Another Multiplex In Tukwila; Neptune Drops `Menace'

Regal Cinemas, which opened the Galleria 11-plex in downtown Bellevue just three months ago, is adding a dozen screens in Tukwila, a few blocks south of Southcenter Mall.

The all-new Parkway Plaza 12, which opens today, is also south of both ACT III's old Parkway Plaza multiplex (which has closed) and Loews Cineplex's Southcenter (the only first-run single-screen theater still operating in the area). The auditoriums feature wall-to-wall screens, digital sound and stadium-style seats with retractable cup-holder armrests.

Regal Cinemas, which bought ACT III's Seattle theaters in late 1997, has built up quite a chain in the Seattle area. In addition to the Galleria and the new Parkway Plaza, it already operates Crossroads, Bella Botega, Mountlake, Issaquah, East Valley, Kent, Cinema 17 (in Auburn), Longston Place, South Hill, Everett, the first-run Alderwood 7 and the bargain-priced second-run multiplexes, Alderwood 12 and Puyallup 6.

But are there too many screens in Seattle? Indeed, are there too many in most American cities? Almost all theater chains continue to expand, and most are losing money. At the same time that huge screens, digital-sound systems and stadium seating are becoming routine at the new multiplexes, the old multiplexes are closing because they don't have these features. Cineplex's five-screen Newmark Cinemas, which opened in 1991 and closed in 1997, is a prime example.

Allen R. Myerson and Geraldine Fabrikant, reporting in the business section of The New York Times last year, pointed out that this is "a business that is building theaters faster than it is filling them." Earlier this week, Fabrikant pointed out that "people are staying away in droves from many of the so-called multiplexes of shoebox-size theaters."

Also hurting the business is the hype-driven, quick-profit hit movie that makes a fortune for studios but doesn't always pay off for the theater owner, which depends more on good word-of-mouth. Studios earn the highest percentage of a film's gross during the first weeks of its release, whereas theater owners have the advantage during the last weeks of a run.

But there are so few movies with "legs," particularly this summer, that theater owners are already abandoning some of the summer hits. Ticket sales for "South Park" and "Wild Wild West" dropped off nearly 40 percent after opening week. The "Star Wars" prequel, "The Phantom Menace," has earned $400 million for Twentieth Century Fox and George Lucas, but attendance is falling so fast that some theaters are dumping it before their 12-week contracts are finished.

Less than two months after "The Phantom Menace" opened, the Neptune has dropped it to show "The Blair Witch Project," a low-budget horror movie that was shot for $40,000. The theater is promoting the new film's opening by giving away tickets to Seattle's (reportedly haunted) Underground tour at 7:30 and 9:45 tonight.

Around town

"Star Wars Geeks," a collection of parodies and homages including "Tatooine or Bust," "Odd Star Wars Couple" and "Hardware Wars," plays at 8 tonight at 911 Media Arts Center, 117 Yale Ave. N. . . . "Independent Exposure," a monthly collection of experimental short films, will be back at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the back room at the Speakeasy in Belltown. Featured this time are West Coast filmmakers Danny Plotnick, Dustin Woehrmann, Cetywa Powell, Laura Purdy, plus artists from New York, Chicago and Australia. Admission is $4 . . An all-black mistaken-identity comedy from the 1940s, "Boy What a Girl," shows at 11 p.m. today and tomorrow at the Grand Illusion, which is also continuing its children's matinee series through late August. A program of literary adaptations plays at 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday, and the 1951 science-fiction classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still," at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. Call 206-329-2629 for group rates . . . The "Silent Movie Mondays" series ends at 7 p.m. Monday at the Paramount with a restored 35mm print of the 1920 John Barrymore version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." General admission: $10; $7 for senior citizens and students . . . Tonight at dusk, the Fremont Friday Night Outdoor movies series, at the Adobe parking lot under the Aurora Bridge, is showing Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark." At dusk tomorrow night, the original Fremont Outdoor Cinema has scheduled a double bill of "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" and "Muriel's Wedding." It's in the parking lot behind the Red Door Ale House . . "One Small Step For Man" is the title of this weekend's edition of Soundtrack Cinema, at 10 p.m. tomorrow on KING-FM, 98.1. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the moon landing, the program includes music from "Apollo 13," "From the Earth to the Moon" and "The Right Stuff" . . The Little Theater on Capitol Hill continues its Parisian series with evening showings of Claire Denis' "I Can't Sleep," tonight through Sunday, and "Jeanne and the Perfect Guy," which begins a four-day run Thursday. The theater's children's show this weekend is "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," at 1 and 3:15 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday . . . "The Sixties British Invasion of America - On Film" begins at 6 p.m. Thursday with a collection of sketches from Monty Python's first movie, "And Now For Something Completely Different," at the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium. Dennis Crompton will give a lecture as part of the program. Admission is "pay-what-you-wish" . . . The Big Picture, a movie bar in the El Gaucho restaurant, is showing "Rushmore" for $4 on most nights - and $2 on Tuesday nights . . . Tonight the Seattle Art Museum continues its new series, "Painting With Light: The Impressionist Age on Film," with a 7:30 p.m. screening of Jean Renoir's "French Can-Can," starring Jean Gabin. The museum also continues its Preston Sturges series at 7:30 p.m. Thursday with "Sullivan's Travels" . . . Seattle filmmaker Jon Behrens and his Acme Cinema Group are presenting free screenings of exploitation movies under the stars at dusk every Wednesday on the back patio at Linda's Tavern.