema scene for decades. The new Regal Randolph includes an IMAX auditorium, and earlier plans described in a separate enterprisenews.com report indicated the theater would also offer RPX auditoriums, giving moviegoers multiple premium-format options under one roof.
Those same plans called for Regal Randolph to retain all 16 of the existing screens and more than 2,000 seats from the previous operation, according to the outlet's reporting. The site has long been built for scale: a connectcre.com account of the property's sale noted the three-level theater had operated with 16 screens accommodating 2,240 seats since 1997.
A Multiplex With a Long History
The Randolph location has been a movie destination since Showcase Cinemas opened it as a 16-screen theater in 1998, per the same enterprisenews.com account. The building later got a significant refresh: a $5 million, multi-year makeover beginning in 2007 replaced more than 4,000 seats and added an IMAX screen, the report noted.
That legacy theater went dark when Showcase shuttered the Randolph location in March, according to enterprisenews.com's reporting, leaving the longtime cinema closed for months before Regal's arrival. The property itself changed hands for $9 million after the closure, per connectcre.com, which described the site as spanning 112,265 square feet on a 13.48-acre parcel.
Loyalty Perks and a Godzilla-Sized Debut
Moviegoers returning to the Mazzeo Drive multiplex will have access to Regal's loyalty programs, including Regal Rewards and Regal Unlimited, according to the earlier enterprisenews.com report. The theater is also set to offer Monday Mystery Movies and Regal Value Days promotions, giving regular visitors recurring discounts.
Fittingly for a theater touting a kaiju-sized screen, Regal Randolph's own listing page offered pre-order tickets for an IMAX presentation of Godzilla Minus 0 tied to Godzilla Day Early Access, according to regmovies.com. Earlier plans for the reopening had been timed ahead of the December releases of Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, per enterprisenews.com's September reporting on Regal's plans for the site.
Reopening Amid a Shaky Theater Market
The return of a full-service multiplex to Randolph comes as the regional theater business has been under strain. A Boston University professor told CBS News that theaters are struggling with “high costs, with a more limited supply of feature films to meet diverse audience interests, and of course competition from streaming companies.” A WBUR film critic, speaking to the same outlet, argued that chains had simply built too many screens during a period when money was cheap, saying there is “no reason to have 20 screens in a complex.”
The Randolph closure fit into a wider pattern of shutdowns across Boston's suburbs, according to the Boston Globe. The Showcase location at Patriot Place in Foxboro was also scheduled to close, on February 22, per CBS News reporting, while Regal's own Westboro location was sold and is set to become a Hindu temple. Not every theater in the region met that fate: an anonymous donor gave $5.2 million to save the West Newton Cinema from demolition, CBS News reported.
Reports on the exact timing of the Randolph Showcase's closure have varied. CBS News reported the location was scheduled to close permanently on March 1, while the Boston Globe reported the theater was set to close its doors on March 2. Either way, the Mazzeo Drive building now has a new operator and, once again, a reason for Randolph residents to buy a ticket.
