Photo: John Margolies / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
After being mostly dark since mid-March 2020, the Clarion Movie Theater turned its marquee back on in January 2021.
The reopening came with one of the few big studio releases of the season, “Wonder Woman 1984,” which Warner Bros. had released in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day in December. With most major films delayed, small theaters had little new to show for months, and owners across the country were dealing with rent, utilities and staff costs with almost no ticket sales.
The Clarion theater asked residents to come back to the movies, with distancing in place. For a town the size of Clarion, keeping a downtown theater going is a community project as much as a business, and the reopening was welcome news on Main Street.
Curt Hanneman writes for Clarion News Online.