Don’t tell Dan O’Neil the movie-theater industry is fading away.

“I beg to differ that it is not coming back from Covid because it is. We had a rough time, I admit, closed for over a year with no revenue … and then there was the Hollywood writers’ strike. Until last year we were really thin with product,” said O’Neil, part of the family that owns O’Neil Cinema in Epping. “But last year the industry did about $8.5 billion, showing that if the product is there, people will come to the movies.”

This isn’t just talk. The O’Neils, including his father, also named Dan, and his brother Tim, are putting roughly $7 million into refurbishing a former AMC multiplex in Londonderry. They hope to reopen July 1 with nine theaters, although they prefer the term “auditoriums,” of various levels, which includes some with interactive seats that can move in sync with action on the screen. They’ll have a restaurant and bar in the main lobby, a second lobby bar, meals and drinks served to patrons in their seats, and will show streaming concerts, the Metropolitan Opera and other performances.

They hope the community will see it as a “communal entertainment center” not just a place to watch one film.

“In the old days people used to come to see the news in the theater. We’re going full circle back to the communal experience,” O’Neil said.

That isn’t a unique idea. Chunky’s Cinema Pub has served food and drink during movies for years and Smitty’s Cinema, which has four sites, including one in Tilton, offers live entertainment, including ax-throwing, as well as first-run movies. Other venues, like Red River Theatres in Concord, have thrived through a mix of unique film offerings, events and community support.

There’s no guarantee O’Neil’s plan will work, of course: Chunky’s closed two of its three locations last year. But O’Neil is optimistic.

“People are starving for affordable entertainment. They can’t stay in the house 24/7,” said O’Neil. “If movie theaters upgrade their game, provide an exceptional experience – food and beverages, comfortable seating, invest in technology for screen and sound – people will come.”

The O’Neil family has been in the movie theater business since the late 1970s. They came to New England in 1982 and found land in Londonderry next to a bowling alley where they built a four-screen theater.  “There wasn’t a lot going on back then; (route) 102 was a two-lane road,” O’Neil recalled. Over the years that site expanded to eight theaters, then 10, with the first stadium seating in the state. The company also built theaters in Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

In 2014 they sold some operations to a company that was eventually bought by AMC, the largest theater chain. AMC operated the Londonderry multiplex for a decade but last year decided not to renew the lease on the building and its four-acre lot, which O’Neil Cinemas had kept.

“We looked at other options, maybe a housing complex, leasing it to some other entities, but nothing worked out,” said O’Neil. When they considered population growth in the I-93 corridor below Manchester and the fact that other theaters were closing, they decided to stick with the business they know.

“This is a pretty open market. There isn’t another of this type of entertainment complex for 20 miles,” he said.

Aside from Epping they have a multiplex theater in Littleton, Mass.

David Broks can be reached at dbroks@cmonitor.com.