Well, I could have seen this coming. Broadway was always the "b-movie" theater of the Portalnd Regal branch, playing the stuff that wasn't worth clearing a spot for at the Pioneer OR giving an extra screen to those that were too popular for the Pioneer.

It's a shame they didn't follow up on their reputation as the "funky, little brother". The PIFF screenings and that one summer partnership with Floating World Comics (Pink Flamingos, Annie Hall, Psycho, Royal Tanenbaums, etc.) were the sort of thing they should have built on. Instead, they just dropped them, and I really saw no reason to go there outside of PIFF that last two years. They were never going to be as classy as the Fox, nor as junk-food-populist as the Pioneer, so they needed to carve out their own niche. Failing that, it was just bland, and this is what happens.

With that said, it's always difficult to feel sorry for a Regal theater. Here's hoping something worthwhile happens with the space (maybe the NW Film Center could finally move out of the Art Museum basement and back into a real theater).

I totally agree that this place had a lot of potential, and Regal just failed to do anything with it. It always had an identity crisis trying to compete with the art house, multiplex, and second run theaters within walking distance of it.

It had something going for it when it was the cheapest first-run theater in town, but even that didn't last and since it's just been the theater that plays stuff that isn't popular enough for Pioneer Place. It's a shame, because I too thought it was a cool spot.