Boxoffice-March.1989

4| THEATRE PROFILE
The Santikos Embassy
Act Ill's dazzling 14 plex in
San Antonio.
Photos by R. Greg Hursley
•^ *
THE
By Tom Matthews
Managing Editor
Santikos Embassy theatre in
San Antonio, Texas, is not unlike
the state itself: large, colorful, and
spread out over a considerable amount
of open space. Built by Act III Communications,
which acquired the Santikos
circuit in 1986, the 14-screen Embassy is
a towering example of the kind of
inroads that the relatively new exhibitor
intends to make as it continues to
increase its visibility in the market [see
sidebar]. According to Scott C. Wallace,
president and CEO of Act III Theatres,
the Embassy was built as a demonstration
of where the future of exhibition
lies.
"One of exhibition's biggest challenges
is to tackle new architectural
ground in terms of cinema design, and
that's what we tried to do with the
Embassy," Wallace says. "We reexamined
the entire range of architectural
possibilities that a theatre might offer,
and we built upon that, as opposed to
designing a simple box.
"We feel that theatre lobbies should
be bigger," Wallace says, offering one
example of Act Ill's "bigger is better"
philosophy. "The waiting areas in front
of the concession stand should be symbolic
of a night out at the theatre. They
should be more than just lobbies"
To approach the Embassy is to discover
that Wallace's grand vision for
theatre design has been realized both
inside and out. The thing that one first
encounters is a spacious courtyard, a
courtyard which offers nothing but
architectural elegance and open air over
a chunk of prime real estate on which
another exhibitor might have built one
(contmucd im page 21)