Epic buys the Old Mill playhouse
 

A family owned Florida company has bought the Old Mill Playhouse. Lazy Macs will close and the theater renovated. Maybe Brownwood will reopen, though the villages has "no plans" to do it. Good or bad?

Time will tell. Guess the developer decided he would do better by getting out of the movie business.

Tells me the other theater will not be opened by him.

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There is a story in The Villages Daily Sun about this.

Epic changes coming to Old Mill Playhouse | News | The Villages Daily Sun | thevillagesdailysun.com

it sounds good, a much wider variety of movies may be on the way!

There is more money in renting properties than running them.

Epic did not BUY the Old Mill Playhouse. They are "operating" it, according to the article.

The Developer will never sell any property within the town squares. If he did, then the new owners would be landowners and entitled to vote on members of the Sumter Landing CDD. Currently, the Developer has all the votes.

LuvNH has a good point. The Developer's model is to lease their buildings here in TV not sell them.

I wish EPIC would take over the operation of the Brownwood movie theater, this would have given us some choices between AMC and EPIC.

Seems like really good news. A dedicated movie theater is a highlight of any town center. Won't miss Lazy Mac's food or Margaritas any but liked some of the entertainment.

Thanks Epic for your decision to invest in this tradition.

Unfortunately that does not seem to be in the cards.

Darn it; we had finally put together a good Boozy Bingo team.
I wonder if $6 Monday's is out the window too?

We will have to see what they do with the pricing and the like. They have a lot of theaters in this area of Florida.

The fact that they are not should be plenty of proof that there is not enough profit, if any, in re-opening that theater. EPIC is very experienced in the business and appears to have no interest in Brownwood Theater.

& I'd say that is an interesting jump to a conclusion - NOT proof. For all we know Epic could have indicated interest in any Villages theater & the only property offered was Old Mill.

That sounds right. That will probably be high end apartments or something like that.

Maybe a hotel?

I am surprised they have not started on whatever they plan for that theater but that time will come. BTW the only possibility and it is a very small one, that another theater comes to the area it will be on non developer land

I hope so :)

If I want to see 80’s 90’s reruns ill stick with Netflix.

The article stated that TV has no plans to re-open the theatre in Brownwood.

Old Mill Playhouse
 

I hope they offer more movie times since I was interested in going to the movie a few weeks ago and the movie times were limited so I didn't go to the movie theatre.

I've never been to any EPIC movie theatres so I don't know first-hand about the experience but did look up reviews on some of their movie theatres near The Villages. There were quite a few negative reviews of dirty theatre seats, stale food, and expensive pricing. I hope it's not an indication of what the Old Mill Playhouse will be. The Villages does a great job in maintenance so I hope this theatre is maintained.

If they have done some research before doing this they should realize that a higher price point is not going to work here.

They say in the article they have no interest in Brownwood.

Nope. Reread the article. They say in the article: "The Villages currently has no plans to reopen the Barnstorm Theater at Brownwood." Not Epic had no interest. You maybe right, but given the limited information we have - we can not say that Epic had no interest.

They could use a movie theater for the Southern parts of the Villages.

Currently.

From three wonderful, busy theaters to none…in each center..Florida’s friendliest town. We are getting to be just houses crammed together.

The movie industry and movie theatre industry are two separate business. The movie theaters have to rely on the movie industry, with advances in home viewing technology the movie industry might find it more cost effective to directly deal with the consumer. What we can never forget no matter what business you're talking about cutting cost and increasing profits is the goal.

Cutting costs in terms of actors salary does not seem to be in the cards.

I’m glad they do. They.built a great place and feel confident they will keep it great. Not
Sure about “others”

& more amenities than any other retirement community in the world !!

Silly to do all that work at Sumter Landing when Brownwood sits empty forever... I suppose price per sq ft impacted Epic's decision.

Think this is a positive sign. Always wondered if the redo of the lobby at Sumter was an effort to inject some cash or "monetize" an otherwise non-cash generating lobby. And while Lazy Macs and that little stage are fun, it always felt kinda weird to me to have to scuttle past the seated group to duck behind the curtain to get to the movie part. So we will see what Epic brings. This is not exactly the heyday of movie theaters as they are being shuttered across the country. Maybe Epic wants to see how it does at Sumter before considering other properties. They, at least, have the experience to run a theater business. It's a hopeful sign.

This could be a disaster. We need a movie theater. As the villages spreads south Brownwood might be the best spot

Isn't Hollywood on strike?

This must have some effect on theaters in the near future.

If theater companies thought that this need would be profitable would have been here before now. Sorry that ship seems to have sailed

Epic
 

You do realize that EPIC is in the movie theater business, right?? Just homes "crammed together " is your opinion not a good one but yours, if you can't find something to do here in The Villages I feel sorry for you.

Epic
 

Never been to Old Mill Playhouse as I prefer AMC for comfort, snacks, and variety. Nice road trip.

I was not talking about actors, I was talking about distribution of there pooduct

Cut the salary of the actors and the price of tickets goes down which I believe would increase revenue possibly, making running theaters a profitable business again