Thirteen years ago, after our third child was born, I had finished my bachelors degree in Economics and found that I would really hate doing the sort of work that you do in that field because it generally doesn’t involve interacting with other humans. My wife, Juanita, had known since our second date that I had wanted to own a movie theater and she encouraged me to look at re-opening a long-closed theater in a small town. A crazy series of events unfolded which allowed it to become a reality. Since then we have been involved in 6 other locations at various points and have operated at least 1 location continuously, even during Covid as one of our drive in locations was allowed to remain open during that time.

Something I will never forget is a time fairly early on in running our first location, when I spoke with a grandmother after she finished watching a movie. We were just talking about our families and getting to know each other a bit, when she mentioned she had a 10 year old granddaughter who had never been able to go see a movie due to a severely compromised immune system. She was essentially never able to go out of the house and do any of our activities we all take for granted. I ended up working with the grandmother to do a screening for her granddaughter when nobody would be in the building. The little girl later did a video message to us thanking us for letting her go see a movie in a real movie theater. It was that moment that made it clear to me what we can be to our community and gave a major boost during those early days when we had to question if this was indeed the right call to spend all our savings to open the place.

I think to this day my absolute favorite experience was seeing The Sixth Sense in an absolutely packed theater on opening night. This was before the days of spoilers being everywhere even before the film opened, and the communal gasp at the big reveal in the climax of the film was intense. It is moments like that where you really see the beauty of communal film watching. You just can’t replicate that at home.

Well, one of the things I LOVE about being a Texan is seeing the way exhibitors in our state are constantly pushing the boundaries of what exhibition can be. Whether you’re talking about dine-in, or the FEC model, or even some outstanding throw backs like our many newer drive ins, there are all sorts of exciting ways to make going to movie theater more desirable than ever. The big thing that I see in the industry is a recognition that we need more varied films. It has been great to see companies like Angel Studios make their presence known at CinemaCon as they pave a different path and bring in new and neglected audiences. We need more of that!

Just do it. People will tell you cinema is dying, they will tell you that movie theaters don’t work in this situation or that. But I and too many others have took the plunge and made it through to the other side for me to think it simply can’t be done. It IS a labor of love, but it has been incredibly rewarding on so many levels for myself and my family. You can do it, and we would love to see more new faces as a part of NATO moving forward!