Its last showing was Nomadland. It'll reopen with Joker: Folie à Deux. The River Oaks Theatre is back Oct 3rd.
Posted by
Qale (aka Qale)
Sep 11 '24, 16:47
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After more than three years in the dark, the River Oaks Theatre is again turning on the lights. Culinary Khancepts, the Houston-based company that operates the Star Cinema Grill chain and took over the lease of the shuttered historic Art Deco theater at 2009 W. Gray in 2022, announced today that the theater will start showing movies again on Oct. 3 with "Joker: Folie à Deux," starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, as the major attraction. The tradition of midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is also coming back, with the first screening set for Oct. 5, followed by another on Oct. 18.
Also opening Oct. 3 in the three-screen multiplex are the indie films "In the Summers," Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio's coming-of-age story starring Residente from the Puerto Rican musical duo Calle 13 and produced by Houstonian Sergio Lira, and the South Korean thriller "Sleep," which has been a film festival favorite.
Coming up on the schedule are such special events as the 50th-anniversary showing of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (Oct. 5) and a screening of "The Herricanes" (Oct. 24), a documentary about Houston's all-female tackle football team.
Cult classics are also in the spotlight, with showings set for "Fight Club" (Oct. 4), "Mulholland Drive" (Oct. 6), "10 Things I Hate About You" (Oct. 11), "Donnie Darko" (Oct. 11), "Office Space" (Oct. 18), "Eraserhead" (Oct. 20), "Amadeus" (Oct. 25) and "Halloween" (Oct. 31).
Comedy will also be part of the lineup, with appearances by stand-ups Jared Goldstein (Oct. 17) and Ericka Rhodes (Oct. 18).
Culinary Khancepts is trying to create a unique space in Houston that is both an arthouse and repertory theater, with the added elements of a live-performance space and food service at your seat. There is also an attached restaurant, Leo's River Oaks.
"The project holds a special place in our hearts," said Culinary Khancepts president/CEO Omar Khan in a release. "As the only Houston-owned and operated cinema chain, and with a deep connection to the city, we were uniquely positioned to preserve this historic theater. … It would have been unthinkable for Houston to lose this beloved arthouse."
The full schedule and tickets for all events, starting at $11, are now available at theriveroakstheatre.com. The first 800 moviegoers on Oct. 3 will receive a custom gold coin inspired by the tradition from the 1900s when theaters would give the first customer a gift of gold.
The theater's marquee will be turned on tonight at 7.
Culinary Khancepts extensively renovated the space, with new seats, screens, projection and sound systems in the main downstairs auditorium, which now has 243 seats, and the two upstairs auditoriums that seat 50 each.
The River Oaks closed on March 25, 2021, following a prolonged dispute between then-landlord Weingarten Realty, which controlled the River Oaks Shopping Center of which the theater is a part, and California's Landmark Theatre chain, which operated the theater. The final film shown before the lights were turned off was the Oscar-winning "Nomadland."
The theater, which opened in 1939 showing the comedy "Bachelor Mother," starring Ginger Rogers and David Niven, is now the last vintage theater in Houston that will still be in use as a venue for films. It was once part of the powerful Interstate Theatre chain but by the mid-1970s had been taken over by Landmark.
From the ’70s through its closure, the River Oaks, along with the now defunct Greenway (also operated by Landmark), the Angelika (which became a Sundance Cinema and is now the AMC Houston 8), the Alamo Drafthouse, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Rice Cinema and 14 Pews, became prime places to catch arthouse, indie or repertory films in Houston. The theater developed a reputation for specialty programming, such as the midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and built a loyal following that was key to organizing the protests that arose up in the early 2000s when it seemed like the theater might have to close.
Tension between Landmark and Weingarten Realty over the details of its lease renewal hung like a cloud over the theater's future in recent years. In 2018, there was even talk of Amazon taking over the theater. Everything came to a head in 2021 when an agreement couldn't be reached between Weingarten and Landmark, forcing the River Oaks to shut down.
The closing sparked outrage among film and architecture fans in Houston and led to the founding of the nonprofit Friends of the River Oaks Theatre, a group dedicated to saving the theater that included Houston-born directors Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson as well as rapper Bun B among its ranks.
But when Weingarten was taken over by Jericho, N.Y.-based Kimco Realty in August, 2021, discussions about what to do with the empty River Oaks Theatre resumed. In early 2022, Houston-based Culinary Khancepts, announced that it would be taking over the lease of the River Oaks. In addition to Star Cinema Grill, the company also operates: Reel Luxury Cinemas in The Woodlands; Hollywood Palms Cinema, Bar & Eatery in suburban Chicago; and the Houston-area restaurants The Audrey, State Fare and Liberty Kitchen.
“What a great day for the city of Houston,” then-Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a news conference at the time. “The River Oaks Theater is open again and will be preserved for future generations.”
In July, Culinary Khancepts announced that the theater's artistic director would be Robert Saucedo, a 13-year veteran of the Alamo Drafthouse chain.
Through the renovations, the name of the River Oaks Theatre remained part of the public conversation through the efforts of Friends of the River Oaks Theatre, which sponsored screenings of classic and cult movies at various venues around town over the past three years. In July, the theater, though still undergoing construction, was the site of a tribute to Linklater.
The restoration of the River Oaks Theatre is part of a notable trend of vintage movie theaters finding new life as places to see films again instead of being converted into some other use or, worse, facing the wrecking ball. In Los Angeles, Quentin Tarantino purchased the Vista on Sunset Boulevard and the New Beverly Cinema in the Fairfax district, while a superstar directorial consortium, including Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Guillermo Del Toro, and JJ Abrams, has purchased the Bruin theater in Westwood near UCLA.
Across town, Netflix now operates the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, the Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades, Calif., and the Paris Theater in New York City. Meanwhile, director Kevin Smith bought the theater he used to frequent as a kid in Atlantic Highlands, N.J., and reopened it as SModcastle Cinemas.
Closer to home, the historic Texas Theatre in Dallas — where Lee Harvey Oswald hid out and was ultimately arrested on Nov. 22, 1963 — was reopened in 2010 after years of decline and closure. In 2021, the theater was remodeled again and is now a two-screen venue that is home to the annual Oak Cliff Film Festival. In Austin, the small, 100-seat Millennium Theater on the east side has been reopened by Josh Frank, who also operates the city's Blue Starlite Drive-In.
In other cities, nonprofit organizations are coming to the rescue. In Palm Springs, Calif., the Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation is restoring the Plaza Theatre, a striking example of Spanish Colonial architecture. Last year, the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) took over Seattle's historic downtown Cinerama theater, which, like the River Oaks, had been dark for nearly four years. Echoing what no doubt many Houstonians feel about the River Oaks, filmgoer Karen Choyce told the Seattle Times on the night of the theater's reopening last December, "It's been here all of our lives."
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