It looks like this 27-year old West Kelowna movie theatre has shown its last flick.

(MARSHALL JONES / iNFOnews.ca)

Movie theatres are set to bring box office earnings back to pre-pandemic levels this year, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to save an old West Kelowna cinema.

The Landmark Cinemas 5 Encore theatre on Gosset Road in West Kelowna was relegated to second run movies when Landmark Cinemas XTreme opened at the Okanagan Lake Shopping Centre in 2012.

“Based on the movie market currently, it’s not open,” is about all the manager of the Landmark Xtreme Theatres in West Kelowna would say to iNFOnews.ca.

When it might reopen is up to head office, which has not responded to emails and phone calls from iNFOnews.ca and the manager would not give his name.

READ MORE: Metro Vancouver's last drive-in movie theatre set to close

All theatres were closed in the early days of COVID in 2020 but were allowed to reopen that summer. The Encore theatres were listed in news releases as properties that would reopen and the manager said it did for awhile.

But theatres were ordered closed again in November 2020 and didn’t reopen again until the summer of 2021.

It’s not clear if the Encore 5 did reopen at that time or remained closed, as it is today.

(MARSHALL JONES / iNFOnews.ca)

“Caprice Showcase Theatres opened the Capitol Theatre in 1996,” says a posting on the Cinema Treasures website. “Landmark Cinemas took over in 2000. This five screen cinema seats 1,093 with the smallest auditorium seating 178 and the largest 316.”

The Landmark Xtreme near the WR Bennett bridge has eight theatres. At some time after that, Encore started showing second run movies only.

Its Facebook page still says it’s open and there are postings about coming movies dated last summer. Its website, however, does confirm that it’s “temporarily closed”. The last movie posters were Trolls World Tour and Wonder Woman 1984, both released in 2020.

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