Say bye to Oceanside Digiplex's squeaky seats

On January 31, as I sat in the Oceanside Digiplex Theater at the Mission Market Place, I couldn’t help but be bothered by the squeaky seat behind me; I also noticed a seat covered up in the row in front of me.

Speaking to a theater employee after the film, I learned that the chain had been purchased by AMC and they were going to soon be getting new seats. AMC announced its acquisition of the 271-theater chain on December 21, making AMC the largest theater chain in the world, with a reported 661 theaters in the U.S. alone, and hundreds more in Canada, Europe, and China. AMC is owned by the Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate.

According to Digiplex parent company Carmike, upgrades to most locations nationwide will be taking place in February or March. A manager at the Oceanside location said they are already operating as an AMC theater, but there was no signage indicating the location was now an AMC. “Everything will stay the same — the Carmike loyalty card and the prices like five-dollar Tuesdays,” said the manager.

The acquisition also includes the Digiplex River Village in Bonsall, Digiplex Theater in Poway, and the Tower Cinemas in Temecula.

What was once a large chain in San Diego, AMC had reduced its holdings to only five theaters in the county during an industry-wide merger and acquisition downsizing in the late 1990s, closing all of its North County locations.

In other North County movie-theater news, it was ten years ago on January 28 that the AMC 8 theaters in Encinitas closed; it was soon after demolished to make way for a Staples office-supplies store. Former employee Danny Baldwin, now a columnist for the website criticspeak.com, recently detailed his experiences working at the theater, lamenting its loss and crediting it for turning him into a movie lover and cinema reporter.