Grab your ticket and your bucket of popcorn. It's a big day for film fanatics in the Boston area.
After a lot of excitement, the Brookline's Coolidge Corner Theatre opening expansion to movie fans in Brookline, Massachusetts, is set to roll out the red carpet for audiences Wednesday to its brand-new expansion.
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The expansion is combining the old with the new but overall, bringing the theater that was built about 90 years ago into the 21st Century, allowing people of all ages the chance to enjoy themselves.
One look inside and you'll see more screens, more seats, a newly renovated lobby and an education and community engagement center.
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"I'm going to be a student coming into next year, so I think that having extra studies spaces like that and like a hangout spot is totally great. Creating more space for the community to come together is a great idea," said Brookline resident Cynthia Martucci.
The theater, which first opened in 1933, has added 14,000 square feet of space to its physical footprint, which will also allow the team to increase the amount of offered programming.
"We definitely needed more room. We only had four screens too big and too small. And so, we didn't have enough room and we were selling out screens all the time," Kathy Tallman, CEO of Coolidge Corner Theatre, explained. "So, we needed more screens. We needed this lobby because it's really not pleasant to wait outside. And we also needed better handicapped accessibility, which this whole expansion has brought."
The project required 10 years of planning, more than $12 million and roughly two years of construction.
"It's always been part of our mission to inform as well as entertain. But this really takes it to another level," said Mark Anastasio, director of special programming.
The first movies that will be played on the two new screens are "The Wizard of Oz" and "A Space Odyssey." Both will have multiple showtimes.
