No plans to compete with the Main - Emagine

Rest assured that the new Emagine 10-screen Royal Oak multiplex will not compete with the venerable Main Art Theatre next door.....Michigan-based Emagine will be opening the theatre at 11 Mile and Troy Street in May. Emagine - which breaks the mold for cinemas with a number of amenities like bowling lanes, alcohol, and reserved seating - is putting a theatre in Royal Oak because the suburban city is already an entertainment and shopping mecca.....”The plan is not to affect the Main at all except to enhance movie-going in Royal Oak with commercial films as well,” Ruth Daniels, Emagine’s senior vice president of sales and marketing told Windsor Detroit Film.....Daniels can understand concerns about Emagine’s impact on the Main. “I understand where you’re coming from. I ran the Maple for several years,” a reference to the Main’s sister art house, the Maple in Bloomfield Hills. Both are owned by Los Angeles-based Landmark Theatres. ”I’m an art house lover,” she said.....Daniels said Emagine’s market is quite different from that of the Main. She said there would not be occasions where the two theatres would screen the same films. Emagine’s current Detroit properties are screening movies like The King’s Speech and Black Swan – which are also being shown by Landmark – but Emagine's theatres are not in close proximity to Landmark’s Main and Maple. Daniels said it still could happen that Emagine will open a film that is borderline art. But it won’t be screened next to the Main. Likewise, the Main usually has first dibs on art house movies. “They pretty much have the lock on art house films and they usually get them,” she said......Let's hope the line is thickly drawn between the two theatres' offerings, that co-existence prevails, and that Emagine indeed will draw more filmgoers to Royal Oak - who will curious to check out the Main's offerings next door.

And this just in:   Get ready to check out a two night festival of made-in-Michigan films March 11 - 12. The first Uptown Film Festival will recognize movies shot wholly or partly here. The films will screen at Birmingham's Palladium 12 and the Birmingham 8, both in downtown Birmingham. Kill the Irishman starring Christopher Walken will open the fest. It will close with the second annual Michigan Film Awards. Festival passes are available. For more go to http://www.uptownfilmfestival.com/homePage.php