Star Ship would close in June

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BY L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star

The Star Ship 9 will close on June 1 or sometime shortly thereafter if an agreement between the Douglas Theatre Co. and the city of Lincoln is approved by the City Council. That closure will leave Lincoln without a multi-screen second-run theater -- at least for awhile.

Douglas is now looking to see if it can find a place to build a replacement for the Star Ship, which continues to draw large crowds for its reduced priced movies.

From 4,000 to 5,000 people a week attend movies at the Star Ship, Douglas Theatre president Dave Livingston said.

“That’s sizeable enough we hate not to replace that opportunity with another opportunity,” Livingston said. “I’m not promising we’ll come up with it . But we’re working hard at it.”

No locations for a new second-run theater are being ruled out, Livingston said. The company is looking downtown but also throughout the city.

But there are more factors to be considered than simply location. The “window” between a movie’s first run theatrical release and its release on DVD has been steadily shrinking over the last few years. That means that films now have much shorter second, or sub, runs in theaters like the Star Ship.

“It is a shrinking industry in terms of the sub-run theaters,” Livingston said. “So you can’t go out and spend any old amount of money to do it. That’s part of the balancing act -- to come up with something affordable that’s also a good place to go.”