A small piece of Fayetteville is fading away with the closing of the Mall Twin Cinema. The Malco-owned theater is located inside the Northwest Arkansas Mall but only for a few more days.
The cinema will be closing this week, Malco marketing director Karen Scott confirmed this morning.
But the closing of the 2-screen theater won’t mean a loss for Fayetteville movie-goers. In fact, by the end of the month, Malco will be able to offer even more.
“Our four-screen addition to the Malco Razorback Cinema is scheduled to be open June 24,” said Scott via email. “The expansion at the Razorback will make it a 16-screen, state-of-the-art, all-digital cinema with Dolby 3D and allow to offer a wider variety of movies,” added Scott.
The Mall Twin Cinema
Rumors have been circulating that the new, smaller screens will be used for non-mainstream, independent films but Scott didn’t elaborate on exactly what “a wider variety of movies” actually means.
The news isn’t a huge surprise. Arkansas Business reported the closing of the theater in April of this year and also provided a glimpse of what will be filling the vacant space in the mall. According to Northwest Arkansas Business journal staff, the new tenant will be Gymnastics Joe’s, owned by Joe Garrett who plans to “host parties and special events in a family-oriented atmosphere.”
The closing of the Mall Twin Cinema is probably long overdue. And it’s nice to know that those screens won’t be entirely lost. However, even though I haven’t actually been to a movie at the mall in quite some time, it’s sad to see it go. I spent a lot of time in those sticky, aging theaters when I was a kid. How ’bout you?
