Sonora Cinemas, the multilingual format movie theater, is reopening after being closed since March 2020. And it's taking over the old Elvis Cinemas location in Arvada at 5157 W. 64th Ave.
Sonora was originally located at Aurora Plaza on Peoria Street and E. 6th Avenue. It was a popular spot for the Latinx community with its offerings of blockbuster movies in Spanish or with Spanish subtitles and its assortment of Mexican botanas (snacks).
The operation will replace Elvis Cinema's shuttered Arvada location, the metro favorite, family-owned theater chain that closed its doors in March after 23 years of business.
"The key metric for us is that we are a community operation," said Sonora Cinema's film buyer and corporate general manager, Louis Sullivan. "It is about finding something embedded in the community."
Sonora Cinema's Aurora location closed at the start of the pandemic.
In a March 2020 Spanish-language Facebook post, Sonora told its followers that, in order to "help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our community and our employees," it was closing its doors as other movie theaters around the country were. In that time, Sullivan says that they've been looking for an older format cinema that reflected the mission of Sonora.
The post was met with several comments lamenting the closure. But now, news of its return has been met with excitement from area residents, many of whom expressed excitement and happiness at the prospect of being able to watch new movies in Spanish again.
"A lot of retail today is built in power centers, specifically off highways with easy access to and from exits. Any cinema that we've opened has been an older format cinema. Finding some of those can be rather difficult. The real estate is usually valuable."
The nature of the old family-owned Elvis location, the demographics of Arvada and the timing felt right for Sonora to reopen this year, Sullivan said.
"We're shooting for late April," Sullivan said about a potential opening date. "It's mostly cosmetic. We're really conscious about also being reflective of the community that supported the Elvis Cinema, we want to make sure that it is inclusive to the local folks who have been supporting that for 20 plus years as well."
The Aurora location began as a Cinema Latino, showing Spanish audible films that was a fan-favorite for the Latinx community.
But the company is hoping to expand its market reach.
"There is an opportunity to not just niche the Spanish language...that's what that growth for Sonora Cinemas reflects and represents. It's more based on multilingual, multigenerational experiences than just one Spanish language approach," Sullivan said. "It will probably be close to a 50/50 between audible English and audible Spanish (films)."
English language audible films will have Spanish subtitles, Spanish language audible films will be shown when they're made available from the studios and a dual format multilingual Spanish or English with opposite subtitles.
"That's what we've learned over the last 20 years," Sullivan said. "We need to grow with our consumer and the market."
When asked about plans for their menu, which was previously known for Mexican candy, elote and other popular botanas, Sullivan says that the new location gives them an opportunity to offer an expanded food concessions menu.
"We will overlay and integrate the Hispanic food offerings that we had in the Aurora location, as well as try to expand it with a little more general market offerings," Sullivan said.
