One Flatirons closes, another FlatIron opens. Boulder film fans have sadly noticed that, as of a month ago, the grand old Flatirons Theater on the Hill is dark and shuttered. According to United Artists President and CEO Kurt C. Hall, the company based in suburban Denver closed the faded picture palace due to poor attendance. Nothing really worked there in the last few years, except for The Blair Witch Project last summer. The standard now is set by such suburban monoliths as Colony Square 12 and the Westminister Promenade 24.
Multiplexes have the flexibility of balancing big box-office titles with smaller ones.
As someone who's seen the agonizing decline of the Flatirons, its closure is anything but a surprise. Ordinarily in a dense university district where thousands of students live within walking distance, specialty movie theaters thrive. Part of blame falls with United Artists, which over the years has booked there a hodgepodge of movies, wildly veering between crass commercialism and artless art films. About My Mother, Passion of Mind, Fantasia 2000, U-571 and, last and least, the execrable Scary Movie. In its defense, UA could point to the changing cultural tastes of the CU student constituency.