Why was this not announce before now?

That stinks. So, until the new Carmike opens up, all Decatur has is the old run down Carmike. Even when the new theater does open up in the mall, that will still leave Decatur with one theater operator, thus no competition. Even with 12 screens, it can't carry every single movie that is available to theaters at the same time. Looks like trips to the Monaco in Madison are still in our future.

Decatur has had, in the past, one theatre operator. But that one theatre operator operated 5 screens at four theatres.

I dunno, every single movie that is available to theatres doesn't mean they're all worth watching.

And the reputation of the Carmike chain leads me to believe that the new Carmike will soon be as run down and nasty as the current Carmike.

It's a sign of the times and reminds me of the book and movie, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, one of a trilagy written by Larry McMurtry. The lone theatre in the small Texas town showed its last movie before the closing. The main characters were teenagers who were moving from adolesence to young adulthood. Moving on so to speak. We all must do this in our lives but we look forward to an exciting future. I'll bet the new theatre in the mall will be bigger and better as we move on to a new era.

the movie theater behind the mall is a run down junk theater... I would have rather drove to cullman or huntsville to see a movie that go to that place... i can handle the one on 14th... but the manager there is horrible and they have several problems that need addressed... However i see this theater being in the same class as that one... mismanaged. To anyone who didnt see this coming... really... Regal is at the MALL the new theater is at the MALL why would a MALL need 2 theaters when they could corner the market and just have one? yeah lets go open a small theater by bridgestreet....

Unknown, it sounds like you think the Regal was more run down then the Carmike on 14th, as you said you could tolerate the latter more than the former. Sorry, but there is no way that any logical person could look at those two theaters and think that Regal building was in worse shape. As far as the location, both theaters being at the mall was actually probably a good thing because of the consumer traffic in that area. Regardless, closeness apparently does not have a negative impact because the Monaco is all the way in Madison and it probably did more to hurt Decatur theaters than anything else. It is technology and the environment that seems to be the deciding factor for movie-goers.

Even with a new, 12 screen state of the art theater, Decatur is going to still lose some business to the Monaco, but it will not lose as much as it has been (I know I will be happy to have a great theater in town). The reason being; new movies come out every week and the average number of wide release movies available to theaters at one time is around 20, and many times new releases are shown on more than one screen at the theater. Not everybody will like every movie, but everybody has their own tastes. However, it does mean that the new Carmike 12 will either to have shorter runs for its movies to accommodate showing newer movies, or some new movies just will not be shown in Decatur. The latter is the more likely scenario most of the time, so consumers will still have to drive over to Bridge Street for some new releases.

Now, with that said, even if Regal stayed open, some people still would have preferred the Monaco over Regal, but it would at least give people a choice and still provide competition within Decatur. Somebody might turn Regal into a discount second-run theater, like they did at the theater behind Madison Square Mall. Yet, with movies being released so quickly to DVD after their theater run, even the discount theater model is probably not a good investment anymore.

When a Drink and Popcorn started costing more than the movie itself . . . . I quit going.

I work at the mall and from what I've seen, the new theater is going to be pretty nice. I know it's fun being negative and all but don't talk trash about a new business opening up, especially when you know nothing about it. Hopefully it will increase the sales of other stores in the mall, helping other businesses and maybe adding a few jobs. Give it a chance.