Rio Theatre and team of private film industry financiers step in to take over Vancouver’s Park Theatre
Filmmakers including Chris Ferguson back plan to save Cambie Street’s Art Deco cinema that Cineplex had shut down Sunday
THE TEAM BEHIND the East Side’s Rio Theatre, along with a group of private film industry financiers, is set to take over the historic Park Theatre on Cambie Street.
Cineplex, which has been running the Art Deco cinema since 2013, closed the theatre’s doors on October 26.
The Rio team approached Vancouver-based producer Chris Ferguson, owner of Oddfellows Pictures and co-owner of Phobos, to bring together a group of filmmakers and film professionals to finance the new project.
The Park Theatre opened in 1941 as an Odeon, and was later operated by Vancouver’s Festival Cinemas, before Cineplex bought it in 2013.
The new Park Theatre team is led by Rio CEO Corinne Lea, with investment from filmmakers including Ferguson (Backrooms, The Young People), Osgood Perkins (Longlegs, The Monkey), Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, The Life of Chuck), Academy Award winners Sean Baker (Anora, The Florida Project) and Samantha Quan (Anora, Red Rocket), and Zach Lipovsky (Final Destination Bloodlines, Freaks). Other financiers include actor, musician, and director Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things, It) and film editor Graham Fortin (Keeper, The Monkey), sound designer Eugenio Battaglia (Eternity, Heretic), post supervisor Andy Levine (Longlegs, Heretic), film coordinator Jill Orsten, and film attorney Christina Bulbrook (A Complete Unknown, The Monkey).
In the press announcement today, the Rio team said it looked forward to returning the Park Theatre to its roots as the cultural hub of Cambie Village.
“We are grateful for the support of this impressive group of film industry professionals, and could not do this without them,” Lea said in today’s press announcement. “After almost two decades of rocking the Rio, we look forward to this expansion, and bringing the same fun, energy and passion to a new location.”
In 2018, the Rio team successfully saved its own 1938-built spot at Commercial and Broadway, starting with a fight from about 2010 to serve liquor during movies as a way to sustain the independent cinema. After advocacy by Lea and a community of filmgoers, the province’s liquor laws were changed in 2012 to allow all movie theatres to have a primary liquor licence. The Rio Theatre had to launch a “Save the Rio” campaign in 2018 after local developers expressed interest in buying the building and changing its use. Through crowdsourcing and a multifaceted effort that included private investment and a $375,000 grant from the City of Vancouver, the owners were able to complete the purchase and secure the Rio’s future.
Today, the Rio has been restored with programming that ranges from late-night screenings to cult classics, with special events like a Grease sing-along, live burlesque, comedy shows, concerts, and film-festival screenings and talks. 
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